For purposes of rebuttal it is usual to have material on cards arranged
under the principal subdivisions of the subject, so that they can
readily be found. These cards can be kept in the small wooden or
pasteboard boxes that are sold for the purpose at college stationers. If
the cards have the proper kind of headings, you can easily look them
over while your opponent is speaking and pull out the few that bear on
the point you are to meet. Examples of these cards have been given in
Chapter II. The important thing for their use in a debate is to have the
headings so clear and pertinent that you can instantly find the
particular card you want. Naturally you will have made yourself
thoroughly familiar with them beforehand.
When you have to use statistics, simplify them so that your hearers can
take them in without effort. Large numbers should be given in round
figures, except where some special emphasis or perhaps some semihumorous
effect is to be gained by giving them in full. Quotations from books or
speeches must of necessity be short: where you have only ten minutes
yourself you cannot give five minutes to the words of another man.
Keep your audience in good humor; if you can occasion ally relieve the
solemnity of the occasion by making them laugh, they will like you the
better for it, and think none the worse of your argument.
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