1AR

The 1AR, or First Affirmative Rebuttal, is the sixth speech in a Team Policy debate round and is the third speech in a Lincoln Douglas debate round. For Team Policy debate it lasts five minutes, as with the other rebuttal speeches. For Lincoln Douglas debate, it lasts four minutes. There is no cross-examination following the 1AR.

In Team Policy, the 1AR is generally considered the hardest Affirmative speech in the round. This is because it immediately follows the Negative block, the first Affirmative speaker has only five minutes to respond to up to thirteen minutes of Negative argumentation. Thus, 1ARs may be quite fast-paced, and often rely heavily upon clump-and-dump.