Lincoln-Douglas Debate
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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.
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Overview
Lincoln-Douglas Debate involves the philosophical analysis and debate of a resolution that has no definite answer. Two debaters, an affirmative (for the resolution) and negative (against the resolution) face each other in each round.
Mechanics
In a Lincoln-Douglas debate the total time is divided equally between the speakers, but unevenly between the speeches in order to compensate for one side having first and last word. A typical NFL-rules LD round follows the following time schedule:
| AC: Affirmative Constructive Speech | 6 minutes |
| CX: Cross-Examination of Affirmative by Negative | 3 minutes |
| NC: Negative Constructive Speech (this speech is typically half constructive and half rebuttal of the AC) | 7 minutes |
| CX: Cross-Examination of Negative by Affirmative | 3 minutes |
| 1AR: First Affirmative Rebuttal | 4 minutes |
| NR: Second Negative Rebuttal | 6 minutes |
| 2AR: Second Affirmative Rebuttal | 3 minutes |
By convention, each debater gets a total of three minutes of preparation time. Many tournaments offer four minutes of preparation time, or may offer four minutes to less-experienced novice and J-V divisions. It is possible to use preparation time before a cross-examination period, but experienced debaters rarely do so, and less-experienced debaters are encouraged not to, as it can give an appearance of weakness.
Case Structure
Generally, LD cases are set up with a core value, a critereon, and several contentions. The core value is an inherently good truth that the case strives for, the ideal world that the case defends. This includes democracy, freedoms, and other vague concpets that are generally accepted as good things. The criterion is a much more concrete concept like a particular social contract or philosophy that either best achieves the core value or best measures how effectively the society achieves the core value. The contentions (usually 3 for the affirmative and 2 for the negative) of the case are used to prove the desirability of the core value, how the critereon best achives the core value, why the opponent cannot achieve the core value as well, and any other points that the debater feels need to be made. 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. Good debaters will generally agree on a core value in thier cross examinations for the round and then argue why their critereons best achieve this ideal world. For example, for the separation of church and state topic, both sides would uphold "democracy" as the best world that the resolution indicates, and then will argue particular philosophies for or against separation in order to prove their side correct. Rounds are usually decided on how effective each side meets the core value and how effectively that value addresses the resolution.
Judging
Debate rounds are typically judged by an adult, often an assistant coach, parent of a competitor, or a college student who participated in the event in high school. Some novice-only tournaments 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 argumentation and citation from writers of philosophy that the judge may not be familiar with. Additionally, LD topics often involve issues where the judge has a strongly held opinion for or against the resolution. Being neutral and judging on the basis of the quality of the debater and not the nature of the argument can be difficult.
In some regions or circuits 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 value 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.
Different areas of the country approach debate with different goals. In some areas, such as Kansas, High School speech is a for-credit class offered during the day which has a competitive 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. In other areas of the country, speech is organized as a club activity rather than as a school sponsored activity. This distinction results in a difference in the schools understanding of the purpose of competitive speech. Circuits like Kansas, which see the spectrum of speech events as curricular, set the goal of participation to be an improvement in the communication skills of the student. These circuits place high value on lay judging in all events to provide the student with the requirement to develop analysis and speaking styles which increase communication to the lay person. Other circuits which see the event as essentially competitive rather than curricular, with a value similar to the value of other sports, 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.
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 each other, at the discretion of the tabulation staff. At other tournaments, generally larger tournaments, less experienced debaters may be separated from more experienced debaters, in essence, forming two parallel tournaments. Some tournaments have three tracks: Novice, Junior Varsity, and Varsity.
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 decided on the basis that winners meet losers. Still other tournaments use randomized brackets.
In NFL-sponsored tournaments the winner of a debate round earns 6 NFL points, and the loser of the round earns 3 NFL points. Even though Lincoln-Douglas rounds are shorter than Policy Debate rounds and some tournaments hold more rounds of L-D than of Policy Debate as a result, Lincoln-Douglas debaters earn the same number of points for a win and a loss as Policy debaters. Thus, (in some circuits) Lincoln-Douglas can be the fastest way to earn NFL points.
Resolutions
Resolutions (topics to be debated) change every two months. 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 interest. (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.
History
The Lincoln-Douglas Debate format is named for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.
External Links
- LD Debate.org (http://www.lddebate.org)
- Victory Briefs Website (http://www.victorybriefs.com)
- National Forensic League website (http://www.nflonline.org/Main/HomePage)