Author: Lawrence Zhou

The 2020 September/October Lincoln-Douglas debate topic is, Resolved: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory.

The 2020 September/October Public Forum debate topic is, Resolved: The United States federal government should enact the Medicare-For-All Act of 2019.

The topics that will be used in Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debate at VBI 2020 have been finalized for all locations. Lincoln-Douglas VBI Philadelphia (June 27 – July 10): Resolved: The United States ought to provide a federal jobs guarantee. VBI Los Angeles Session 1 (July 12 – July 31): Resolved: States ought to ban […]

The NSDA has released the potential LD topics for 2020-2021, and this season voting will look different. In previous years the NSDA released a list of 10 topics and over the summer voters would rank their top three for each topic slot. The first choice for nationals was assigned first, then March/April, working backwards to […]

Lawrence Zhou was the 2014 NSDA National Champion. He now works as an assistant coach for The Harker School and is the Director of Publishing and Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the Victory Briefs Institute. The Opinions Expressed In This Post Are Those of the Author And Not Necessarily Those Of Victory Briefs. I penned an article […]

Congratulations to St. Mary’s School’s Jo Spurgeon for winning the 2020 NSDA National Tournament. In finals, Jo defeated Jackson’s Shreyaa Nagajothi. In semifinals, Jo defeated Charlotte Catholic’s David Edwards and Shreyaa defeated Bellarmine College Prep’s Eric Gottlieb. Full pairings can be found here.

The 2020 National Tournament Lincoln-Douglas debate topic is, Resolved: The intergenerational accumulation of wealth is antithetical to democracy.

The 2020 National Tournament Public Forum debate topic is, Resolved: On balance, charter schools are beneficial to the quality of education in the United States. A total of 310 coaches and 474 students voted for the resolution. The winning resolution received 59% of the coach vote and 58% of the student vote.

Congratulations to Lexington’s Evan Li for winning the 2020 Tournament of Champions. In finals, Evan defeated Valley’s Animesh Joshi on a 3-0 decision (Castillo, Davenport, Li). Congratulations to Strake Jesuit’s Zion Dixon for being top speaker. Full results and pairings can be found here. Links to livestreams of rounds can be found here.

Victory Briefs is excited to announce our new podcast “Next Off”! The podcast will feature VBI Executive Director Chris Theis, VBI Researcher and Squads Coach Jacob Nails, and VBI Director of Publishing Lawrence Zhou. We’ll be discussing trends and arguments in contemporary circuit Lincoln-Douglas debate on episodes every other week.  Our first episode is already […]