Lincoln–Douglas debate format
Lincoln-Douglas Debate, sometimes called Lincoln-Douglas, LD debate, or simply L/D, L-D, or LD, is a style of debate practiced in National Forensic League competitions, and widely used in related debate leagues such as the National Catholic Forensic League, National Educational Debate Association, the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association, and NFL's analogous state organizations. The Lincoln-Douglas Debate format is named for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.
Overview
Lincoln-Douglas Debate involves the philosophical analysis and debate of a resolution that has no definite answer. Two debaters face each other in a round, with one representing the affirmative side and the other representing the negative side. The affirmative must prove the resolution true in the most literal form that the wording implies; the negative must simply prevent the affirmative from achieving this goal, through showing that standard for the round cannot be achieved in a world abiding to the resolution.
Most debate events recognize three levels of competitors: Novice, Junior Varsity, and Varsity. NOTE: ALL LDERS SMOKE POT
Debate Structure
There are very few "official rules" associated with the actual debates themselves. Almost any norm accepted by the community can be (and often times is) challenged and disregarded by a debater in favor of a form that they feel more often represents "good debate." Norms also vary based on where the debate is taking place; accepted standards in one state may be different from those in the another.
In the standard LD Debate structure, each side presents two kinds of speeches. The first is the constructive speech, where the affirmative will argue for the resoluation and the negative will argue against it. The second is the rebuttal speech, used to refute arguments made by the other side and make a final attempt to gain the judge's vote. Note, however, that because the negative is trying to disprove the affirmative's position, the negative's constructive speech will ordinarily contain elements of rebuttal as well. Additionally, each debater has one opportunity to ask direct questions of the other in the cross examination period.
The only binding rules are the time limits placed on the debaters for each speech they make. One of the most common time structures is as follows:
- 1st Affirmative Constructive - 6 minutes
- Cross Examination of Affirmative Speaker by the Negative - 3 minutes
- 1st Negative Constructive - 7 minutes
- Cross Examination of Negative Speaker by the Affirmative - 3 minutes
- 1st Affirmative Rebuttal - 4 minutes
- 1st (and Final) Negative Rebuttal - 6 minutes
- 2nd (and Final) Affirmative Rebuttal - 3 minutes
Note that the total time for speeches is divided equally between the debaters, but unevenly among the speeches in order to compensate for one side having the first and last word.
Debaters are also given three minutes of preparation time just prior to each speech. Some tournaments may give more time to participants in the Novice and Junior Varsity Divisions, due to their lack of experience. Certain tournaments' rules permit debaters to use preparation time before their cross examinations, but new debaters are usually discouraged from this habit, as it can give an appearance of weakness.
Constructive Speeches
Although there are no set rules about how a debater must present his or her case, most debaters use a generic structure to ensure they present their arguments in the clearest way possible.
- Definitions are usually placed at the beginning of the debater's opening speech. These are key terms that the debater feels will be important in his or her advocacy of the resolution. Many debaters strategically pick definitions that both support their arguments and limit the amount of responses the opponent can make.
- The value is some concept presented that the debater asserts his arguments will strive to attain. Most debaters pick a value that represents the common good in society, such as democracy or civil liberty. In many debates on any given resolution, the values that debaters pick are similar, and oftentimes debaters will actually agree on a value to avoid a debate over which value is better, rather than a debate which focuses on the resolution.
- The criterion is the mechanism the debater proposes to achieve the value. A criterion will usually be stated as a gerund (e.g. upholding a system of checks and balances), or will be the name of a particular philosophy or term (e.g., democratic peace theory). Arguments that directly prove the criterion true are given more weight then arguments that, while true, may not directly affect the criterion. For this reason most debaters are taught to use their criterion as a "stepping stone" to win the value, and therefore the round.
- Contentions advance the actual arguments of the case and are used to support anything the debater wishes to convey. Examples include explanations of the desirability of the core value, how the criterion best achieves the core value, or why the opponent cannot achieve the core value. Contentions will usually contain both empirical evidence and deductive reasoning to prove their points. Subpoints within the contention are used to break arguments down into their specifics. They can be used to build up arguments to prove the entire contention true or to express points unique from those of the contention itself but true only because the contention is. For more obscure philosophies, entire contentions may be dedicated to simply explaining how the philosophy works before moving on to declare why it best achieves the ideal world both debaters are striving for.
