This is part of a series on special delivery, answering a reader question from Spencer. Read the previous posts here:

Special Delivery Part 1: Universal Skills

Spencer, building competence in universal skills is the main focus of the first year or two of debate. It never stops being important. Many debaters stand on the brink of being advanced, but can’t quite step into it because they’re lagging in one basic skill like organization.

With enough training, study, and practice, a debater naturally grows into the second level: specialized skills.

Specialized skill: a skill that is useful for some speakers, but minimally useful for others.

Here’s where things get a bit complex. As debaters, we take words with meaning outside of forensics – like “observation” – and give it a specific meaning for our use. We’re going to do the same thing here. So while there are other ways to use these words, we’re defining them more specifically to help us grasp an abstract concept.

• Unlikeable: Judge actively dislikes the speaker as a person, maybe even to the point of wanting bad things (like a loss) to happen to him.

• Likeable: Judge is neutral or somewhat positive about the speaker, and is fine with the idea of good things (like winning) happening to him.

• Sympathetic: Judge actively likes the speaker, and wants good things to happen to him.

Building likability is a universal skill. You can build likability by treating everyone with respect, dressing well, looking the judge firmly in the eye, smiling appropriately, and so on. Everyone needs to have a base level of likability. If the judge actively dislikes you, your chances of winning go way down. But this generic kind of likability has a glass ceiling. At some point, you can’t become more likable by doing what all the other likable people are doing.

Building sympathy is a specialized skill. To build sympathy, you have to take risks and sacrifice other aspects of your speaking performance.

Consider these tradeoffs:

You are refreshingly laidback. The judge appreciates that and likes you. Later, you want to get loud and passionate about a voting issue, but you can’t – you’ve already established yourself as too chill for bouts of passion.

You crack a joke about stuffy lawyers and supreme court cases. The judge laughs and likes you. Later, you want to tell the judge to vote on your evidence advantage, but you can’t – you’re boxed in as the folksy common-sense guy.

You dress like Willy Wonka, with a top hat on the table. It’s a big risk but the judge finds it charming. Later, you want to tell a tragic personal story, but you can’t – your goofy attire would undermine it.

Broadly speaking, these tradeoffs can be found in four competing areas. We’ll go over each of them in the next article.