Competition

Friendly and healthy Forensic competition is the central focus of the organization.

Individual Event Competition

Archive of Impromptu prompts used at the National Tournament

Lincoln-Douglas Debate Competition

Lincoln-Douglas debate on the intercollegiate level is one-on-one policy debate. The resolution will be announced on July 1 each year. The process for selecting the annual resolution is below.

2025-2026 Resolution:

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its military presence and/or scientific exploration in the Arctic or Antarctic.

Resolution ballot

1. The United States federal government should substantially increase its military presence and/or scientific research infrastructure in the Arctic or Antarctic.
2. The United States federal government should substantially increase its military presence and/or scientific research infrastructure in the Arctic.
3. The United States federal government should substantially increase its military presence and/or scientific exploration in the Arctic or Antarctic.
4. The United States federal government should substantially increase its military presence and/or scientific exploration in the Arctic.
5. The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in natural resource exploration and/or extraction in the Arctic.

Winning topic: Polar Regions

– India received only 1 vote and was eliminated first
– After redistributing that vote, Middle East & North Africa was in last with 2 votes and was eliminated.
– After redistributing those 2 votes, Space moved into a tie for last with Latin American, each with 6 votes.  Given no way to break this tie, both were eliminated.
– After redistributing those 12 votes, Polar Regions and International Obligations received 6 of them each.  Since Polar Regions was already ahead of International Obligations by 2 votes, Polar Regions wins with a narrow majority of 17 out of the 32 votes. 
(While 38 delegates submitted ballots, only 32 of them ranked the LD topics).

Proposed topic papers:

Papers released to Voting Delegates on May 8; ballot due May 22

Lincoln-Douglas Resolution Timeline (as of 2022-2023 season)

• Early June – Announce the topic area for the year as per the Topic Rotation bylaw

• Solicit four topic papers (Due May 1^st); Advertise community members to submit topic papers

• May 1^st – Topic papers are due. If less than 6 are submitted then select topic papers from previous years, if more than 6 then vote using ranked choice.

• May 8^th – Topic papers will be distributed alongside a ballot for a vote.

• May 22^nd – Topic paper ballots are due.

• May 25^th – The topic paper will be announced.

• May – The topic committee will begin considering needed modifications at least 3 of the wordings from the topic paper; LD Chair will solicit volunteers to help with research; LD Chair will assign sub-topic papers to be written on potential changes to topic wordings.
  
  Committee will decide on at least 3 wordings to submit for the ballot

• June 8^th – Ballot opens with at least three resolution options.

• June 22^nd – Resolution ballot is due.
  A rank choice voting system will be used to determine the winning topic.

• July 1^st – Resolution is announced.

Experimental Events

1. All proposals for any experimental event at the National Tournament must be submitted for consideration to the National Council by April 1.  Proposals must include event name, rules, rationale and names and affiliations of authors.
2. National Council will select worthy proposals to submit to the NFA Student Assembly at the National Tournament.
3. The Student Assembly, if it chooses to do so, will pick from Executive Council submissions an Experimental Event for implementation at the following year’s National Tournament.

A maximum of one (1) experimental event may be implemented in any tournament year.  The experimental events will not be part of sweepstakes or pentathlon at the National Tournament.  Other appropriate elements of the NFA Constitution, By-laws, and Code of Ethics will apply to the experimental event.  An implemented experimental event cannot be added to the slate of regular NFA events unless it constitutionally replaces another event.  Execution of the experimental event is contingent upon available space.

Year	Host	Event	Champion
1996	Western Illinois	Argumentative Interp	August Benassi – Bradley
1997	Ball State	Reader’s Theatre	No entries
1999	Eastern Michigan	Dramatic Dialogue	Jill Valentine – Bradley
2007	Berry	Original Shakespeare	Paul Gilleland- Wisconsin-Eau Claire
2008	Tennessee State	Biographical Informative	Stan Polit-Northwestern
2009	Drury / Missouri State	Editorial Impromptu	Stan Polit-Northwestern
2012	Ohio	Forensics Criticism	Jeremy Johnson-Ripon