Introduction to Circuit Debate

**Under Construction**

This page is currently under construction by Zachary Siegel.

Introduction

What is Circuit Debate?

Welcome to the world of Circuit Debate! The goal of this page is to briefly outline what exactly Circuit Debate is and introduce you to the most important things there are to know.

Lincoln-Douglas circuit debate refers to the subset of Lincoln-Douglas debate tournaments that occur on the National Circuit. The National Circuit is a set of tournaments that debaters from around the country travel to in order to compete at. Ultimately, all of the tournaments on the National Circuit serve as a way to qualify for the Tournament of Champions (TOC), which is largely considered the most "prestigious" tournament circuit debaters. You qualify for the TOC attaining 2 bids at circuit debate tournaments throughout the year. You attain a bid by getting to a certain outround (e.g. octa-finals, quarter-finals, semi-finals, or finals), and the outround at which you bid depends on the tournament you are attending. Here is a list of all Circuit LD tournaments with their associated bid levels.

Circuit LD is distinguished from traditional LD largely by the style of arguments that are read in round. Ultimately, circuit LD and traditional LD are the same activity – you debate the same resolution, the speech times are the same, etc. However, Circuit LD is largely characterized by the prevalence of speed reading, or spreading. On the Circuit, most debaters and judges are accustomed to understanding spreading, and debaters spread so that they may read more arguments in the constrained speech times. In addition, the styles of arguments that are read in Circuit LD are different than that of traditional LD. With traditional LD, most debaters typically follow the value/value criterion model of debate. While this is still possible in Circuit LD (i.e. through philosophy), more types of arguments are read, namely, policy, kritiks, theory, and tricks.

Despite the fact that Circuit debate occurs around the country, there is certainly a community forms within the group. There are probably no more than ~300 debaters who consistently attend multiple circuit tournaments each year, and as a result, it is easy to get to know people who you frequently see at tournaments. Back in the era before online debating, you would be dedicating your entire weekend to traveling and competing at tournaments, so people would form friendships within the circuit.

Why should I Circuit Debate?

Circuit Debate can certainly feel overwhelming when you are first introduced to it – there are many things one has to learn to compete at the highest levels. So perhaps before figuring out how to learn circuit debate, it is worth considering whether you would like to learn circuit debate.

There are certainly many pros to circuit debate: you become exposed to a wide body of knowledge that many people never encounter in their lives, ranging from philosophical, critical, and policy perspectives, you get to meet new people from across the country that broadens your perspective and allows you to make lasting friendships, some people consider the activity itself fun, and of course, it might look good to put on one's resume.

On the other hand, there are many cons associated with the activity: most people need to put in a lot of hours to become successful (potentially at least 8 hours a week during the week leading up to, but not including, the tournament) which can lead to burnout, it can difficult to balance debate, school, and social lives, the community can be seen as toxic and exclusionary for certain groups, and finally, if you lack an established school debate program, it can be difficult not only to obtain the body of knowledge necessary for debating but also to give tournaments permission you to compete.

Ultimately, you should not make your decision to debate based on this short paragraph but should highly consider consulting with debaters currently in the community to give context to your personal situation. Virtually all debaters will be willing to tell you their own personal experiences, and a good place to start asking questions might be the Small School's Facebook debate group.

How can I learn to Circuit Debate?

As mentioned before, getting introduced to Circuit Debate can feel overwhelming with all of the concepts there are to learn. Luckily, there are many in the community who are willing to help. Below is a table of resources that contain links to various documents and websites that are intended to help out. If you know of any resources that meet the criterion of being substantial, community-endorsed, and helpful, feel free to add it to the list.

Resource	Information
Circuitdebater Library	The website that you are currently on! The CD library offers community-written articles on all of the most common concepts in LD debate, intended to provide an accessible knowledge base for all.
NDCA Wiki	After most circuit LD rounds, debaters will disclose their cases by uploading them to the wiki after the round. Through this wiki, you can download various cases and see the style of arguments that are read, as well as try to decipher what some of the arguments are saying. Fair warning: you should not expect yourself to understand all (or even most) of the arguments here. Some of them are probably gibberish, and also, even experienced debaters fail to understand many arguments they themselves are reading in round.
Tabroom	Tabroom.com is the website where you sign up for tournaments and see information about all relevant tournaments during a given weekend. If you want to see more information about a tournament you have interest in attending, your best bet is to look here. Note that most of the tournaments here will not be relevant to you; if you are looking for bid tournaments to attend, see the below row.
TOC Tournament List	The TOC bid tournament list shows all tournaments around the country that assign a bid if you reach a certain outround. To get more information about a particular tournament, look on tabroom.
HSLD Resource Directory Spreadsheet	This spreadsheet contains links to many more resources that you might benefit from within the community. From videos of debaters to suggested drills, this website has a lot of useful information.

