Tournament of Champions (debate) National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA)
120-469: Value premise Lincoln–Douglas debate (commonly abbreviated as LD Debate , or simply LD ) is a type of one-on-one competitive debate practiced mainly in the United States at the high school level. It is sometimes also called values debate because the format traditionally places a heavy emphasis on logic , ethical values , and philosophy . The Lincoln–Douglas debate format is named for
240-508: A 2-1 would hit a 1-2. In "elimination rounds" after the primary four to six (or even eight) preliminary rounds, the top "seed" will "hit" the lowest "seed". Seeding is determined first by preliminary round records and then by the number of speaker points awarded by judges in preliminary rounds, with various tiebreakers (total number of opponent wins, speaker points after the highest and lowest given to each debater have been subtracted, judge variance, randomly assigned number, etc.) that follow should
360-399: A card is often underlined or highlighted in order to eliminate unnecessary or redundant sentences when the card is read in a round. In a round, the tag is read first, followed by the citation and the body. Often, especially on the national circuit, a debater will share any cards they plan to read with their opponents and the judge immediately before their speech. If cards are not shared before
480-438: A cattle auctioneer. The following is the basic debate format. Each side has 4 minutes of preparation time they can distribute among the two prep time periods assigned to them. Each debater gets thirteen minutes of total speaking time, and three minutes of question time. The rounds take approximately 45 minutes in total. Each debater receives four to five minutes of preparation time to use between speeches however they like. While
600-480: A certain number of bids by the director of the TOC (Prof. Angela Reed) with the input of her advisory committee that debaters receive upon reaching a certain level in the elimination rounds. The level of elimination round at which bids are awarded is subjective, but depends chiefly on the size of the tournament, the perceived collective quality of the debaters in attendance, and the quality of the tournament itself (whether it
720-418: A counterplan, usually described in the acronym "SPLOT," which stands for "Solvency deficits, Perms, Links to the net benefit, Offense, Theory." Solvency deficits and perms explained above, "links to the net benefit" simply means that the counterplan leads to the reason that it claims is better than the plan, refutation is independent reason(s) why the counterplan is bad, and theory is explanations of comprehending
840-569: A debate between students from Boston College and Georgetown University occurred on May 1, 1895, in Boston. Whitman College debated Washington State University , Willamette University , and the University of Idaho in the late 1890s. Southwestern claims that the first debate held on its campus was between Southwestern and Fairmount College (which eventually became Wichita State University ) but that debate could not have occurred prior to 1895,
960-482: A few other prestigious national tournaments that cap the number of debaters from each school and total number of schools allowed to enter to preserve competitive integrity, and because there might simply be not enough space available. National circuit tournaments are very large events that typically draw 120-200 varsity LD competitors, in addition to LDers in the novice and jv divisions, policy debaters, public forum debaters, speech participants, judges, coaches, etc. Some of
1080-515: A fundamental assumption of the resolution is flawed or offensive and thus it can't or shouldn't be debated or proven true. For example, in the January–February 2014 topic, "Resolved: Developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction when the two are in conflict," a kritik of the resolution would be that the resolution uses the words "resource extraction", opening itself to an anthropocentrism kritik by assuming
1200-733: A given speech. The first constructive speech is flowed from the top of the sheet down in the first column, and the next constructive speech is flowed in the right column next to the first one. Each speech is flowed in separate columns, alternating Affirmative and Negative. Rebuttals are flowed the same. Certain shorthands for commonly used words are used to keep up with the rapid rate of delivery. The abbreviations or stand-in symbols vary. There are many accepted standards in policy debate, and there are several dominant speech argument styles. Sometimes debaters will debate about how policy debate should work. Those arguments are known as "theory" arguments, and they are most often brought up when one team believes
1320-415: A harm or impact of this would be that statism justifies nuclear war or rights violations. An impact explains why the mindset is bad. In general, the alternative provides solvency for the harms proposed. Most alternatives look something like, "reject the negative," "reject statism," or something along those lines. The role of the ballot functions as framework for the kritik. A role of the ballot explains how
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#17327830334731440-414: A majority of tournaments, debaters also receive "speaker awards", which are awarded to the debaters who received the greatest number of speaker points. Many tournaments also drop the highest and lowest score received by each debater, in order to ensure that the speaker award calculations are fair and consistent, despite the preferences of different judges. The number of speaker awards given out varies based on
1560-413: A means of improving discourse, but as a means of deterring competition from the uninitiated. As the debate season comes to a close, national championship tournaments (collectively referred to as the postseason) are held to bring together the best debaters from around the nation to compete against one another. These tournaments require reaching certain levels of success at a qualifying tournaments throughout
1680-459: A mutual judge (i.e. a judge who is a 1 for both sides). Different debaters "pref" different judges depending on their past experiences and debating styles. The most preferred judges are usually former debaters who are now college students serving as assistant coaches, as they know the modern norms of debate well. Other regional circuits more heavily emphasize the rhetorical skills required in front of inexperienced judges, and recruit "lay" judges from
