Lincoln Douglas Debate

Within the team, there are different events offered, each that accentuate a different skill needed in both the public speaking atmosphere and in the professional world.

No matter what event one enters, EVSD holds records in every single one of them. Every event has the resources, the officers, and the drive to ensure that the people who join it become better speakers and more ready to enter the real world with the confidence and prowess they need to succeed.

Debate

Debate is a furmulated argument between two parties about a given resolution. The side for which one will argue will be random. While speech helps one accentaute their public speaking skills, debate focuses more on quick-thinking and argumentation. 

Lincoln Douglas Debate

Lincoln-Douglas debate (LD debate) is a one-on-one debate event that focuses on ethical issues. EVSD's Lincoln Douglas team has reached top levels in elite tournaments, such as Martin Luther King Jr's Invitational and the Stanford Invitational. 

The resolutions are moral statements whose truth values are debated by the affirmative, who argues that the resolution is true, and the negative, who argues that the resolution is false.

Examples of recent resolutions include: "A government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap between its rich and poor citizens", "Individuals have a moral obligation to assist people in need", and "States ought not possess nuclear weapons". Unlike other forms of debate, LD relies heavily on philosophy (especially moral and political philosophy), good empirical data, and logical analysis. Debates will often involve a clash between two competing philosophical or political positions.

In recent years, LD debate has also begun to absorb elements of Policy Debate. This has introduced many more forms of argumentation into LD debate, including plans, disadvantages, topicality, theory and kritiks, but these arguments are only present in more advanced levels of LD debate. Due to the introduction of Policy style arguments, the LD debate metagame has largely diverged into two major formats: "lay LD", which focuses more on persuasion, appealing to a wider audience, speaking skills, value debate, and emotional responses, and "circuit LD", which focuses more on fast delivery, Policy style arguments, a more theoretical outlook on debate, and a more demanding research burden.

No matter which format, LD debate helps provide students with a deeper understanding of both sides of important issues, such as animal rights and universal health care, knowledge of crucial philosophical questions, greater analytical and refutation abilities, greater public speaking skills, and ultimately the critical thinking skills needed to succeed in the 21st century.