Линкколн-Дуглас дебаты: Американдық мектеп дебатының форматы

Form of American high school debate
a type of American high school debate

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 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 4prep 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 4prep 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 the NCFL National Tournament, UIL (which includes LD debate as one of its academic contests), and NCFCA are selected independently of the NSDA resolutions.