Constructive Speeches
The constructive is presented in each debater's first speech as the opener of the round. The affirmative debater spends the entire six minutes presenting the constructive, as that is the backbone of the advocacy of the resolution. The negative's constructive will be in the first speech as well, and usually take between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half minutes. The rest of that speech will contain rebuttal arguments that respond to the affirmative's case.
Cross Examination Period
Following each debater's constructive speech, the opponent is given a three-minute period to ask questions regarding the constructive that was just given. Any questions may be asked, and debaters are encouraged to use the time to clarify any confusing points made by their opponent. However, the time is often used by each side to try to weaken the other debater's standing. The questioner often will go to specific points in the constructive where there may be a factual inaccuracy or other weakness, and ask detailed questions that will force an opponent to admit the weakness. Meanwhile, the questioned debater will try to dodge trick questions while supplying long answers that will serve to (a) waste the questioner's allotted time and (b) expand upon the original constructive. Because of the direct-question format, hostility can quickly develop between the two debaters, and a judge can take into account how each debater handles the cross-examination. Skilled debaters must use a balance of courtesy and strategy to use the period effictively.
Rebuttal Speeches
The rebuttal speeches are the speeches in the latter half of the debate. In this portion, most debaters focus on attacking their opponents' arguments and defending their own in a way that will cement a victory in the round. Toward the end of the rebuttal speech, the debaters will reduce their arguements to a few core voting issues that they want the judge to focus on when deciding the winner.
-JR Thorsen
Alternative forms of LD
Most debates center around proving the resolution either true or false; however, this is not the only way to handle the debate. Negative debaters may critique the resolution. A critique does not abide by the conventional value structure of proving or disproving truth; instead, it seeks to prove the resolution harmful or impossible to argue. (This approach is by no means widespread, and is frowned upon in some areas.)
Some tournaments, or specific judges, may permit debaters to use what has become known as "flex time," which combines a debater's three-minute prep time with their three minutes of cross-examination time into a hybrid time that may be used throughout the debate. Using this form of time management, debaters will forego the normal cross examination period and will instead immediately sit and preparing for their next speech much like prep time, but they may decide to ask questions while doing so. This has not been widely accepted, though, as many debaters feel it changes the only real "rule" in the event, which is the structure of time limits. Other debaters view it as a logical extension to the debate, as both preparation and cross examination periods should be used as the debater sees fit, especially if it fosters better debate.
Judging
Debate rounds are typically judged by an adult, often an assistant debate coach, the parent of a competitor, or a college student who participated in the event in the past. Some Novice-only tournaments will employ experienced students as judges.
Judging an LD round can be very difficult, especially for inexperienced judges. Not only are the questions intrinsically complex, but the typical debater uses arguments and citations from philosophers and other writers that the judge may not be familiar with. Additionally, LD topics often involve issues where the judge may have a strongly held opinion for or against the resolution. Being neutral and judging on the basis who upheld the round's standard (and not the nature of the argument itself) can be difficult. To avoid this potential problem, resolutions are usually rather abstract and do not touch on "hot button" issues of the day such as abortion or gay marriage.
In some regional or circuit tournaments with multiple divisions, inexperienced judges are most commonly placed in the Novice division, while the Junior Varsity and Varsity divisions enjoy much more experienced judges (often coaches of other teams or college students who debated as high schoolers). Other regional circuits valuegoatsex the difficulty of debating in front of inexperienced judges, and recruit "lay" judges from the community in order to provide the debaters with the experience of attempting to explain complex issues to lay people. These judges are typically friends and relatives of the families of the debaters of the sponsoring school. Some circuits require all LD judges for rounds above the novice level to meet training requirements.
Approaches to Academic Debate
Different areas of the country approach debate with different goals. In some states, such as Kansas, high school Speech is a for-credit class with a competitive debate element. Inter-school tournaments are held on weekends, but the training for them is often curricular. In other areas, speech competition may be a school-sponsored team similar to football or basketball which has practice after school, rather than being part of the curriculum, or it may be organized as a club activity with very little involvement on the part of the school.
