Policy debate competitions in the United States

There are several venues of competition for policy debate.

Tournaments

Most high school debaters debate in local tournaments in their city, state or nearby states. Hundreds of such tournaments are held at high schools throughout the US each weekend during the debate season.

A small subset of high school debaters, mostly from elite public and private schools, travel around the country to tournaments in what is called the 'national circuit.' Major national circuit tournaments include the Glenbrooks at Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South High Schools in the North Shore area of Chicago, the Barkeley Forum at Emory University, and the Heart of Texas tournament at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas.

Championships

High school

• The high school debate tournament generally considered to be the national circuit championship is the Tournament of Champions held at the University of Kentucky.
• For non-national circuit debaters the national championship is generally considered to be the national tournament of their sponsoring organization, either
  • the National Speech and Debate Tournament of the National Forensic League or
  • the Grand National Tournament of the National Catholic Forensic League.
• The largest high school debate tournament by entry is the Harvard Invitational at Harvard University.

College

There is no single unified national championship in college debate; the National Debate Tournament (NDT), the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) and the American Debate Association (ADA) all host national tournaments.

Institutes

Highly competitive debaters often attend summer institutes ranging from one or two weeks to two or more months. Institutes exist at Dartmouth, Northwestern, the University of Kentucky, the University of North Texas, Michigan State University, University of Texas - Austin, and the University of Michigan, and Concordia among others.

External links

High school debate tournaments

• The Harvard Debate Tournament