1800-409: A perfect score is considered incredibly rare and warranted only by an outstanding performance. Most tournaments accept half-point gradations, for example 28.5s, or even by tenths. Generally, speaker points are seen as secondary in importance to wins and losses, yet often correlate with a team's win/loss rate. In other words, the judge usually awards the winning team cumulatively higher speaker points than
1920-439: A plan (Inherency). They must persuade that their plan is an example of the resolution (Topicality, Typicality), and they must prove that the plan is a good idea (Solvency). The Affirmative traditionally must uphold this burden as preferable to the status quo (Harms). Given that the affirmative must prove that they are preferable to the status quo (commonly referred to as the squo), the negative team always has presumption for winning
2040-524: A ranking of inputted points gained throughout events, with the option of filtering out points solely earned in Lincoln-Douglas debate. There is also a system of points for Lincoln Douglas Debate known as the Dukes and Bailey cup, which takes your top 5 tournaments of the year, and assigns a point value to them. NSDA resolutions (topics to be debated) change every two months. They always propose that
2160-415: A specific policy or issue (the "resolutional policy/action") conforms to a certain principle (the "value"). The affirmative must uphold the resolution, and the negative must show that the action does not conform to the principle or that the affirmative has not shown how it does so (there are different schools of thought as to the negative's burden). Ten possible resolutions for the upcoming year are chosen by
2280-484: A statement which one side is attempting to achieve throughout the debate. In general, the side that best upholds his or her value premise, which was adequately defended, wins the debate. The value premise is sometimes referred to as the "value" or simply "vp". The value premise is not to be confused with the value criterion , which is the specific means of achieving the value premise. As Jason Baldwin explains in "Logic in LD",
2400-400: A value criterion of deterring crime, and then evidence-supported contentions that demonstrate that the death penalty uniquely fails as a deterrent. An affirmative case could have a value of justice, a criterion of respecting human life, and contentions giving evidence based arguments that all methods of execution are inhumane. The debaters would then argue whether crime deterrence or adherence to
2520-507: A virtual format at no cost. RuDI is organized by a five-member board, including Executive Grant Zhang, President Kelly Mu, Assistant Jared Shirts, Outreach Ambassador Ann Schulte, and Coach Joseph Smith. The RuDI also provides supplemental programs such as leadership development initiatives and career development workshops to champion and leverage the assets unique to rural communities and rural individuals, such as their pride of place, close-knittedness, and diverse set of practical skills. There
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#17327830334732640-593: A wording committee and released at the NSDA National Tournament. Anybody can submit a resolution for consideration to the wording committee. Each coach in the country receives a ballot with a copy of the official magazine of the NSDA, the Rostrum, and votes for a topic for each two-month slot. Voting can also be done online. Until the 2007–2008 season each coach could only rank the topics on one list, with
2760-498: A “rebuttal”, because this is the speech where each person tries to rebut (or refute) the arguments made by the other team, while using their own arguments to try to persuade the judge to vote for their team. The Affirmative has to persuade the judge to vote for the resolution, while the Negative has to persuade the judge the Negative's position is a better idea. High school policy debate is sponsored by various organizations including
2880-405: Is a just response to repeated domestic violence. In the instance, some debaters may use "justice" as the value premise for the round, because the resolution clearly establishes the objective of evaluating whether or not the use of deliberate force is just when facing domestic violence. Others tend to pick more uncommon values, mainly because commonly used value premises or value premises obtained from
3000-446: Is a way to attain, achieve and quantify the nebulous value. In most modern NSDA resolutions, a value is often stated in the resolution. For example, "Resolved: Just governments ought to ensure food security for citizens." Because Justice is used in the resolution, it is an appealing value for many debaters. Morals is a common value due to its inclusion in many resolutions, followed by justice , social welfare, or other values depending on
3120-446: Is debated by affiliated students nationally for the entire season (standard academic school year). At the high-school level, "topic papers" are also prepared but the voting procedure is different. Those papers are then presented to a topic selection committee which rewords each topic and eventually narrows down the number of topics to five topics. Then the five resolutions are put to a two-tiered voting system. State forensic associations,
3240-405: Is divided into a criterium , which outlines the conditions for discussing the resolution, and contentions , which are the arguments. The most essential part of the criterium is the value consideration , which is composed of a value (often called the value premise) that the case attempts to demonstrate the resolution action achieves/is in accordance with, and a value criterion . The value criterion
3360-498: Is generally accepted on the national circuit. Most speeches start with an order often called an "offtime roadmap" because it's given before the speech starts. The roadmap states which order the arguments and flows will be addressed in before the time starts (i.e. "The order will be Topicality, K, CP, DA, then case."). Cases are logical syllogisms that attempt to prove the resolution morally obligatory (affirmative) or morally prohibited (negative). The typical (though not mandated) case
3480-402: Is greater than the opposition's, they compare advantages. One team’s job is to argue that the resolution— the statement that we should make some specific change to a national or international problem —is a good idea. Affirmative teams generally present a plan as a proposal for implementation of the resolution. On the other hand, the Negative teams present arguments against the implementation of