What does a National Circuit tournament look like?

In the era before online debating, National Circuit tournaments would typically be hosted at high school or college campuses, attracting hundreds or even thousands of speech and debate students, depending on the size of the tournament. People would travel to National Circuit tournaments from across the country, which necessitated paying for transportation and housing for the tournament (not to mention paying tournament entree fees and paying your judges). Typically, people's choice to travel to a tournament depended on whether it was "worth" going to. That is, if a tournament awarded many bids, such as an octa-finals or quarter-finals level tournament, the number of debaters competing in that tournament would increase, and debaters would be willing to travel from further out since their chance of getting the bid was perceived to be higher. These tournaments with higher bid levels also typically have better judge pools, too. Smaller tournaments, such as finals or semi-finals bids, typically attract debaters from around the area and might have more lay judges and rounds, even as a tournament on the national circuit.

Norms for LD debate also vary throughout the country. The West Coast is known for running more policy style arguments, while the Texas area is known for running a mix of LARP and kritiks, and the East coast is known for running tricks, theory, and philosophy. One's experience in LD would be dramatically shaped by the region where they debated, as judges within that region would be more proficient in evaluating certain types of arguments.

Now that many tournaments are online, some things have changed, and others have not. Competing has become far more affordable, since one does not need to worry about affording transportation and housing for tournaments. Still, though, tournaments with higher bid-levels typically attract more debaters and better judges than tournaments with lower bid-levels. Attending tournaments has become far easier, though, since one does not need to worry about the location. The norms of LD, as a result, have become slightly more spread out. While in the in-person era, nearly all rounds in the West Coast would involve policy, in the online era, it wouldn't be as rare to find a round involving kritiks, for example.

Almost all National Circuit tournaments follow a similar structure. They will take place during some weekend, and feature both prelimination and elimination rounds. Tournaments typically have around 6 prelimination rounds. During the first two prelimination rounds, you will be matched with a random opponent and assigned a random side with one judge. During the remaining four rounds, you will be matched with an opponent whose record (wins-losses) is equal to yours, and assigned a random side. By the end of the 6 prelimination rounds, you will have affirmed 3 times and negated 3 times. If you have won at least 4 of your prelimination rounds, you will have qualified for the elimination rounds. Depending on the size of the tournament, elimination rounds will start either at triple-octafinals (top 64), double octa-finals (top 32), or octa-finanls (top 16). During the elimination rounds, you will have a panel of 3 judges, and the side will be determined by a coin flip at the beginning of the round. If you lose an elimination round, you are out of the tournament. To attain a bid, you will need to reach a certain elimination round depending on the "bid level" of the tournament.

At the conclusion of the tournament, awards are typically given out for the top speakers of the tournaments (determined by your speaker points) and for the elimination round that you have reached.

What are prefs?

Most national circuit tournaments offer "prefs", or the ability to rank your judges based on your preference for them to judge you. Usually, you rank all judges in the pool on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 being your most preferred judge, and 6 being your least preferred judge. When being assigned an opponent, you will be assigned a judge who both you and your opponent mutually prefer, that is, the judge who you and your opponent have the closest pref match, with higher prefs being preferred. The manner in which you pref judges is completely subjective, though debaters will typically pref the judges who they think have the best ability to evaluate the style of argumentation that the debater likes to read.

Foundational Ideas

In this section, we will lay out some of the foundational ideas of National Circuit Lincoln-Douglas debate. We will assume a basic level of familiarity with traditional Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Argument

All arguments are composed of a claim, warrant, and impact. The claim is the statement that the argument is attempting to prove. The warrant is the evidence, or reasoning, that backs up the statement. The impact is the implication, or relevance, of that argument. For instance, suppose you are attempting to prove that pencils are better than pens. Your argument might go, "Pencils are better than pens because they allow you to erase mistakes, which can save you a lot of time when writing." Try to identify the claim, warrant, and impact within this argument.

Many arguments within LD contain a card for the warrant to the argument. A card is a piece evidence, typically taken from a website, database, or book, that supports an argument you are trying to make. As such, many arguments will start with a claim, then the card which contains the evidence that supports your claim. The impact is often found within the card itself, or you can explicitly write out an impact after the card. Since many sources of evidence are long, and we do not have enough time in round to read out every word of the evidence, the cards are "cut." This means debaters will read only certain words of the evidence to make their point more quickly. See here on a video for how to cut a card. Note that it is against the rules of debate to only read selective word to misrepresent what the original piece of evidence is saying.