Introduction to LD Debate
Description: This lecture will emphasize key parts of Lincoln Douglas debate, emphasizing the structure of a
debate round, the affirmative and negative, debate etiquette, and introduction to value debate.
I.
II.
What is LD Debate?
a. History
i. Debates of 1858 between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln
1. Focused on slavery, and the moral and logistical justification of it
b. LD debate today is NOT AT ALL THAT DIFFERENT
i. Today, although the structure, the pace, and the issues have changed, the purpose of LD debate
remains the same: value debate.
ii. Value debating simply means that you try to convince the judge that your value, and all of the
justifications that come with it—are better than your opponent.
iii. We’re going to get more into value debate and how exactly to apply it later.
c. However, there are very specific differences between the debating in Lincoln and Douglas’s time and the
debate we do today. And throughout LDI, we are going to focus on those differences. There are several
general overviews of the debate that we are going to cover in this lecture. Those are.
i. The Resolution
ii. The General Structure of an LD Debate Round
iii. The General Structure of a debate case
iv. The General Structure of an LD Tournament
The Resolution
a. Every two months, starting in September, a new resolution comes out
b. The Resolution is NATIONAL, so everyone from Los Angeles to Salt Lake
c. Sept-Oct, Nov-Dec, Jan-Feb, March-April.
i. FOUR RESOLUTIONS TOTAL.
d. The resolution will come out about a week or two earlier than the first tournament scheduled for that
topic, so you can prepare.
i. If you’re solely competing at league tournaments, your first tournament is the Novice
Tournament at Oaks-Christian, which is late October. If you’re competing at invitationals, your
first tournament in California is Long Beach, which is mid October.
1. Either way, you have quite a long time to prepare for the resolution
e. Each topic will begin with the word “Resolved”
f. Each topic will pose some sort of moral question. Whether we ought to do something or whether
something is morally permissible.
i. This is diametrically opposed to other types of debate such as policy, where you are supposed to
convince the judge that your plan is simply better.
g. Here’s a list of all of the potential topics that are planned for next year.
i. Resolved: The United States ought to extend to non-citizens accused of terrorism the same
constitutional due process protections it grants to citizens.
ii. Resolved: It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to
repeated domestic violence.
iii. Resolved: In the United States, possession of handguns ought not be an individual right.
iv. Resolved: The use of eminent domain for private economic development is just.
v. Resolved: Estate taxes are just.
vi. Resolved: A government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap between its rich and poor
citizens.
III.
vii. Resolved: A just society ought to prioritize environmental concerns over the production of
energy.
viii. Resolved: In the United States, law enforcement ought to be required to have probable cause to
search data an individual has stored on remote servers.
ix. Resolved: Targeted killing is a morally permissible foreign policy tool.
h. Notice how all of the resolutions either have one of three words: ought, morally permissible, just or right
i. This reinforces the point that we are not merely talking about practical points. We are dealing
with morality and righteousness.
The General Structure of an LD Round
a. Each LD round has two sides
i. Affirmative (Affirms with or agrees with the resolution)
ii. Negative (Negates or disagrees with the resolution)
b. You have one debater on the affirmative side, and one debater on the negative side.
c. Time Restrictions
i. Affirmative – 6
CX (Neg) – 3
Negative – 7
CX (Aff) – 3
Affirmative – 4
Negative – 6
Affirmative – 3
Prep Time: 3 Minutes League, 4 minutes on select invitationals
d. What do you notice about the time restrictions?
i. Affirmative speaks first
ii. Affirmative speaks last
iii. Affirmative has more speeches
iv. Affirmatives has a shorter amount of time to speak for each speech
v. Negative only has two speeches
vi. Negative has longer time to speak
e. Each side gives something known as a constructive speech. A constructive speech is a prepared speech
written for the topic.
i. Affirmatives first speech is known as the AC or Affirmative constructive
ii. Negatives first speech is known as the NC or the Negative Constructive
iii. This is also what is known as the Affirmative and Negative Cases. They are usually prepared
weeks in advance and fine tuned every day until the day of the tournament.
iv. The constructive speeches are to establish your position and make it known to the judge exactly
what your value is, and how you plan to uphold that value.
f. Every speech the Affirmative and Negative make after he constructive is known as a rebuttal speech.
i. The rebuttal speeches are basically used for shooting down
1. Your opponents case, refuting EVERYTHING from values to contentions
2. Your opponents arguments against your case.
ii. They are impromptu speeches, meaning that they are not prepared beforehand. YOU cannot
prepare for them beforehand unless you know exactly what kind of case your opponent is going
to run
g. Everything in a debate round is recorded on a sheet of paper called the flow
i. One side of the flow consists of your case. This is called a preflow
1. However, as your opponent makes answers against your case, you will write their
answers next to the corresponding argument which they attack
IV.
ii. The other side of the flow consists of your opponents’ case, and the arguments you make against
that case.
iii. How to flow is going to be discusses later, but for now, just observe how a flow is supposed to
look.
h. The judge will evaluate the round according to which side does a better job debating according to him or
her. (this is very subjective), and he or she will also divvy up speaker points between the two debaters.