3600-481: Is more relevant to the resolution, or why their opponent's value premise is inferior to their own. In some cases, debaters who have chosen common value premises may agree after presenting each side's constructive on what the value premise should be. Subsequently, both sides will try to uphold the same goal by way of their arguments, despite the fact they conflict. On the other hand, a debater may strategically purposely drop or choose not to defend his or her value premise if
3720-440: Is organized into units called cards (because such evidence was originally printed on note cards, though the practice has long been replaced by digital storage). Cards are designed to condense an author's argument so that debaters have an easy way to access the information. A card is composed of three parts: the argument or evidence summary, the evidence that supports the argument, and the citation. The argument part, sometimes called
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3840-626: Is run well or not). There are fluctuations in tournaments' bid levels and the tournaments that have bids in the first place, but the major tournaments have very secure bids. For example, the Dowling Catholic Paradigm held at Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, Iowa is a medium-sized tournament attended by debaters of all experience levels mostly from the Midwest, and therefore receives four bids, awarded to
3960-545: Is some dispute over what constitutes the "national championship" in the United States per se, but two tournaments generally compete for the title: The Tournament of Champions held at the University of Kentucky , and the National Speech and Debate tournament sponsored by the National Forensic League (now known as the National Speech & Debate Association). For the highest level of competition,
4080-459: Is the problem in the status quo to justify adopting the plan? Is the plan important enough to even warrant consideration or make a difference? Will the plan solve any problems in the status quo? How much of an impact (positive effect, or Significance) will the plan have? Most affirmative teams today generally frame their case around advantages, which are good effects of their plan. The negative team will often present disadvantages which contend that
4200-422: Is using preparation time has priority to read evidence read previously during a round by both teams. As a result, large amounts of evidence may change hands after the use of preparation time but before a speech. Most judges will not deduct from a team's preparation time for time spent finding evidence which the other team has misplaced. After a round, judges sometimes "call for cards" to examine evidence whose merit
4320-659: The 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas , because their debates focused on slavery and the morals, values, and logic behind it. LD debates are used by the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) competitions, and also widely used in related debate leagues such as the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association , the National Catholic Forensic League ,
4440-682: The American Debate Association (ADA) all host national tournaments. The NDT committee issues a ranking report of the top 16 teams in the country ("first round bids") for automatic advancement to the NDT in early February. The report roughly determines a regular season champion called the 'Copeland Award' for the team rated the highest over the course of the year through early February. While once attended by only highly competitive policy debaters, many high school students now attend debate institutes, which are typically held at colleges in
4560-616: The National Educational Debate Association , the Texas University Interscholastic League , Texas Forensic Association , Stoa USA and their affiliated regional organizations. Teams in a debate competition are given a resolution (a statement). In the competition, one side (called the a ffirmative) must support the resolution, and the other side (called the negative) must show that the action does not conform to
4680-488: The National Forensic League or the Grand National Tournament of the National Catholic Forensic League is the national tournament of their sponsoring organization. Competitors qualify to these national tournaments by placing in the top spots at district-level tournaments held specifically as qualifiers. The number of competitors in each district determines the number of competitors that will qualify to
4800-535: The National Speech and Debate Association , National Association of Urban Debate Leagues , Catholic Forensic League , Stoa USA , and the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association , as well as many other regional speech organizations. Collegiate policy debates are generally governed by the guidelines of National Debate Tournament (NDT) and the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA), which have been joined at
4920-465: The resolution . The acceptance of all-inclusive negation, as opposed piecemeal, allows Negative teams to run full argumentation outlines such as topical counterplans with better Solvency that affirms the resolution but still negates the Affirmative's plan. After the affirmative presents its case, the negative can down-vote the case with many different arguments, which include: Evidence in debates
Lincoln–Douglas debate format - Misplaced Pages Continue
5040-491: The role of the ballot , link , impact , and alternative . In order to make a criticism, there has to be a link , or reason. A link can be a certain phrase in the resolution, something the opponent said, something conceded in cross-examination, etc. The link opens the gate to the criticism. Now that the link to the mindset being criticized has been established, there has to be a significant harm linked to that mindset, or impact . For example, if an opponent links in to statism ,
5160-427: The tag(line) , is the debater's summary of the argument presented in the body. A tag is usually only one or two sentences. The citation contains all relevant reference citation information (that is, the author, date of publication, journal, title, etc.). Although every card should contain a complete citation, only the author's name and date of publication are typically spoken aloud in a speech. Some teams will also read
5280-492: The "a priori" or "prima facie" argument which attempt to demonstrate that the resolution is true/false outside of the typical syllogistic model, most commonly by collapsing it into a tautology or presenting some reason why it's nonsensical. "Theory" debate, which says that an opponent's argument or style of argumentation (e.g. talking too fast or interpreting the resolution in a certain way) is unfair or noneducational and explains why fairness or educational considerations supersedes
