Debate Competition

I participated in the Inter House Debate Competition that was a part of the Literature and Humanities Fest. The topic of the debate was “Capital Punishment” and our house had to speak against the topic.

 

This was a new challenge for me as I was not confident of my public speaking and debating skills however the competition gave me the opportunity to enhance these skills. I believe these skills are a crucial part of our lives. However, it was hard for me to talk against this topic as I found capital punishment justified for major heinous crimes. So finding something to speak against it, I had to focus on the ethical implication of capital punishment and how it is unjust on the emotional level. This gave me the opportunity to shift my method of analyzing content, now I found the emotional arguments in real life situations.

Working with a team was different experience as in usual debates I had to work alone, but this time I worked collaboratively with my team. This way I was exposed to a bunch of new ideas which I possibly could not think of. Working collaboratively also made our work even more productive as we had more points from everyone and each one of the member worked on a different sector of the team, for example I worked on rebuttals, others worked on collection suitable examples and etc.

According to me I showed perseverance for this competition as for a week I collected as much data possible on the topic I also thought of arguments which the opposite team could come with and I analysed the rebuttals for those arguments. I also was also like a mentor to the young members in the team and I pushed them to do more efficient research.

The topic of the debate dealt with an issue of global significance itself. The act of capital punishment is a very debatable topic and also a sensitive one due to the ethical considerations of killing a person. Working on it and evaluating the best course of action dealt with the global significance.