<p>I can speak a bit more on the national level of debate and especially LD.
LD at the national level is a pretty amazing thing, taking place at quasi-policy: IE very rapid, but not speed-reading. Meaning the competition still takes place on the level of coherence and intelligibility as well. Basically, you have to be very well-spoken, but also extraordinarily quick, which certainly comes with practice.
LD at the national level also involves a lot of the advanced theory and philosophy of policy. Topics usually involve critical analysis and synthesis of issues of politics, economics, law, linguistics, sociology, philosophy proper, and sometimes specific international relations and science issues (though again, the approach is philosophical rather than empirical, not that statistics and empirics are not used).
Some common past topics included Resolved: In US Immigration Policy, restrictions on the rights of non-citizens are consistent with democratic ideals. Resolved: The US has a moral obligation to spread democracy in foreign nations. and Resolved: Judicial Activism is necessary to protect the rights of American citizens, the current topic.
Clearly, the topics are inventive, very interesting, and allow for a multiplicity of interesting interpretations and philisophical arguments.
Another aspect of national-level debate that is something really cool and soemthing you will likely not see until college is a very interesting introduciton to postmodern, postcolonial, feminist/sexual idendity, power relations, and other related critical philosophy/academic fields.
In regards to competition, there is a really rewarding level of national competition in addition to the local circuits you may have (or lack there of). If you do not have a formal school debate team, you are pretty much out of luck for doing NFL, being State Champ, NFL Nationals (this is the traditional nationals) etc.
However, there is a national level of qualitatively better and really intense debate called the circuit. As I described before there are national tournaments all over the country and they culminate in the year-end Tournament of Champions, the more intense/bigger Nat'l tournament in May.
There is often no requirement to go to these tournaments besides traveling with your school name and paying the entry fee. So no matter what your school situation you can 'break into' this level of competition.
Here is the main online debate community (well, at least LD): <a href="http://www.victorybriefs.net/webs/daily/%5B/url%5D">http://www.victorybriefs.net/webs/daily/</a>
Sorry for being long-winded, but I hope this gives a good general introduction.</p>
<p>Thank you icefalcon7 for the very informative posts. I was very interested in competiting at the national level (circuit).</p>
<p>Right now, I'm in PuF (first year of debate). I wanted to do Policy but my paper wasn't up to it because she doesn't really enjoy extraneous work. So, I have to do the watered-down version of Policy (hopefully, I find a freshman willing enough to do extra work next year but that seems bleak). But we'll probably part our ways next year (in debate) and do LD.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if LD is just basically like 1 one 1 policy? Thanks</p>
<p>Aw, tomorrow's my last Policy debate of the season!</p>
<p>We have a regional Policy tournament between 10 local schools for six weeks. Tomorrow's the last one. So far my record is 2 for 2. Wish me luck!</p>
<p>Good luck. I have a national tournament across the country this weekend (in Chicago) so wish me luck with that (yeah, debate can take over your life).
Oh and science, as per your question, it depends at what level. At local tournaments, LD will be a lot slower and more broad (you can literally BS your way through a lot of it). At the national level it approaches one man policy with speed, jargon, quantity of evidence, and technique/theory. Of course there is still a huge difference between national level LD and national level Policy, and its more fun than it sounds.
National level policy will eat your soul, mind, and pocketbook, or at least that's the experience I've had with some friends who have gone down the dark side ;).</p>
<p>My debate team is a bit unconventional...we don't debate (in the way you guys do)...Our debate team is more of a legal/government-oriented trip club, lol...We've gone to Harvard Model Congress (we can't go this year, though, sadly...), Seton Hall Model U.N., participate in the mock trial, etc. It's a very different situation, which is interesting, considering the advisor, who is also my AP Language & Comp. teacher, as well as my debate teacher, actually has us do real debates in debate class. But for debate team, it is quite a different story.</p>
<p>ehh... i just like making people feel bad... i do it for sport</p>
<p>lol...I know...as someone once said, I "like to burst people's bubbles".</p>
<p>i also make faces if you say something dumb... that really annoys people</p>
<p>Hm. Model Congress and MUN are separate from Debate at my school. It's still really easy to be a member of all three, though, since MC and MUN meet like three times a year.</p>
<p>Yay! I won my debate today! My record is 3-0! The highest record on our Varsity team!</p>
<p>Haha, CVC (our regional policy tournament which we just finished) sucks. Today's debate was at Hamilton West (NJ). I swear the whole school was like "Wts are those ASIANS (my school is half Asian) doing here?!" The bathrooms didn't have soap and the hand drying machines didn't work.</p>
<p>Do you guys know what are the number of points you have to have for each NFL degree (i.e. Merit, Honor, Distinction, Excellence, etc.)?</p>
<p>There is a school down here called the MAST academy and I think they have a team. Put 2 and 2 together and they are called the MAST Debate Team.</p>
<p>Wow. You just bumped a hundred-year old thread. But regardless...