This distinction often results in a difference among the nation's high schools in their understanding of the purpose of competitive speech. Circuits like Kansas, in which Speech is part of the curriculum, set the goal of participation to be an improvement in the communication skills of the student. These circuits tend to use lay judges in all events to provide the student the chance to develop analysis and speaking styles which increase communication to the "everyday" person. Other circuits, which see the event as essentially competitive (as with sports) rather than curricular, place a higher value on expert judging so that the playing field is fair. This distinction provides endless controversy when students from districts with differing underlying philosophies compete against each other at regional or national tournaments.
Competition
Most high school debaters participate in local tournaments in their city, school district, or state. Hundreds of such tournaments are held each weekend at high schools throughout the US during the debate season.
A small subset of high school debaters, mostly from elite public and private schools, travel around the country to tournaments in what is called the "National Circuit." Major National Circuit tournaments include the Glenbrooks at Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High Schools in North Shore, Chicago, the Barkeley Forum at Emory University, and the Heart of Texas Tournament at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas.
As the debate season comes to a close, Championship Tournaments are held to bring together the best debaters from around the nation to compete against one another. These tournaments tend to be invitation-only, based on success in various qualifying events.
The National Circuit Championship is the Tournament of Champions (TOC) held at the University of Kentucky. To be eligble for the TOC, debaters must collect bids at various qualifying tournaments held throughout the year; these tournaments are given a certain number of bids to be awarded to debaters who reach a certain level in the elimination rounds. The amount of bids given depends on the size of the tournament and the relative calculated strength of the debaters who attend. For example, the Southwest Championships held at Arizona State University is a medium-sized tournament attended by debaters of all experience levels from the surrounding states, and therefore only recieves two bids, usually awarded to the debaters who reach the final round of the tournament. Conversely, the tournament held at University of California, Berkeley is attended by more experienced debaters from the entire country and is given 16 bids to hand out to competiors who reach the octofinal rounds.
For non-National Circuit debaters, the National Championship is generally considered to be the national tournament of their sponsoring organization, either the National Speech and Debate Tournament of the National Forensic League or the Grand National Tournament of the National Catholic Forensic League . Competitors qualify to the national tournament by placing in the top spots at local district-level tournaments. The number of competitors in each district determines the number of competitors that will qualify to the national tournament.
Tournament Organization
In a typical one-day tournament, each debater will debate four rounds, two rounds advocating the affirmative side, and two rounds advocating the negative. Longer tournaments typically have five or six preliminary rounds, in which all debaters participate. The top debaters from the first rounds then advance to a single-elimination tournament to determine the winner of the tournament.
In many tournaments, and especially in smaller tournaments, all debaters present have the potential to "hit," or square off against, all other competitors in the tournament. At other events, generally larger tournaments, less experienced debaters may be separated from more experienced debaters, forming two parallel tournaments.
Some LD tournaments are "power-matched" (also called "high-high" or "low-low"). In this system, after each round, the meetings for the next round are decided on the basis that winners meet winners and losers meet losers. Other tournaments are "high-low," meaning meetings for the next round are winner against loser. Still other tournaments use randomized brackets.
Resolutions
Resolutions (topics to be debated) change every two months. They are usually very vague and theoretical to allow for many different arguments and interpretations. Past resolutions include:
- Resolved: A business's responsibility to itself ought to be valued above its responsibility to society. (November-December 1996)
- Resolved: The principle of universal human rights ought to be valued above conflicting national interests. (January-February 1997)
- Resolved: An adolescent's right to privacy ought to be valued above a parent's conflicting right to know. (November-December 1997)
- Resolved: In a just social order, the principle of equality ought to be valued above that of liberty. (January-February 1998)
- Resolved: Civil disobedience is justified in a democracy. (March-April 1998)
- Resolved: Individual claims of privacy ought to be valued above conflicting claims of societal welfare. (September-October 2004)
- Resolved: The United States has a moral obligation to promote democratic ideals in other nations. (November-December 2004)
- Resolved: Democracy is best served by strict separation of church and state. (January-February 2005)
- Resolved: To better protect civil liberties, community standards ought to take precedence over conflicting national standards. (March-April 2005)
- Resolved: The pursuit of scientific knowledge ought to be constrained by concern for societal good. (Nationals 2005)
- Resolved: Oppressive government is more desirable than no government.
- Resolved: In matters of U.S. immigration policy, restrictions on the rights of non-citizens are consistent with democratic ideals.