How to Coach a Debate Team Paperback – May 26, 2012

Despite the title and the fact it is written by an accomplished teacher, don’t mistake this well-written and deeply researched book for just another dry textbook geared toward those in the teaching profession! It is clear, concise and actually an enjoyable read filled with advice that is of use to anyone who wants to promote their own particular view on nearly any given subject over opposing viewpoints or beliefs. Using examples gleaned from teaching students the finer points of debating, the author shows how those techniques can apply to many people in many daily situations, whether in personal and relationships, politics, and especially for civic-minded people who see so many examples of disinformation and often outright lies being perpetrated in newspapers and especially, in today’s technological world, on the internet. This book will provide you with the tools needed to challenge false, but popular, memes and effectively convince parties with opposing viewpoints that your position is the more tenable one, through the use of facts, emotion and credibility. With a focus on the art of rhetoric this book reminded me of the critical thinking skills and effective rhetorical techniques I learned in school but had more or less forgotten in the intervening years- unfortunately, the troubles of everyday life wear on our personalities and diminish our ability to think critically. I strongly recommend this book for those with a political bent who want to be effective in convincing those with opposing views that your side of the argument is valid and supportable by fact. With that in mind, I strongly recommend everyone who is interested in the daily events of modern life and in steering our collective future in a saner direction to buy and read this book. If you believe your cause is right, the rhetorical and critical thinking techniques you’ll either learn herein for the first time or be reminded of from what you learned in school can be of incalculable help in progressing your cause. The world is a complex place and getting more so with every passing day and we face a growing multitude of problems to solve. And most problems are not as simple as many people seem to believe, but are difficult to even define, let alone address in a reasoned, factual manner. Proper debating skills can go a long way toward finding solutions to the complex issues we face every day. This is a five star book that I highly recommend!

This book is a quick primer on how to get a debate team/club up and running and provides useful links to outside resources to support that effort.

If you're interested in coaching a debate team, this book is perfect. It's an excellent guidebook with practical value for the new and inexperienced worker who has suddenly been handed the responsibility of coaching a debate team. The book doesn't try to cover the entire scope of debating styles and competitions, but it is written in a warm, intimate but light, understandable style that is much more accessible to readers who are coming to debate with little or no background knowledge of this subject. Of course, the more experienced debate coaches and debaters would be looking for more specific information, since they already know why debate is important, like what to expect at the different competitions, and how to devise strategies that convince judges.The author of this book gives many good tips and strategies to use in the most common and most fundamental debate topics, which all debaters and coaches need to know. I liked the emphasis on debate as a skill for life and also the list of famous people past and present who were debaters. It will motivate and impress young debaters and coaches about the value of debate for success in their own lives. It is well worth the effort, the time and the sacrifice it takes to learn how to debate if you want to become good at it.In the end, a voice from the past century breaks debate down even further into techniques that must be used flexibly with different audiences in order to be persuasive. The debate topics in the appendix are especially helpful for further practice, seeing how well one understands some of the concepts from the debates already practiced, and for reminding us of the formal terms and their definitions. The book is a little repetitive on motivational aspects at times, but that's okay as it's aimed at new coaches and learning.

It just talks about experiences as a debate coach. It does not teach you how teach debate

Since I'm starting a debate team at my school, I decided to purchase this book, thinking it would be a valuable resource. I have to admit, I was slightly disappointed. Don't get me wrong, there were many great ideas in this book and I plan on using most of them. The author cleary knows what he is talking about. However, writing books is not his strong point. I found numorous punctuation errors, some formating errors, and and a few misspellings. Also, the font randomly changes about halfway through. Maybe the editor or publisher was to blame, not the author. In addition, the last quarter of the book was dedicated entirely to the author's life story and other books he has written. However, I am somewhat glad I made the purchase and I plan on referencing the book throughout this school year.