FAQ's on Debate

Question: What is Debate?

Answer: Debate as practiced under NCFCA is the affirmative and negative argumentation regarding a set resolution. It is practiced in two forms, called Team Policy and Lincoln Douglas.

Question: What is Team Policy?

Answer: Team Policy is a form of debate with teams of two vs. two, presided over by one judge, which focuses on policy. One team takes the affirmative side, arguing for the adoption of their plan under the resolution. The other team takes the negative side, arguing for the status quo and thus, against the affirmative's plan. The teams switch sides (and match against a new team) for each subsequent round.

Question: So what is Lincoln Douglas?

Answer: Lincoln Douglas is a form of debate with one vs. one, presided over by one judge, focusing on a value issue. One debater takes the affirmative side, arguing for the value stated in the resolution. The other debater takes the negative side, arguing against the value stated in the resolution. The debaters switch sides (and match against a new competitor) for each subsequent round.

Question: Okay, what's a resolution?

Answer: The resolution is the topic statement (policy or value) to be debated. Each year, the league votes on the upcoming year's resolution.

Question: What's the resolution for Team Policy this year?

Answer: Team Policy's 2008 resolution is "Resolved: That the United States federal government should substantially change its policy on illegal immigration".

Question: What's the resolution for Lincoln Douglas this year?

Answer: Lincoln Douglas's 2008 resolution is "Resolved: That the United States of America ought to more highly value isolationism".

Question: How many judges are in a round?

Answer: For both types of debate, only one judge is used in a round for the preliminary rounds. During the outrounds, panels of three or five judges are used.

Question: What's a preliminary and an outround?

Answer: For debate, Preliminary rounds are the first six rounds in a qualifying tournament. The result of these six rounds determines which teams advance to the outrounds. Outrounds are the final set of rounds in a tournament competition. Depending on the number of competing teams, there can be double octa-finals (32 teams) octa-finals (16 teams), quarter-finals (8 teams), semi-finals (4 teams) and then finals (2 teams).

FAQ's on Speech

Question: Why is Speech listed as IE?

Answer: IE stands for Individual Events. There are 10 different IE categories in a year (some years have an 11th Wild Card category, but not 2008).

Question: What are the 10 categories?

Answer: Apologetics, Humorous Interp., Original Oratory, Open Interp., Duo Interp., Extemporaneous, Expository, Dramatic Interp., Persuasive, and Impromptu.

Question: That's a lot of categories. Do they have rounds at the same time?

Answer: Speech events are typically broken down into two groups of 5 categories each. These are called Pattern A and Pattern B. Each Pattern will have two or three preliminary rounds, but at different times.

Question: What about outrounds for IE - are the categories still separated into Patterns?

Answer: Sometimes. Depending on the number of competitors, the outrounds can continue to be separated into Patterns, or merged together. Or, a combination of separate and merged.

Question: How many outrounds does IE have?

Answer: It depends on the number of competitor per category. If any given category has enough competitors, it will move into outrounds. Thus, not all categories will move to outrounds, some stop after the preliminary rounds. IE has only semi-finals and final outrounds.

Question: How does an IE round work?

Answer: For each category, the competitors are put in groups of up to eight. Each group performs in a different room, before a panel of three judges. The order of the competitor's performance is pre-determined before the round.

Question: Why pre-determine the order?

Answer: The pre-determined order is not critical to the round. Because some competitors will compete in more than one category in the same Pattern, the order is pre-determined to help keep the rounds flowing well. Even so, sometimes a panel of judges may have a short wait time between competitors, or skip a name and return to it, because the next name on the list is finishing in another category.

Question: How long do rounds take?

Answer: Lincoln Douglas rounds are 45 minutes. Team Policy is approx. 90 minutes. Speech events are usually 90 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the overlap of competitors to other speech events. The judge times are slightly longer because they include a pre-round orientation time and a post-round ballot completion time.