Lincoln–Douglas debate format

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.

This article is about a type of American high school debate. For the historical debates, see Lincoln–Douglas debates.

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 is known for spreading, a practice in which debaters speak quickly to squeeze as much argument as possible into a short time limit. The resulting speech sounds like a cattle auctioneer.

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