Welcome to the

Highland Mega Novice Ram Jam

Tournament

The Mega Novice provides competition in speech events on Friday and debate events on Saturday for first year competitors. Features of the Mega Novice include:

Open tabroom to all coaches who would like to see results, assist with ballot entry, and learn to use Tabroom.com

• Varsity debaters are permitted and encouraged to judge
• No drop fees!
• Lots of trophies
• Pre-release of extemp questions
• All UHSAA events offered, including SPAR!

Schedule

Friday - congress and speech events

3:30 PM Round 1, Session 1 Congress

5:00 PM Round 2

5:30 PM Session 2 Congress

7:30 PM Round 3

Saturday - debate events

8:00 AM Round 1

9:30 AM Round 2

11:00 AM Round 3

12:30 PM Final round for all debaters with a record of 2-1 or better

Fees

Fees are $4 per entry, and the school fee is $30 for those schools attending both days. If your school is attending for only one day, please contact the tournament director to adjust your invoice to $15 for the school fee.

There will be no drop fees or nuisance fees, however fees will freeze the Monday prior to the tournament. This means that any fees added to your entry after that point will not be credited, even if the entry is removed from the tournament. In other words, make sure your entry is accurate before Monday.

Awards

Awards will be given to approximately the top third of finishers in all events. In debate events, this will be all debaters who finish prelims with a record of 2-1 or better.

Events

On Friday, events include impromptu, oratory, extemp, spar, interps (HI and DI), informative, and congressional debate.

On Saturday, events include policy, LD, and public forum.

Rules

Events will follow norms and rules specified by the UHSAA and the Speech and Debate Association.

Policy debaters are expected to follow the novice policy rules described by the UHSAA. This includes limiting arguments to the provided case list.

SPAR will be judged as a ranked speech events, not win/loss.

Topics and Legislation

LD topic: Resolved: In the United States, reporters ought to have the right to protect the identity of confidential sources.

Note from tournament director: The decision to NOT use the novice topic on civil disobedience is intentional. All debaters should be prepared on the National Service topic.

PF topic: Resolved: The United States should accede to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea without reservations.

Policy topic: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its restrictions on legal immigration to the United States.

Extemp topics: Extemp topics used for this tournament can be dowloaded here.

Congress legislation: The congress docket can be downloaded from the Utah Debate Coaches’ Association: http://www.utahdebatecoaches.org/Students/congress-legislation

Double Entry

Double entry is permitted in speech events on Friday. Those doing congress are not permitted to double enter.

Judges

Varsity debaters may judge.