What type of listening is most appropiate for a presidential debate?

Answer 1

How Do You Listen To A Debate?

Getting ready to listen. Debate teaches individuals the importance of being prepared to listen in two ways. First, it trains people in the mental preparation of listening - having a listening plan. During a debate you listen for specific things, points you want to answer, weakness in logic, supporting material and key points. Second, debaters also learn to concentrate on that is being said. To listen properly you must eliminate distraction and concentrate on the speaker and the implications of his or her words.

Active Listening. Listening during a debate is almost by definition active listening and every textbook on communication in the world suggests that the key to listening is active listening. The mind can think much faster than any human being can talk. If you listen passively then the mind inevitably wanders. Debate teaches people to think about what is being said. Such active listening enhances both retention and understanding.

Ignoring Red Flags. One of the biggest causes of poor listening is simply ignoring what is being received. This often occurs when the speaker says something that triggers an emotional switch with the listener. Debaters learn that arguments are tools and that a critical step in responding to even the most emotional of triggers is to fully understand and listen to them.

· Identify main ideas in oral sources

· Summarize facts and arguments from oral presentations

· Analyze and respond to facts and arguments in an oral presentation

Practice Makes Perfect. Because a debate requires the listener to be very active in analyzing what is being said and because a debater must also think about what he is going to say, it is the perfect listening practice. Just like any other skill, "good listeners are not born, they work at it."

— Prepare to Listen

— Avoid Prejudging

— Mentally Organize, Summarize, and Link Information

— Personalize Information While Listening

— Take Skillful Notes

— Ask Questions and Paraphrase

Critical Listening

I. Listening critically to speaker ethos involves speaker credibility.

A. The speaker must be viewed through three aspects as a person believed by the listener to be worthy of being believed.

1. Competence is the listener's perception that the speaker is knowledgeable about the subject.

2. Character is the listener's perception of the speaker's trustworthiness and as someone who is fair and honest, as well as motivated by interest in the listener's needs rather than his or her own.

3. Charisma is the listener's perception that the speaker possesses traits that the listener admires or respects as well as a degree of common ground.

B. Critical listeners will observe how speakers demonstrate credibility in persuasive messages.

1. Speakers who are competent will make good use of evidence to back up their claims and show sound reasoning.

2. Speakers who possess good character will cite the sources of their evidence and will use sources that are not biased.

3. Speakers who have charisma will use their charm to draw others to them by the force of their personality.

II. Listening critically to speaker logos involves judging the credibility of the message.

A. Listening for evidence that supports any claim the speaker's claims and sound reasoning involves the speaker's logos.

B. Fallacies are flaws in reasoning and occur when the evidence does not necessarily support the speaker's claim.

III. Listening critically to speaker pathos involves listening for appeals to emotion.

A. Appeals to emotion can be used to try to entice listeners to abandon rational thinking so they might agree to things they would normally agree to.

B. Advertisers use emotional appeals to persuade people to purchase a product.

C. Critical listening can uncover exaggerations made through emotional appeals.

D. Some speakers go beyond suggestion, loaded words and exaggeration to create total fabrications.

E. Good critical listeners look beyond the emotional appeals to determine whether the speaker's argument is factual, truthful and accurate before believing or acting on what is heard.

IV. Using critical listening involves a number of skills.

A. Researching the speaker's statements before making a decision may be used, especially when the speaker is not readily available for interaction.

B. Evaluating the speaker's and the message's credibility is also important.

C. Probing personal observations by the speaker as evidence should be included in critical listening.

D. Questioning whether the speaker assertion is a fact or an inference.

a. An inference is a conclusion drawn from observation.

b. An inference requires evidence to support it as accurate.

E. Paraphrasing allows the listener to clarify and confirm his or her understanding of the speaker's message.

Answer 2

appreciative

Answer 3

critical