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 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, 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 affirmative) must support the resolution, and the other side (called 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).
The vast majority of tournaments use the resolutions distributed by the NSDA, which is changed once every two months.
The debate format, akin to Policy debate, is known for spreading, a practice in which debaters speak quickly to squeeze as much argument as possible into a short time limit.
Format 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.
Stage Time (minutes) Abbreviation Description Affirmative Constructive 6 AC (or 1AC) The Affirmative (always) reads a pre-written case, outlining why the resolution is valid. Cross Examination 3 CX The Negative asks the Affirmative questions, in order to expose logical flaws in the Affirmative's argument. Preparation time - Negativeup to 4 (5 at some tournaments)prep time (down time)The Negative prepares the attack against the Affirmative's case. Negative Constructive (and first negative Rebuttal) 7 NC (1NR) The Negative (almost always) reads a pre-written case and (almost always) moves on to address the Affirmative case. Cross Examination 3 CX The Affirmative asks the Negative questions.Preparation Time - Affirmativeup to 4(5 at some tournaments)prep time (down time)The Affirmative prepares the attack against the Negative's case. First Affirmative Rebuttal 4 1AR The Affirmative addresses both their opponent's case and their own. This speech is considered by many debaters to be the most difficult speech, as debaters must use 4 minutes to respond to a 7-minute speech, whereas the Negative has 6 minutes to respond to the 1AR of only 4 minutes.Preparation time - negativeThe balance of Negative's prep timeprep timeThe Negative prepares the attack against the Affirmative's case. Negative Rebuttal 6 NR (or 2NR) The Negative addresses the arguments of the previous speech and summarizes the round for the judge. New arguments and evidence are typically frowned upon because the affirmative only has 3 minutes to respond to this speech.Preparation time - affirmativeThe balance of Affirmative's prep timeprep timeThe Affirmative prepares the attack against the Negative's case. The Second Affirmative Rebuttal 3 2AR The Affirmative addresses the arguments of the previous speech and summarizes the round for the judge. No new arguments or evidence are allowed in the 2AR because the negative does not have another speech to answer these final arguments. 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 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 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.").
Traditional case structures Cases are logical syllogisms that attempt to prove the resolution morally obligatory (affirmative) or morally prohibited (negative). The typical (though not mandated) case 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 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 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 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, 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 the principle of essentialist humanity is more effective at encouraging justice based on the evidence in their cases.
Progressive case structures
Plans and Counterplans
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:
Compete with the affirmative's advocacy. The affirmative can disprove this quality of competition using a variety of "perms," short for permutation, which describes the possibility of some sort of combination or permutation of the affirmative's and the negative's advocacy. A few types of perms include perm-do-both (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan and the plan are not mutually exclusive and can co-exist, which means the counterplan no longer disproves the affirmative), perm-do-the-counterplan (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan is the plan, based on how the counterplan or the plan function), timeframe-perm (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan can exist in a world after the plan), and textual-based perms (a variety of perms in which the affirmative claims a lack of competition via the specific text of the plan and counterplan). Offer a net-benefit to the affirmative. The affirmative can disprove that the counterplan offers a net-benefit by claiming that the plan solves for the net-benefit, that the counterplan does not, or that the net-benefit is not significant. Solve either the entirety of or a sufficient amount of the impacts that the affirmative's advocacy solves. If the counterplan does not do either, then the affirmative can simply claim that the counterplan is not as good as the plan.
There are various ways that an affirmative could defeat a counterplan, usually described in the acronym "POST," which stands for "Permutations, Offense, Solvency deficits, and Theory." Solvency deficits and perms explained above, whereas offense refers to disadvantages against the counterplan and/or turns against the counterplan's internal/external net benefit. Theory refers to reasons why the counterplan is theoretically illegitimate. Common examples include arguments that plan-inclusive counterplans (PICs), international actor counterplans, and process counterplans are undesirable or illegitimate forms of counterplans that ought to be excluded.
Kritiks 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 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 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 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.