Policy vs LD Series Part 1: Partnerships
By: Jaya Nayar
I’m writing this article to explain some of the benefits of Policy vs LD, as a way of helping decide which type of debate is best for you. While these two activities are becoming more and more similar, there are a few differences to explore that could influence what type of debate you end up doing.
From 8th to 11th grade, I competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. I wasn’t really enjoying LD, but really loved Policy after doing a little bit of it in 11th grade. This year, I chose to permanently switch to Policy. Even though I chose Policy, I do believe LD has many benefits that could suit some better than others.
These articles will be published as a series, so the content will be spread out across 4 different articles. This is the 1st article in the series.
Here are the links to the other 3 articles:
https://www.girlsdebate.org/general-resources-1/2020/2/6/policy-vs-ld-series-part-3-speech-format
https://www.girlsdebate.org/general-resources-1/2020/2/13/policy-vs-ld-series-part-4-research-2
Partnerships
The first major (and obvious) difference is that LD is 1 v 1, whereas in Policy, you have a partner.
Policy benefits: In the workplace, we will inevitably be put in positions where working with others is necessary. I believe having a partner is hugely beneficial since it teaches you social and interpersonal skills as you’re forced to collaborate with someone else in order to win rounds. It’s not always easy because you and your partner can have incompatible strategic visions, different styles of argumentation, and mismatched work expectations; however, I think learning to communicate through these problems is extremely valuable and can serve you for the rest of your life. For a student like me, this has been particularly valuable since in most of my classes we’re only assigned individual work projects. As such, debate has been a place where I’ve been able to better my cooperative abilities. Additionally, having a partner has been so much fun. You get to share the joy of every win, experience together the frustration of losing a round you should’ve won, and mess around between debates. It takes the pressure of winning off your shoulders since a partner can emotionally support you through every round, and offer you advice during the round on what strategic decisions you should make.
LD benefits: At the same time, for some, working with a partner can be too stressful in a hyper-competitive activity that functions under tight time constraints. Even if in the real world working with others is necessary, learning to collaborate under such intense circumstances where sentences are being spat at 300 words per minute is not a necessity. Additionally, mismatched work expectations can be an insurmountable barrier when one partner isn’t willing to put in the same effort as the other. Finally, if your school doesn’t have multiple kids invested in debate, only LD truly allows for the existence of independent teams. Technically hybrid teams can compete in Policy (hybrid teams are those with individuals from different schools, usually due to a lack of partner availability), but they are not allowed to go to the Tournament of Champions, and at many tournaments cannot break (or even enter).