5400-495: The 2006–2007 college policy debate topic, which limited the affirmative agent to the United States Supreme Court . At the college level, a number of topics are proposed and interested parties write "topic papers" discussing the pros and cons of that individual topic. Each school then gets one vote on the topic. The single topic area voted on then has a number of proposed topic wordings, one is chosen, and it
5520-407: The 2‑0 with the lowest speaks, second-highest hits second-lowest, etc.) After the third round, the debaters' cumulative records and speaks (rather than the results of their last round) place them in their brackets. Local tournaments sometimes use randomized brackets throughout their whole duration. Other tournaments use a "power protected" system during prelim rounds, in which a 3-0 would hit an 0-3 and
5640-1029: The California Invitational at UC Berkeley , the Greenhill Fall Classic hosted by Greenhill School in Addison, Texas; the Heart of Texas Invitational at St. Mark's School in Dallas, Texas; The Harvard-Westlake Debates, held at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles; the Mid-America Cup at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa; and the Minneapple at Apple Valley High School in Minnesota. There are
5760-537: The Earth's oceans. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic and/or diplomatic engagement with the People's Republic of China. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its funding and/or regulation of primary and/or secondary education in
5880-551: The January/February 2015 Topic (Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage) a plan could have been to bring the Asia Floor Wage to a living wage level. These arguments are often countered by theory (see below) or topicality . Plans originated from policy debate. Despite the growing popularity of affirmative plans, they are unacceptable in certain debate districts. In some states,
6000-487: The Mesosphere. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and/or development of
6120-479: The NCFL National Tournament, UIL (which includes LD debate as one of its academic contests), and NCFCA are selected independently of the NSDA resolutions. Value premise Tournament of Champions (debate) National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) Value premise A Value Premise is a component of high school Lincoln-Douglas Debate case structure. The value is usually
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#17327830334736240-695: The National Forensic League, and the National Catholic Forensic League all vote on the five topics, narrowing it down to two. Then the two topics are again put to a vote, and one topic is selected. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond
6360-533: The Novice division, while the Junior Varsity and Varsity divisions enjoy more experienced judges. Judges are assigned to a specific division based on their experience and some other criteria, and are only eligible to judge debaters within that division (a judge assigned to judge novices cannot judge varsity). This is known as a pool; each division has its own pool of judges. At most national circuit tournaments,
6480-737: The Tournament of Champions is generally considered to be the more prestigious title to hold. In Texas, most debate occurs in Texas Forensic Association (TFA) tournaments. The other major debate organization is the University Interscholastic League (UIL). There is no single unified national championship in college debate; though the National Debate Tournament (NDT), the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) and
6600-509: The US. 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.' The championship of the national circuit is usually considered to be the Tournament of Champions , also called the TOC, at the University of Kentucky , which requires formal qualification in the form of two or more bids to
6720-402: The United States federal government. It is also referred to as cross-examination debate (sometimes shortened to Cross-X or CX ) because of the 3-minute questioning period following each constructive speech . Evidence presentation is a crucial part of policy debate. The main argument being debated during a round is to change or not change the status quo. When a team explains why their solvency
6840-548: The activity and the principles of rhetoric, argumentation, policymaking, and so on that the debaters are engaged in the substantive matter of the topic. When the Affirmative team presents a plan, they take upon the Burden of the Policy to advocate (Justification) a significant change (Significance or Impact) to the status quo and that their plan should be adopted and hence, by default, the resolution that in general will allow for such
6960-471: The affirmative or negative constructive should support. The value premise may or may not be agreed upon throughout the entire debate by the affirmative and negative sides. Because the resolution does not explicitly state that a certain value premise must be used, debaters often must debate which value premise should be used to evaluate the round. In order to support the affirmative or negative side's value premise, debaters attempt to prove why their value premise
7080-403: The affirmative plan causes undesirable consequences. In an attempt to make sure that their advantages/disadvantages outweigh those of the other team, debaters often present extreme scenarios such as the extinction of the human race or a global nuclear war . Negation Tactic, also known as Negation Theory, contends that the negative need only negate the affirmative instead of having to negate
7200-471: The amount of prep time is at the tournament's discretion, the NSDA advocated three minutes until midway through the 2006–2007 season, when it decided on four. Some tournaments, most notably the TOC, choose to give debaters 5 minutes. Some tournaments also allow the use of flex prep, which melds the cross-examination time and prep time together to create a 6-8 minute block that can be used for questions and/or prep. Asking cross-examination questions during prep time
7320-408: The argument, at least one warrant, which is a reason the claim is true, and an impact, which explains the importance of the argument—or specifically why the argument meets the value criterium. In addition, contentions often include sub-points. For example, a negative case for the resolution "Resolved: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment" could have a value of justice,
