Whether to take notes on to the platform or not is a somewhat disputed question.  If you can speak without them and hold without stumbling to the main course of your argument, so much the better.  On the other hand, most lawyers have their briefs when they are arguing on points of law, and some sort of rough notes when they are arguing before a jury; and when unassumingly and naturally used, notes are hardly observed by an audience.  Only, if you do have notes, do not try to conceal them:  hold them so that the audience will know what they are, and will not wonder what you are doing when you peer into the palm of your hand.

If you have passages to quote from a book or other document, have the book on the table beside you; its appearance will add substance to your point, and the audience will have ocular proof that you are quoting exactly.

For purposes of rebuttal it is usual to have material on cards arranged under the principal subdivisions of the subject, so that they can readily be found.  These cards can be kept in the small wooden or pasteboard boxes that are sold for the purpose at college stationers.  If the cards have the proper kind of headings, you can easily look them over while your opponent is speaking and pull out the few that bear on the point you are to meet.  Examples of these cards have been given in Chapter II.  The important thing for their use in a debate is to have the headings so clear and pertinent that you can instantly find the particular card you want.  Naturally you will have made yourself thoroughly familiar with them beforehand.

When you have to use statistics, simplify them so that your hearers can take them in without effort.  Large numbers should be given in round figures, except where some special emphasis or perhaps some semihumorous effect is to be gained by giving them in full.  Quotations from books or speeches must of necessity be short:  where you have only ten minutes yourself you cannot give five minutes to the words of another man.

Keep your audience in good humor; if you can occasion ally relieve the solemnity of the occasion by making them laugh, they will like you the better for it, and think none the worse of your argument.  On the other hand, remember that such diversion is incidental, and that your main business is to deal seriously with a serious question.  The uneasy self-consciousness that keeps a man always trying to be funny is nowhere more out of place than in a debate.

65.  Voice and Position.  The matter of delivery is highly important, and here no man can trust to the light of nature.  Any voice can be made to carry further and to be more expressive, and the poorest and thinnest voice can be improved.  Every student who has a dream of being a public speaker should take lessons in elocution or in singing or in both.  The expressiveness as well as the carrying power and the endurance of a voice depend on a knowledge of how to use the muscles of the chest, throat, and face;