User blog comment:MamaGlitterButt/help me plz/@comment-2605:A000:EE02:A700:ECAA:6730:FD4D:2D70-20200208123900

I'm not entirely sure what part of it you struggle with, so I'm just going to briefly explain all of them. I'm not great at it either (mostly I'm too self-conscious) but I find that practicing in a mirror at first helps. I slowly move to doing it in front of one family memeber, two, three etc. Then I move onto my friends.

For actually writing the speech, paper etc. I like to use the 7C's of communication and the rhetorical triangle. I'm not enitrely sure how it'd work with debate, but I like to start my paper with an interesting quote, statistic, etc. Toastmasters is a club that is geared specifically toward aspiring speakers, I'm not on it tho so I don't know entirely how safe or whatever it is.

When I'm actually speaking I really have to pay attention to my body language, like standing straight, actually making eye contact with people, not hunching over, etc. I always have to talk positively to myslef too. If that's a problem for you (it always is for me) a trick I learned is to pretend you're a little three-year-old and think about how you'd talk to them. Would you really say "They're all going to look at you and think you're crazy." or "You're not good at this. Why bother?" Instead say "You might not be perfect, but you just have to try your best and that's good enough." etc.

How many times have you actually watched any speaker mess up that bad? Not often, if it all. You may think terrible things are going to happen, but they rarely do. I use deep breathing techniques too.

This is all I can think of... Hope it helps!