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#17327830334737440-415: The author's qualifications if they wish to emphasize this information. Qualifications are only included in trying to increase the weight of your cards against your opponents'. The body is a fragment of the author's original text. The length of a body can vary greatly—cards can be as short as a few sentences and as long as two or more pages. Most cards are between one and five paragraphs in length. The body of
7560-478: The ballots used by judges instruct them to disregard affirmative plans. The only type of case that is virtually universally accepted is the value/value criterion/contention structure, and even that has its detractors. Recently, methods of winning the round have become prominent that cannot be classified as true cases, because they are used as a semi-independent part of or in addition to the case proper, and do not advocate an extensively developed position. These include
7680-464: The beginning of the year. A resolution or topic is a statement which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates. Resolutions are selected annually by affiliated schools. Most resolutions from the 1920s to 2005 have begun "Resolved: that The United States federal government should" although some variations from that template have been used both before the NDT-CEDA merger and with
7800-424: The biggest attract near a thousand total participants. Regionally significant tournaments often also draw over a hundred participants. National circuit debate is generally characterized by its extremely fast manner of speaking (300 wpm is not considered an uncommon speed to read a case at), use of jargon, and emphasis on strength/depth of argumentation rather than rhetoric. However, some debaters have been successful on
7920-499: The collegiate level. A one-person policy format is sanctioned by the National Forensic Association (NFA)) on the collegiate level as well. Academic debate had its origins in intra-collegiate debating societies, in which students would engage in invitational debates against their classmates. Wake Forest University 's debate program claims to have its origins in student literary societies founded on campus in
8040-426: The community as an important part of the activity of a debate club. Debaters in these circuits should be able to adapt their presentations to individuals with no debate experience at all, as well as maintaining high standards of debate for judges who have themselves been debaters. A common saying is that debate is a game of judges/judge adaptation. This use of lay judges significantly alters delivery and argumentation, as
8160-412: The community. These judges are typically concerned citizens or parents of debaters from the school hosting the tournament or a participating school. Some circuits require all LD judges for rounds above the novice level to meet training requirements. Another option is to use lay judges for the rounds, but offer them a brief training session or tutorial beforehand to prepare and inform them about the nature of
8280-735: The country to tournaments on the "national circuit". The current nine largest and most prestigious/competitive national circuit tournaments are (in no particular order) the Glenbrooks, held at Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High Schools in the Chicago suburbs; the New York City Invitational at the Bronx High School of Science ; the Harvard Invitational at Harvard University in Boston, Mass;
8400-601: The debate. Nevertheless, lay judges tend to incline more towards the side they personally prefer. Many tournaments offer two or three divisions of competition in LD: novice, junior varsity, and varsity. Novice is exclusively for new debaters in their first year of competition, junior varsity is for talented novices or debaters in their second year of competition, and varsity is for experienced debaters. A typical one-day tournament holds three or four rounds. Each debater advocates each side an equal number of times or one side once more than
8520-408: The debaters who reach the semifinal round of the tournament. The Glenbrooks tournament, considered among the most competitive regular season tournaments in the country, is attended by approximately 200 experienced debaters and has for many years had 16 bids to hand out to competitors who reach the octofinal round. For non-national circuit debaters, either the National Speech and Debate Tournament of
8640-673: The elimination rounds or come close to winning a bid several other times. Urban debate leagues give students in urban school districts an opportunity to participate in policy debate. There are currently urban debate leagues in 24 of the largest cities in the United States. In total, more than 500 high schools participate in the league and more than 40,000 students have competed in urban debate. The Rural Debate Initiative ("RuDI") expands access to debate to secondary school students residing in rural America. RuDI partners with top college programs to provide weekly coaching sessions, internal debate tournaments and summer debate camps to rural students in
8760-416: The first two rounds (often referred to as presets, as they are randomly paired beforehand), the pairings for the third round are decided on the basis that people with the same record (known as being in the same bracket) debate. For example, a 2‑0 would hit another 2‑0, a 1‑1 would hit another 1‑1, etc. Speaker points determine who hits who within each bracket (the 2‑0 with the highest speaks of any 2‑0 would hit
8880-403: The high school circuits. A theory shell consists of four parts: the interpretation, violation, standards and the voters. A theory shell most often uses fairness and education to weigh the round, but many other standards and values are used when debating on them. Sometimes, the affirmative advocates for a plan, which is a certain specified action which falls under the resolution. For example, with
9000-411: The high school level. However, the method accepted by most national organizations such as the National Forensic League, Tournament of Champions, National Catholic Forensic League, Cross-Examination Debate Association, and National Debate Tournament, use values ranging from 1 to 30. In practice, within these organizations the standard variation is 26‑29, where 26's are given to extremely poor speakers, where
9120-406: The high-point losing team provided a better debate round". In some smaller jurisdictions, the judge ranks the speakers 1‑4 instead of awarding them speaker points. Either speaker-point calculation may be used to break ties among teams with like records. Some areas also use speaker rankings in addition to speaker points in order to differentiate between speakers awarded the same number of points. At
