“Hi! I've been following you guys since day one, and I've loved your blog. I have a question about speaking and was wondering if you could do a post about it.

I'm a pretty blunt person in my LD speeches, and part of that probably comes from a strong background in team policy. Although I try my best to not be aggressive, sometimes I think I come across as aggressive. I usually get relatively high speaker points (usually top 5 speaker). Judge comments are always like, "clear and organized," "very professional," "strong CX."

Often, my opponents (guys and girls) will get comments like "great likability" and they'll end up with the win (even if I got higher speaker points from the judges and seemingly won the arguments). I feel like I'm losing because I'm coming off as "aggressive" compared to my "likeable" opponent.

It seems like there's a difference between having high speaker points and being likable in a judge's eyes. I've read somewhere that humor can help likability, but I've tried cracking a few jokes and they either come off as awkward or sarcastic, so humor doesn't seem like a great tactic for me.

Thanks Ace Peak Team! You guys are awesome.”

- Spencer M.

Spencer, you are not alone. Aside from questions about eliminating verbal pauses, the most common delivery question we get is in how to incorporate humor/increasing likability.

The reason why is obvious.

You see top-tier speakers cracking jokes, bonding with judges, and winning rounds. Humor and likability must be winning rounds. It follows that you should study humor and incorporate it into your speeches. But you tried that, and it hasn’t been working.

Many debaters try to incorporate humor, only to have it fall flat or feel forced, or even offend judges. Don’t get us wrong: humor is a learnable skill, and it can be potent. But there are hidden costs to it, and there is a trap hidden in the idea of being as likable as possible.

Here’s the surprising truth: Humor is only a good choice for about a fifth of speakers.

Far more should avoid it completely.

We want you to understand why so you can figure out whether humor is the right tool for you. This is the first in a series of articles that dig deep into the question.

When you start out as a speaker, you cultivate an overwhelming array of skills: organization, research, logic, enunciation, etc. These are universal skills because every debater must obtain mastery in them, and there aren’t a lot of ways to show your unique strengths and personality with them. Even skills that you can show off with – like cross-examination – have a base level that you need to build that is common to everyone.

Universal Skill: A skill that everyone in the field needs to cultivate, regardless of individual strengths or preferences.

Take case construction for example. As a novice, you learn basic theory and common case elements. If you’re in policy, you learn stock issues and the five planks of a plan. If you’re in value, you learn about a value-contention case and what value links are. At this level, you’re working with the same tools as everyone else. Your job is simply to get to a base level of competence. You’re not building strengths, you’re eliminating weaknesses.

As a more experienced debater, you might revisit case construction and bring a more personal flair to it, like adding a Resolutional Analysis or replacing an argument with one that is more appealing to local judges. At that point, you’ve gone beyond the universal level.

The defining aspect of an advanced debater is mastery of universal skills. At the advanced level, a debater can instantly see multiple viable paths to victory, and has to choose which of those paths fits best. To do that, he has to look closer at himself.

In the next article, we’ll show you how to do that.