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What happens during a NFA-LD debate round? Pt 1 of 2

If you are brand new to debate and/or NFA-LD debate, you may be wondering what happens during a typical debate round. This series will try to give you an understanding of what to expect. This post will cover the constructives and the next post will cover the rebuttals. As always, feel free to comment if you disagree! You should also check out this post for what your first tournament could entail:

1. Before a round

At the tournament there will be area called “postings” where we tape to the wall a list of all the debates scheduled for each round. You want to make sure to write down all of the information: what side you are on, who are you debating, your room, and your judge. If you have time, check with your coach on your judge to try and get any helpful information.

Especially write down your room – it’s an awful reason to lose a debate round!

2. 1AC

As the round begins the affirmative debater reads their affirmative constructive case that they have written and prepared ahead of time. Normally people do not use any prep time before the first affirmative speech. You’ll want to have your case in a easy-to-find section of your expando/binder and be ready to go as soon as the judge is ready.

You have 6 minutes to read through your case. If you want to see what example cases look like we have a lot available here.

If you are familar with parliamentary debate, one of the main differences is that there will be no Points of Information during your speech. You just get 6 straight minutes to deliver your case. Make sure you have timed your speech and know you can fit it in within 6 minutes without going to fast.

3. First Cross Examination

Following the six minutes the debater will usually say “I am now open for cross-examination.” The judge will then time a 3 minute period where the affirmative debater responds to questions by the negative debater. These questions can clarify parts of the affirmative case, try to get the affirmative debater to conceed important points, or simply probe for potential answers by the affirmative.

There is no consensus among judges on what a judge’s role during cross-examination should be. I’ve blogged about this question before here.. I feel any answers to cross examination are binding although as a judge I usually just listen. It’s always up to the negative debater to bring up important points from the cross-examination in their negative constructive.

4. 1NC

The first negative constructive is a critical speech – you only get two as the negative so here is your chance to lay out your winning negative strategy. When I just I find it does not work very well to do the ‘throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks’ approach – by which I mean, run a bunch of positions and then collapse to what is still standing in the 1NR. Because you have such a limited amount of time to establish your winning arguments this should be a well planned out speech.

Now, given that, the first time you hit a particular affirmative you may be grabbing for any files that make sense, but after you hear a particular 1AC you should be ready the next time with a specific strategy. With this year’s Cuba topic there are some pretty standard cases you are going to hear (embargo, travel, Guantanamo) so have a strategy for those three cases.

I would recommend dedicating about half of your speech to off-case arguments (topicality, disadvantages, counterplan) and half of your speech to on case. Remember, since NFA-LD is supposed to be stock-issues debate the negative only has to disprove one stock issue to win. I think LD debaters can do well to do more on-case debating to try and win a stock issue to win a round.

5. Cross-Examination

Following the first negative constructive the affirmative debater now has a chance to cross-examine the negative debater. A lot of the same advice applies to this cross examination. As the negative debater, try to use this 3 minute period to further explain the evidence and positions you argued in the round. Go back to your evidence and reinforce it. Try to use this 3 minute period as another speech since you only get two!

As the affirmative debater I think you would be well served to, like the affirmative cross-examination, ask as many clarifying questions as you need. Your first rebuttal is the only real chance you’ll get to respond to positions. If you misunderstand a position and answer it poorly it will probably cost you the round.

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