Knowing Your Fears and Conquering Them 

By Erika Yu

"You might feel fear or anxiety once you know you will need to publicly speak because your body perceives it as a “threat.” This interferes with your ability to present in front of an audience."

Public Speaking Tips #1: Confidence is Key!

By Charlotte Combe

"Appearing confident allows your audience to pay attention to what you're saying rather than the way you are presenting yourself. This allows you to clearly convey the message you want to your intended audience without any distractions! Confidence is key to communication."

Public Speaking Tips #2: The Importance of Body language

By Jenn Quach

"Body language is important for two main reasons. First, it helps establish your credibility when speaking by making you seem more expressive with movements, which is especially important when you want to show the audience you’re passionate about your message."

Public Speaking Tips #3: Speaker-Audience Interaction Essentials

By Paulina Chin-wong

"Your audience is not there to criticize you. Your audience is not there to make comments about your appearance, ethnicity, sexuality, clothing, style, etc. They are not there to make fun of you. They are there to get your message. That’s it. They are there to get the message that you wish to share with them."

Intro to Lincoln-Douglas Debate

By Charlotte Combe

"Lincoln-Douglas (LD) is a one on one style of debate that examines resolutions through a lense of moral philosophy as well as pragmatic policy. Essentially, LD questions the morality behind decision making."

Intro to Congressional Debate

By Jen Quach

"This debate event mimics the actual United States Congress. Unlike the other events, Congress focuses on delivery and presentation while referring to and refuting your opponents."

Intro to Public Forum Debate

By Kacie Hu

"Public Forum is a team event that advocates or rejects a position posed by the monthly resolution. The ideas from both sides must be presented in an organized manner to the judge."

Easing the Transition to Online Speech & Debate

By Jen Quach

"In spite of the pandemic, the debate goes on. However, with uncontrollable factors including a bad internet connection or distractions at home, competitors now have to adapt to a new form of debate."

How to Deal With Lay Judges (in PF & LD)

By Fengyi Yuan

"Lay Judges: Judges who are not particularly experienced in judging debate rounds, most likely the parent of someone who is debating."

#1: Intro to Mock Trial

By Charlotte Combe

"Mock trial is an activity that simulates the structure and content of a real criminal or civil trial with student attorneys and witnesses. In a mock trial, there is a prosecution and defense team as well as a real judge and jury that evaluate the round."

#2: Rules of Evidence

By Charlotte Combe

"The Federal Rules of Evidence are where all of the different objections an attorney can make are compiled in numerical order. Attorneys will refer to objections or exceptions to objections through where they can be found in the Federal Rules of Evidence."

#3: Case Theory and Burden

By Charlotte Combe

"Case theory is the story you want to tell during trial to convince the jury to side with the prosecution/plaintiff or defense.Most simply put, in criminal cases every prosecution case theory boils down to “the defendant is guilty of the crimes they have been charged with beyond a reasonable doubt”