9240-481: The judge should view the debate round. If a kritik criticizes the ethics of the round, then an acceptable alternative would propose another type of ethic that should be used for reasons like better discourse. A theory shell proposes rules to follow in a debate. The negative can do this by criticizing something the affirmative does that does not follow their vision of the debate. Shells include arguments such as that of disclosure theory and have become increasing popular in
9360-402: The judge uses, the debate can be drastically different. Because there is no one view of debate agreed upon by everyone, many debaters question a judge about their paradigm and/or their feelings on specific arguments before the round. Not every judge fits perfectly into one paradigm or another. A judge may say that they are "tabula rasa" or tab for short, or willing to listen to anything, but draw
9480-430: The judge's preferences. Debaters have a specialized form of note taking, called flowing , to keep track of the arguments presented during a debate. Conventionally, a debater's flow is divided into separate flows for each different macro-argument in the debate round ( kritiks , disads , topicalities , case, etc.). There are multiple methods of flowing, but the most common style incorporates columns of arguments made in
9600-441: The judges within the varsity pool are often ranked beforehand from 1 to 5 by the debaters and their coaches as part of "mutual judge preferences" (MJP). A 1 is the best possible ranking, a 5 is a judge with a conflict of interest regarding the debater, and a 6 is a "strike", who may never judge the debater, teams are usually allowed 4-5 "strikes" per tournament. During the tournament, the tabulation staff will attempt to give each round
9720-645: The length of constructives, but when a style of faster delivery speed became more standard in the late 1980s, that time management stricture was dropped. Wake Forest University introduced reformed speech times in both its college (9‑6 instead of 10‑5) and high school (8‑5 instead of 8‑4) tournaments, which spread rapidly to become the new de facto standards. Policy debaters' speed of delivery will vary from league to league and tournament to tournament. In more progressive and larger tournaments, debaters will speak very quickly - often called spreading - in order to read as much evidence and make as many arguments as possible within
9840-438: The line at arguments they consider to be offensive (such as arguments in favor of racism). Or, a judge might be a "policymaker", but still look at the debate in an offense/defense framework like a games-playing judge. Examples of paradigms include: Most high school debaters debate in local tournaments in their city, state or nearby states. Thousands of tournaments are held each year at high schools and certain colleges throughout
9960-432: The losing team. If the judge does not, the decision is considered a "low-point win". Low-point wins simply mean that the team with better argumentation did not speak as well as their competitors, which is rare, because judges will vote for teams that speak better overall and award higher speaker points to teams who deliver a better debate. The difference can be stated as so, "the low-point winning team are better debaters, and
10080-405: The mid-1830s, which first presented joint "orations" in 1854. Many debating societies that were founded at least as early as the mid-nineteenth century are still active today, though they have generally shifted their focus to intercollegiate competitive debate. In addition to Wake Forest, the debate society at Northwestern University dates to 1855. Boston College 's Fulton Debating Society, which
10200-852: The national circuit without conforming to these conventions. The national circuit is mostly composed of traditional "power schools" with historically strong programs (e.g. Valley High School in Iowa, Lexington High School in Massachusetts, Scarsdale High School in New York, Greenhill School in Texas, or Walt Whitman High School in Maryland). The national circuit and its accompanying style of debate are sometimes criticized for being exclusionary. In particular, critics argue that national circuit "power" programs encourage jargon and esoteric norms not as
10320-499: The national tournament. Most NSDA districts have two to four, but some NCFL districts have six. There have been several attempts in the past to create a cohesive national ranking system. One was Fantasy Debate, which ran from 2010 to 2012 but is now closed. Other defunct ranking systems include the Briefly ELO rankings, which aren't actively acknowledged or updated any longer. The National Speech & Debate Association provides
10440-473: The number of debaters competing at any given tournament. For instance, a small local tournament might only award trophies or plaques to the top three debaters, whereas a widely attended "national circuit" tournament might give out awards to the top ten or fifteen speakers. Most debate judges (who were usually debaters in high school and/or college) generally carry a mindset that favors certain arguments and styles over others. Depending on what mindset, or paradigm,
10560-727: The one receiving the overall highest ranking becoming the National Tournament topic, the second highest becoming the March–April topic, the third highest Jan/Feb topic, etc. However, because of the prominence of the Jan-Feb slot (the TOC and several other tournaments not actually in January or February elect to use this topic, resulting in it being jokingly referred to as the "six-month topic"), coaches now select their three highest choices for each two-month slot. The resolutions of
10680-435: The other debater's value premise still may be achieved, or proven better, under the debater's own side. The current structure of Lincoln-Douglas Debate , under which both sides are expected to present a value premise as well as a value criterion to weigh the round, has been criticized for several reasons. As Jason Baldwin -- the "winningest" LD debater in history -- explains, "First, it is notoriously hard to say precisely how
10800-407: The other team is unfair and therefore warrant a loss or other intervention by the judge. They are also brought up to change how an argument is weighted by the judge to either assist themselves or detract from the opponents. Theory debates in-round are not rare, but whole rounds are almost never about theory itself. Theory is argued as part of the decision of the round with the hope of advancing debate
