A flow template is just the column skeleton for a format, filled in before the round starts so you're not building structure live. Here's the layout for all five major formats.
Every format has a fixed number of speeches, in a fixed order, with fixed (or close to fixed) times. That means the column structure of your flow can be decided before the round ever starts — there's no reason to be drawing a grid while the first speaker is already talking.
Three concrete reasons: it saves the minute or two you'd otherwise spend drawing columns right as a round is about to begin; it means you can't accidentally miss a speech or mislabel one under pressure; and it makes your flow transferable — a coach or teammate looking at a properly labeled template can follow the round even if they weren't in the room.
Below is the short version of each format's column structure. Every one of these has its own full guide with exact speech times, a how-to-flow walkthrough for that specific format, and format-specific vocabulary — worth opening if you're setting up for that format for the first time.
Eight columns: Constructive, Rebuttal, Summary, and Final Focus, once for each side. Sides alternate speech-by-speech rather than one side going twice in a row.
Full Public Forum template & speech order →
Eight columns, but named by speech rather than by round: 1AC, 1NC, 2AC, 2NC, 1NR, 1AR, 2NR, 2AR. The negative gets two speeches in a row in the middle of the round (2NC into 1NR) before the affirmative gets the floor back — worth building into your template ahead of time so it doesn't catch you off guard.
Full Policy/CX template & speech order →
Five columns: AC, NC, 1AR, NR, 2AR. The shortest format by column count, but the 1AR has to cover both framework and case in four minutes — worth leaving it extra room on your template.
Full Lincoln-Douglas template & speech order →
Six columns: PMC, LOC, MG, MO, LOR, PMR. Since the topic is announced right before the round, there's no case to pre-fill — the template here is purely structural, not a place to write prep in advance.
Full Parli template & speech order →
Eight columns: three substantive speeches per side (1st, 2nd, 3rd), then both reply speeches — but the replies run in reverse order, Opposition before Proposition. This is the one format where getting the template order right ahead of time genuinely matters, since it's easy to flow the wrong side's reply into the wrong column if you haven't set it up beforehand.
Full World Schools template & speech order →
If you're sticking with paper: rule your page into as many columns as the format has speeches, label each one with the speech name and side before the round, and leave the widest columns for whichever speeches in that format run the longest or carry the most material (the 1AC/1NC block in Policy, for instance, or the AC/NC block in LD). Do this the night before a tournament for every format you're debating that day, not between rounds.
This is the one place a digital tool is a straightforward time save with no real tradeoff: pick your format in RoundFlow and the correct column layout — names, order, side colors, and per-speech timers included — is already built. For a tournament with a shared case across every round, Preflow lets you fill in that same template once, ahead of time, and have it appear automatically in every round of that tournament rather than rebuilding it round after round.
Free, no account needed. Pick a format and the columns are there.