Cross Examination
Each person only gets one cross examination, but it is a very important part
of the debate round. There are two main purposes of cross examination. First,
you want to clarify anything that you did not understand. Second, you want
to set up the arguments that you are going to use in your next speeches. Here
are some general stuff you need to know about cross examination.
It is a general rule of thumb that you should look at the judge whether you are
questioning or answering. It may feel weird at first, but it makes the judge
feel more involved. Most importantly, you want to sell yourself to the judge as
a really nice person.
Make both questions and answers short and to the point. Don't try to be clever
and use up all of your opponent's cross ex time with lengthy answers and don't
try to confuse your opponent with long questions. If anybody does that to you,
be cool about it, don't snap back saying, "Let me finish." or "This is my
cross examination." Basically, be nice. If someone asks you a huge lengthy question, I doubt you
will understand all of it and I doubt your judge will either. So turn it back
against your garrulous (SAT word :)) opponent. Ask them to repeat the question
or clarify it. That way you know exactly what the hell he's talking about
and so you, your opponent, and your judge will be on the same page. If your
opponent gives a huge answer and won't shuttup, there are a couple things you
can do. First, be polite. Just say, "Thank you..." or "Thank you, I would
like to get on to some more issues..." If your idiotic opponent still won't
shut the hell up just stand back and let him go on. If you have already tried
to stop him/her but they still won't shut their trap, the judge will see it.
Make sure when asking and answering questions, DO NOT MAKE NEW ARGUMENTS. That
is quite important because if you do, your opponent will hate you very much.
Don't ask questions when answering, unless its for a clarification, and don't
answer your own questions. That's just dumb. One of my opponents not only
answered his own questions without waiting for me, but then attatched new
arguments onto it. Don't do that. Not good. It might not be as bad when answering
questions, but it's still not a good idea, and keep both questions and answers
short. Here are some more specific stuff:
Asking Questions
Again, two main things you want to accomplish when you are questioning is to
clarify anything confusing and set up the arguments that you are going to use.
When clarifying things, go directly to your question instead of trying to make
him/her look stupid. To set up questions, use short concise questions that
are very straight forward. It is very important that you do not try to win
the debate in cross exmination. LD is not Matlock the TV show. In Matlock,
the bad guy always ends up admitting he did whatever crime and he cries and
apologizes and everything is ok because Matlock is such a great and intimidating
questioner. Your opponent will not do that. Even Matlock himself will get
screwed in a debate round if he tries to win the round in cross examination.
If you do go for the home run question, your opponent will obviously deny it and
give an argument to go along with the denial. Once he does, your wonderful argument
that you set up is wasted. Ask short questions that you know your opponent will
agree to. Short little basic ones like, "Are natural rights important? Is the
government obliged to help them?"
Usually, you want to start with general, short and easy questions. Once your opponent's
position is set, then start to go into the more specific questions.
You don't want to ask questions that are examples. What happens is that the
answer won't really help you, it will be quite confusing, and for the most
part it's just a waste of time. Just address the issue directly.
If you run out of questions to ask, question their links to their value and value
criteria. "How does this relate to justice? Why does that support morality?"
You also do not want to write down your opponent's responses when questioning.
It really stops the flow of the debate and both your judge and opponent will
be waiting in silence, something that is not very good. Only write down
something if it is absolutely necessary. I can't really think of any situation
where you would need to. One last thing is that on affirmative, it may be a good idea to hit some of the
smaller arguments so you don't have to talk too much about them in your next
speech, which is very short.
Towards my later years in high school, I began to develop a strategy of developing standards
in cross examination. I really really liked this. Before going to tournaments, I would develop
some sort of strategy, some points i knew i wanted to hit. In cross examination, develop standards
that your opponent will have to stick to for the rest of the debate. It makes life a lot easier.
If his/her standard goes along with my strategy that I developed earlier, then good. If not, then its
still good because you still have to make your opponent stick to one standard. You can either
take advantage of this standard or attack it. For instance, rights is always an ambiguous standard.
I often like to clarify how my opponent plans to weigh rights, whether it be through quantity, quality, or whatever.
I will make the debate much clearer.
Answering Questions
Don't be afraid to agree with what your opponent says. If they ask something
like, "Is justice good?", you should obviously agree. Of course there are
limitations to what you should agree with. Sometimes it might be a good idea
to partially agree, like, "I believe morality is greater, but yes, justice is
good." Be cautious of tricky questions, but don't be so paranoid that you
won't agree to anything. Answer everything truthfully. If you say one thing in
your case and then another thing in cross examination, that wouldn't look to good.
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Email: kerwinguy@yahoo.com