10920-486: The other, depending on whether the number of rounds is even or odd. Multi-day tournaments have five to eight preliminary rounds in which all debaters participate. The debaters with the best win–loss record from this set of rounds then advance (called "breaking" or "clearing") to a single-elimination stage of "outrounds" that determines the eventual champion. All debaters present have the hypothetical potential to "hit", or square off against, any other competitor in their field at
11040-491: The participators are marked by speaker points (0-30 is the speaker point range, however debaters are rarely assigned beneath a 26 and some states utilize a different points system—out of 40, for instance, in Idaho) and by a win or loss. Comments tend to be given by the judge to the debaters at the conclusion of the round. Comments are also written on the ballot, which is the document that the judge writes their decision on, as well as
11160-452: The pedagogical purpose of the activity is to train rhetorical skills. In contrast, rapid delivery is encouraged by those who believe that increased quantity and diversity of arguments makes debates more educational. Proponents of the delivery style emphasize that spreading can help increase the quality of debates by enabling more nuanced viewpoints, rather than more general positions. Most debaters will vary their rate of delivery depending upon
11280-421: The principle of essentialist humanity is more effective at encouraging justice based on the evidence in their cases. Lincoln–Douglas debate format borrows from Policy format debate in order to create plans and counter-plans. A counterplan (also called a CP) allows the negative side to defend an advocacy separate from the status quo . A counterplan must: There are various ways that an affirmative could defeat
11400-444: The principle or that the affirmative has not shown how it does so (there are different schools of thought as to the negative's burden). The vast majority of tournaments use the resolutions distributed by the NSDA, which is changed once every two months. The debate format is known for spreading , a practice in which debaters speak quickly to squeeze as much argument as possible into a short time limit. The resulting speech sounds like
11520-413: The purpose of obtaining its citation information so that they can produce the evidence for their own school. Opponents and spectators are also generally allowed to collect citations in this manner, and some tournaments send scouts to rounds to facilitate the collection of cites for every team at the tournament, information which is sometimes published later. A judge is an individual responsible for deciding
11640-496: The rapid-fire style and complex debate-theory arguments are frequently new to lay judges. For this reason, other circuits restrict policy debate judging to qualified judges, generally ex-debaters. The judge is charged not only with selecting a winner, but also must allot points to each debater. "Speaker points" are numeric merit scores that the judge awards the debaters on their speaking skills. Speaker point schemes vary throughout local state and regional organizations particularly at
11760-468: The resolution will be prepared for by other opponents, however, due to many resolutions question the morality or justice of certain actions, the value premise is most commonly agreed to be justice or some variant. The debate then centers on the Value Criterion, or the way of achieving or best maximizing the value. The value premise is intended to be a non-biased statement, which the arguments within
11880-410: The resolution, the opposing side's rhetoric, or another part of the debate in order to affirm or negate the resolution. Subsequently, the "value" debate which Lincoln-Douglas is usually characterized as is altered. Policy debate Policy debate is an American form of debate competition in which teams of two usually advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by
12000-406: The resolution. In a single round of debate competition, each person gives two speeches. The first speech each person gives is called a “constructive” speech, because it is the speech when the first person of the team speaks positively, presenting the team's main idea without rebuttals that have not occurred, presents the basic arguments they will make throughout the debate. The second speech is called
12120-400: The resolution. An example of a common discourse kritik is a gendered language kritik, which could be used if an opponent's case has been written exclusively containing the male pronoun. Another example is if the opponent uses a slur (such as a derogatory term for homosexuals) in or out of the round, which opens the way to a "bad discourse" kritik. A kritik is generally composed of four parts:
12240-399: The resolutional evaluation, has also proliferated. Like atypical cases, the merit of these types of arguments is heatedly contested, although both are common on the national circuit. Judges fall under many categories, the most common of which are: Experienced and qualified students are usually allowed to judge in the novice division. There are usually four or five elimination rounds in which
12360-526: The round. The negative is automatically the winner unless the affirmative can prove they are better than the status quo. One traditional way to judge policy debate is to judge the Affirmative on four issues or burdens to meet, called the stock issues . The four stock issues are modeled after U.S. court procedural aspects of administrative law in deciding cases (as opposed to Constitutional controversies): ill (Harm), blame (Inherency), cure (Solvency), cost (Significance). They are generally known as follows: What
12480-449: The season. The unofficial national circuit championship is the Tournament of Champions (LD) (TOC) held at the University of Kentucky . To be eligible for the TOC, debaters must collect at least two bids at various designated tournaments held throughout the year. (They cannot be considered qualifying tournaments because they technically exist independent of TOC authority and are significant in their own right.) These tournaments are granted
12600-488: The speaker points awarded to each debater. Judges are often told before the tournament whether or not they are allowed to disclose to the participators, who won the round immediately following the decision (speaker points are never disclosed). However, that being said, some judges will never disclose and others will regardless of what the instructions were. In some regional or national circuit tournaments with multiple divisions, less experienced judges are most commonly placed in