Does anyone know about debate at prep schools? I do LD, and I want to apply to prep school, but I've never seen schools like Andover at tourneys...not even the nat'l tournies. What do their debate teams participate in?</p>
<p>pro-street debating... does that count? :p</p>
<p>anisha08: go to <a href="http://www.nflonline.org%5B/url%5D">www.nflonline.org</a>, the numbers should be on the site.</p>
<p>I read the thread and everyone's in either LD or Policy. I did Policy my freshman year, but soonafter fell in love with PARLIAMENTARY debate. Does anyone else do it or am I the only Parli lover here?</p>
<p>For those of you who don't know what Parli is...it's a team debate where you show up at the tournament with no case, no evidence, nothing except a flow pad and a pen. You get the resolution AT the tournament and you have 20 minutes to write a case. Then you go in and debate. The next round, you get a NEW resolution and another 20 minutes to write a case. </p>
<p>Most colleges do Parli, though I'm in HS right now...anyone else in love with the adrenaline rush of not knowing what you're debating until 20 min before the debate</p>
<p>makemehappy, im sorry to say i do not like that adrenaline rush. i dont think id do that well in parli, actually id start crying on teh spot if i couldnt come up with anything/</p>
<p>i heard one of the resolutions was "this house drops it like its hot" and apparently it was supposed to be a castle that drops hot oil off the side? hahah/
yeah im in LD. my prepping skills suck MUCHO, my inround debating is better :) i have to do an IE next year (our S&D rule is that every debater must do an IE event) and im not quite sure what to do. extemp is WAAAAAYYY too hard, but im not sure if im a good enough actress to pull off an HI or OPP. maybe OO? can someone explain OO to me?</p>
<p>It was one of the res', yeah...we ran the case that the US should drop the war on Iraq. </p>
<p>Extemp is love. XD I screenprinted shirts for me and my fellow extempers and they said "Wanna FX?" on the front and "Foreign Extemp" on the back. They're hawt. XP </p>
<p>I did OO up to this year, when I ran out of time to write an oratory. Basically, take a societal problem and explain it [common topics are obesity, the neg. effect of the media on girls' self confidence, lack of trust in today's society, etc] and then give a general solution for it [ie changing attitudes about healthy food, promoting self-esteem, more communication] it's usually 80% problem 20% solution. You should include examples proving your point, ie quotes, stories, etc etc.</p>
<p>OA, which you might be interested in, is similar, except it's a more concrete problem [ie nursing home abuse, child prostitution] and instead of 80-20 its 50-50. The solution has to be a 3 prong legislative proposition.</p>
<p>hmm. OO and OA both sound interesting :)</p>
<p>haha yeah our debate shirts are cool too:</p>
<p>"Have I hit you before?"
hahaha and another girl told me the idea "Can your pad handle my flow?" and "We don't speak fast, You just think slow"</p>
<p>HAHAHAH brill, all of them...I totally want the last one like woah. XD perfect elitist!debatism right there. <33</p>
<p>There is a separate prep league that does Oregon Cross-Examination Style, Parliamentary Extemporaneous, and several speech competitions. </p>
<p>Check: <a href="http://www.daneis.org%5B/url%5D">www.daneis.org</a></p>
<p>I do debate at Andover so I was real excited to find a debate thread on here for once. It looks like most people do other styles though...</p>