English 1010

Simeon Jeppsen
Jack Waters
Writing Portrait of My Life

Putting My Words on Paper

My first day of high school, second period, I was told to my face, very loudly, by a fat

bald man with an intelligence you could feel walking into his presence that I am not as special as

I think I am and the only way to be something important is to embrace something larger than

yourself as part of your identity. This man was my debate coach. Change the world with your

ability to motivate and persuade people to ideals because feeding everyone personally is hard.

Funny thing is, it’s hard to spread good ideas if it’s all in your head and not down in type. So

until I happen to be going on a lecture tour, trying to get published will probably be a first

priority. Problem is, for all my speaking talent, I am a horrible persuasive writer.

In an attempt to recreate spoken rhetorical excellence on paper I will examine and

analyze speech outlines from debate as well as my research strategies in order to translate my

shorthand to long-form written argument, pick out the most effective phrases and strategies I use

that can be put to paper and ultimately improve the effectiveness of my rhetorical and persuasive

writing. This task is difficult in that, as my argumentative prowess developed my reliance upon

strong outlining diminished. This means that I have the least documentation about the best of my

speeches. As such, I have at least one speech outline from every year to help fill out the bigger

picture and we will look at them in chronological order to pull specific pieces of information that

will be useful in improving my argumentative writing.

 Take example 1, titled “Regulate

Payday Loans NEG.” This was an

early first-year speech arguing that

regulating predatory business models is

akin to backing a predator into a

corner. It is written out word for word

in 5 paragraph format on 2 separate

pieces of paper. I don’t even remember

ever giving this speech it was so long

ago, but judging by the individually

scratched out words I assume I read it

in front of my judges and opponents

exactly as it’s written. For winning

debate tournaments, this is bad. For

examining the language I would use in

less well-documented but far better

speeches, it is quite helpful.

There’s a good many things worth taking away from this speech that remained constant

throughout most speeches I gave in the future. Most notably the strict adherence to an outline

quickly referenced at the front of a speech, starting my argument with a concession to build a

framework for my argument, an almost narrative transition between outline and argument, a

strong standalone first argument that rapidly cycles through all 3 appeals, (in this case Pathos and

Ethos followed by Logos but that’s not some sort of secret formula) and short supporting claims
with bits of evidence after the main argument has been made usually meant to be improvised as

evidence against a specific claim made by an opponent but hey it was my first year. Those

specific rebuttal arguments even in these early speeches are always signified by a second color of

pen. Now let’s take what we learned here and apply it to a speech that was a bit structured

without all the words.

Notice this document is titled

“1AFF Fairness Doctrine.” This

signifies a first speech. In rhetorical

terms, an argument that is

completely constructive and without

rebuttal, as evidenced by the lack of

blue pen. This speech was also

written slightly later and we get to

see a remarkably clean and easy to

explain development in my

shorthand.

Most notably, I ditched the stock

intro and gave my intro by saying something moving or funny or relevant or whatever and then

outline by explaining key terms down the far left side of my paper. in the case of this

constructive this organization introduces a relatable power dynamic to the audience. I then

proceed to make 3 claims about that power dynamic supported with warrant taglines for warrants

I no longer remember on the right side of the paper signified with a - symbol and the impacts of
that claim upon the argument down the center of the paper underneath the claim signified by a

weird-looking L thing. After my argument has been made I give “voters” which are devices used

to explain why the world is better if you vote for my side. It is worth noting that I didn’t drop the

word for word conclusion. It speaks volumes to the importance of a good closing statement in an

argument, spoken or otherwise. So now that we have a basic understanding of my shorthand,

let’s really jump into the thick of it.

This is a late junior year speech given at a

national qualifying event arguing to

heavily tax the NCAA. This was a very

contentious issue and I knew the

arguments were going to be complex. So

I Didn’t bother writing anything in

advance besides my little corruption

argument off to the side that I wrote in the

hallway or even choosing the side i was

going to talk on until I had “flowed” the

argument. This is the process you see on

the left hand side of the paper where

negative arguments are titled in red,

affirmative arguments are blue and

everything I plan on saying directly is in

black.
 My shorthand doesn’t change while I’m flowing, but it does get more rushed and I do

more generalized. The ( mark means “this person said this.” The ( with squiggles through it by

keyes name means “use their words against them.” The ) mark is a faster version of doing my 3

main shorthand symbols. An unmarked ) is an extension of a claim or set of claims with no

additional logic, )- is a warrant, same as last time but wider and you guessed it )_ is an impact.

As you can see under ‘For Profit’ next to the squiggly ( when a specific piece of the argument is

important to my own claims, I do not sacrifice the integrity of the argument by giving it a

generalizing parenthesis. I think all of these things are important to understand when trying to

improve my ability to rebut an argument or even make my own with any sort of confidence on

paper. I think my strongest suit here is my organization. I picked up this legal pad and

immediately knew I was putting this speech into this paper because just looking at the way it’s

written with all the lines leading to each other, I can trace which pieces of evidence i used in

which order to make my case. If the fluidity and complexity of these arguments are easily

transferable to paper, I’ll have a fairly good chance of improving my persuasive writing

substantially.

When I went looking for anysort of outline I had written for my state winning speech

about CRISPR I was unpleasantly surprised to find all of my legal pads empty from senior year

save for a few key flows. What I did eventually find after asking all my former mentees about it

is that my old dropbox full of research is still open and full and wow did I save a lot of articles

and studies about CRISPR. I can’t just upload a few gigabytes worth of dropbox data to a google

doc, but if you want I can add you to the dropbox so you can peek around, there's a lot of neat

little topics in there.

 Anyway, I learned a lot here so let’s run it back in chronological order. We learned from

Payday Loans that there is value to the fundamentals. Intros and conclusions can make or break

an argument. Make all your appeals work together. Introduce your arguments before you jump

into them. And never forget to address your opponents claims if they conflict with yours.

Fairness doctrine showed us what an effective argument would look like if broken down into its

separate parts and transitions were removed. This allowed us to analyze the structure of the

argument more thoroughly than the specific words used and highlighted the important parts of an

argument being claim, warrant, evidence and impact. In Tax the NCAA we got to see an actually

very effective rebuttal speech be broken down by who’s argument I’m supporting, tearing down,

extending warranting or impacting with my own data. I also learned in my search for film of a

lost, but amazing speech that the key to that brilliance wasn’t a great outline, it was research and

knowledge that set me apart.