I do have a favourite debating stereotype. I remember during my undergraduate days I attended the university debating society. There was something remarkably odd about most of the participants; myself, of course, excluded. They all seemed at first glance fairly quiet. Irritantingly quiet. So quiet it was exhausting to keep a conversation going beyond 'so, have you debated before?' which everyone kept on spitting out at regular intervals.
Something strange, though, happened as soon as they stood up to speak. They were loud, they were brash, they were rude, they were impassioned, they were automatons, they were titans, they were lions. Yes, lions. They were confident to the point of, not so much arrogance but, rather, frightening delusions of grandeur.
The thing that most alarmed me was just how fast they talked. I didn't understand this. Five minutes of talking seemed, to me, a lot. I didn't understand how one might feel that they needed to speak faster in order to cram more in.
I suppose you might attribute their frenzied tempos to nervousness. But it can't have been. They seemed to genuinely believe that they were gifted orators. I couldn't understand a word they were saying.
The moral here is that one shouldn't feel intimated by undergraduates with delusions that they are capable of rhetorical grandeur. Regardless of how well versed an opponent might seem you must not allow that to bother you. The tactics by which the society's members, on the whole, seemed to pursue success were little more than clumsy bullying; they were rude- they attempted to laugh, rather than reason, their opposition out of the debate; the rate and volume at which they spoke served only to humiliate and intimidate their opponents.
You, I trust, on the other hand are a gifted orator. You do not need to resort to rudeness (for which you will get marked down), shouting (too loud and you will get marked down) or being an insufferable twit. What tends to intimidate/impress peers tends to irritate/amuse judges.
As far as the debating spheres are concerned being a nice guy pays off- it's survival.