At league tournaments the highest number of speaker points you can get is 50/50. At invitationals, its
30/30.
General structure of a Debate Case
a. So, how do you assemble a constructive? What is it supposed to look like?
b. Basically, a case can be broken down into two parts
i. The framework
ii. The contentions
c. The framework consists of the resolution, the definitions on the resolution, the value, and the value
criterion
i. Let’s look at each of these parts of the framework in-depth
ii. The resolution
1. Since we are preparing you for the league and for state, I advise that you state the
resolution as well as whether you affirm or negate the resolution.
a. This will be very helpful to the judge.
iii. The definitions
1. EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. They set up the debate, and FRAME IT. In your favor.
a. Hence, FRAMEWORK
2. They allow you to pick your value and value criterion.
3. You can either be stupid and define them traditionally or worse, in your opponents favor,
or you can be smart and define them in your favor.
iv. The Value
1. ALSO VERY IMPORTANT
a. Your value is basically what you say is the most important. Remember, LD is
value debate, so you must be able to pick a sort of philosophical value, such as
justice, societal welfare, etc, and say why it matters the most in the context of the
resolution.
v. The Value Criterion
1. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART
a. This is how you achieve you value.
b. We may value the same thing, but try to attain it differently.
i. For example, we value happiness right?
1. For some, achieving happiness means being successful, others,
may see it as finding love, others may find it in killing people
(those are the crazy one)
a. Point is, while we may value happiness, we have very
different means of achieving it.
c. The point of the value criterion is to say that the BEST way to achieve something
is YOUR way. YOUR WAY IS THE BEST WAY TO ACHIEVE JUSTICE,
SOCIETAL WELFARE, ETC. is however you plan to achieve it.
d. The contentions
i. The contentions should fall underneath the value. They should justify the resolution in terms of
the value.
V.
VI.
ii. Think of like a five paragraph essay. Your value and your value criterion are the thesis statement.
The contentions are basically the paragraphs that support your thesis.
1. What happens when your paragraphs don’t connect to your thesis? YOU FAIL.
2. Likewise, what happens when your contentions don’t connect to your value and value
criterion? YOU LOSE.
iii. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure your contentions connect to your thesis.
e. This is how our league expects you to write a case. Are there other ways to write a case? Sure, some
extremely weird and obscure ways. But this is what we would call a STOCK CASE Outline.
General Structure of a Tournament
a. So now that you have the knowledge of the resolution, how an LD round works, how to construct a case,
where do you go from there?
b. YOU still don’t know how a tournament works!
c. Basically there are two kinds of tournaments. League tournaments, run by our league, the Tri County
Forensics League, or the TCFL, and Invitationals, which are basically private tournaments.
i. Invivationals
1. Open to EVERY school that pplies to get in, which means they can get pretty large. The
largest invitationals are generally the most competitve
2. Generally longer and larger than league tournaments. Six preliminary rounds, and if you
have a winning record (6-0, 5-1, 4-2), you may be able to break, or move onto the
elimination rounds.
a. If you lose in the elimination rounds, you are out of the tournament, and are
given a trophy at the level of whatever round you lost at.
i. Ex. If you lost in the quarterfinal round you are a quarterfinalist. If you
lost in the semifinal round you are a semifinalist.
3. When you move on to the elimination rounds, you are almost guaranteed a trophy.
4. Some invitationals even have speaker awards, which they give to the top ten or 15 best
speakers.
5. Judging quality overall is better
6. Will usually have a novice division, JV division, and a varsity division
ii. League tournaments
1. Much different, because they are run by our league and therefore are open solely to
debaters in our league
2. Consists of three rounds. Win all three rounds and you get a trophy. Have a winning
record (2-1) and you get a superior certificate
3. Lasts only a couple of hours
4. ONE tournament SOLELY for Novices. Held at Oaks Christian. Only three tournaments
after that. A fall OPEN (meaning all of the debaters are grouped into one pool), a spring
open, and state quals
a. State quals is double elimination. Meaning if you lose two rounds, you are out of
the tournament.
d. Tournaments are tiresome, but extremely fun and rewarding once the day is done.
Conclusion
a. This is everything you need to know about LD debate. It’s the general outline of everything you need to
know, and a solid base, upon which to place new knowledge of the GAME. Remember, it is a game.
Nothing more, and nothing less. The masters of the game are those who are the most clever, the most
knowledgeable, and the best prepared. GO FORTH!
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Writing Frameworks, Cross-Examination, Rebuttal Speeches, Logical Fallacies, and Dealing with Incohrent
Positions