12720-414: The speech, it is common for an opponent to collect and examine evidence even while a speech is still going on. This practice originated in part because cards are read at a rate faster than conversational speed. Taking the cards during the speech allows the opponent to question the author's qualifications, the original context of the evidence, etc. in cross-examination . It is generally accepted whichever team
12840-434: The statistics remain even. Most high school debaters participate in local tournaments in their city or school district, and travel to other areas of the state occasionally. Hundreds of such tournaments are held each weekend at high schools throughout the United States during the debate season. A relatively small subset (perhaps a few hundred) of high school debaters, mostly from elite public and private schools, travel around
12960-416: The summer. Most institutes range from about two to seven weeks, with four weeks being the most common. Many institutes divide students into work groups, or "labs", based on skill level and experience. Many even offer specialized "advanced" or "scholars" workshops, to which acceptance is highly limited. These camps often set the tone for the upcoming season and produce much of the evidence used by debaters at
13080-474: The time-constrained speech. Speed reading or spreading is normal at the majority of national circuit policy debate tournaments. Some feel that the rapid-fire delivery makes debate harder to understand for the lay person. Many further claim that the increased speed encourages debaters to make several poor arguments, as opposed to a few high-quality ones. A slower style is preferred by those who want debates to be understandable to lay people and those who claim that
13200-424: The topic. The criterium also may contain definitions for purposes of clarity and/or excluding certain lines of argumentation, and preemptions/"spikes" that attempt to preclude certain arguments that one's opponent should not attempt. A narrow definition can be a spike. The contentions, of which a case must have at least one, links the resolution to the value. A proper contention necessarily has a claim, which summarizes
13320-599: The tournament, though if at all possible debaters are prohibited from hitting members of their own team and hitting someone they have previously hit earlier at the same tournament again. Similarly, judges who have already judged a debater are not supposed to judge them again in preliminaries. In contrast, a tournament in which each competitor must debate every other competitor is called a " round robin ". These tend to be very small, and specific participants are invited to attend. Most LD tournaments are "power matched" (also called "power paired" or just "powered"). In this system, after
13440-490: The tournament. Bids are achieved by reaching a certain level of elimination rounds (for example, quarter-finals) at select, highly competitive, and carefully chosen tournaments across the country based upon the quality of debaters they attract and the diversity of locations from across the United States they represent. Debater partnerships with 2 bids are guaranteed a spot at the TOC, whereas debater teams with 1 bid (At-large teams) may be admitted if they consistently advance far in
13560-468: The value of the debate. Although the kritik (Sometimes called a K) originated in policy debate, its use in Lincoln–Douglas debate is becoming increasingly accepted as a legitimate argument in some debate districts and states. A kritik seeks to challenge an underlying mindset, usually from the perspective of critical theory. There are a few different types of kritiks. The resolutional kritik argues that
13680-598: The value premise is "supposed to provide standards by which judges should evaluate subsequent arguments." The value structure's purpose is to provide an overarching goal for both the affirmative and the negative to achieve. The value premise is not explicitly stated in the resolution, but many debaters use terms from the Lincoln-Douglas Debate resolution as their value premise. For example, the National Forensic League 's November/December 2006 resolution stated: Resolved: A victim's deliberate use of deadly force
13800-405: The value premise is related to the resolution and how the criterion is related to the value premise. Debaters often speak of the value premise as "supporting" the resolution or of the criterion as "fulfilling" the value premise, but it is hard to know just what these descriptions mean." Additionally, many debaters who provide a kritik constructive choose to not uphold a value, but rather, criticize
13920-421: The winner and loser of a policy round as well as assessing the merits of the speakers. Judges merit a good debate round and, ideally, avoid inserting their own personal beliefs that might cloud impartiality, however, total impartiality is impossible which has led to judges adopting a paradigm. Judges are sometimes coaches who help debate teams improve. Some circuits see lay or inexperienced judges recruited from
14040-418: The world to be a resource for human use and degrading the moral character of nature. This kritik would further argue that an anthropocentric mindset would justify major harms, which, in order to avoid, would require the win go to the side presenting the criticism. The discourse kritik argues that the effects of an action one's opponent has taken during or in relation to the round should outweigh consideration of
14160-425: The year Fairmount College began classes. By the mid-1970s, regular rules for lengths of speeches developed. Each side (Affirmative and Negative) was afforded two opening "constructive" speeches, and two closing "rebuttal" speeches , for a total of eight speeches each debate round. Each speaker was cross-examined by their opponent for a period following his or her constructive speech. Traditionally rebuttals were half
14280-458: Was contested during the round or whose weight was emphasized during rebuttals so that they can read the evidence for themselves. Although widespread, this practice is explicitly banned at some tournaments, most notably National Catholic Forensic League nationals, and some judges refuse to call for cards because they believe the practice constitutes "doing work for debaters that should have been done during round". Judges may also call for evidence for
14400-445: Was founded in 1868, continues to organize an annual "Fulton Prize Debate" between teams of its own students after the intercollegiate debate season has ended. Other universities continue similar traditions. Intercollegiate debates have been held since at least as early as the 1890s. History records there were debates between teams from Wake Forest University and Trinity College (later Duke University ) beginning in 1897. Additionally,
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