Dear Coach,

Your forensics squad is cordially invited to the Shawnee Mission East Invitational Forensics Tournament on Friday, February 21st and Saturday, February 22nd, 2020. This year we will be offering Congressional debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate, and Public Forum debate on Friday. We will also offer the following Saturday events: Informative Speaking (10 minute version), Original Oratory, Domestic Extemp, Foreign Extemp, Impromptu, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, POI (Program of Oral Interpretation), Prose, and Poetry.

On Friday, there will be two sessions of Congress and four rounds of Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Public Forum Debate. On Saturday, speech and interp events will have three preliminary rounds followed by a final round. Enclosed are the tournament rules and regulations in addition to a tournament entry form. The tournament entry form is just for payment purposes; please submit entries through this link: http://smeforensics.tabroom.com  

Please submit entries by Monday, February 17th at 5pm (entry fees will be frozen at this point). You can make . your own drops and name changes until Wednesday, February 19th at 5pm. Contact me directly to let me know about drops/changes after Wednesday at 5pm. You may enter what you’d like, but be aware that I might ask you to adjust your entry if your numbers are too high, and/or bring a judge. Our squad is smaller this year so we likely will not be able to accommodate huge entries. Reciprocal obligations will be honored. Sweeps will be determined by each school’s best 18 Saturday entries, limited to the top 2 in each event, at the conclusion of prelims. Finals will be cumulative. Entries will be accepted and extras granted in the order they are received, with preference given to schools that have given us extras, schools that host tournaments to which East has attended, EKNSDA schools, schools that host tournaments to which we were invited.

We look forward to hosting your squad at this year’s tournament!

Thanks,

Trey Witt                                    

Forensics Coach              

SCHEDULE

Congress, LD, PFD: Friday, February 21st

Registration 2:00

Congress Session 1 3:30-5:00

Congress Session 2 5:15-6:45                       

LD/PFD Round 1 3:30                

LD/PFD Round 2 4:30                

LD/PFD Round 3 5:30                

LD/PFD Round 4 6:30                                  

Awards ASAP (cafeteria)    

Individual Events: Saturday, February 22nd

Round 1 8:00 (extemp draw 7:45)  

Round 2 9:30 (extemp draw 9:15)   

Round 3 11:00 (extemp draw 10:45)     

Finals 1:30 (extemp draw 1:15)        

Awards ASAP (auditorium)                                                                                                                                    

OTHER RULES AND REGULATIONS: 

• Congress will use the 2nd EKNSDA docket of the season. 

• LD will use the NSDA January/February topic. PFD will use the NSDA February topic.

• Internet will be allowed in extemp and debate events following NSDA’s pilot rules (no contact with outside competitors or coaches).

• Events will follow KSHSAA rules (except Congress and PFD will follow NSDA rules). We reserve the right to resolve any conflict as we see fit. 

• Judges may time, or not time. We don’t care.

• Medals will be awarded to the top six speakers in each event.  Three sweepstakes awards will be given based on the cumulative points of each school’s top two entries (based on prelim scores only) in each event, limited to 18 total entries.

• We will try our best to keep 10 minute events at sections of no more than 8 and all other events at sections no more than 10.

• For Saturday events, the posted speaking order must only be followed in extemp. Finalists should try to follow the posted speaking order unless they double break.

• Students may only enter 1 event on Friday and up to 3 events on Saturday (at their own risk). When the posted round time is over, it’s over. Students may not double enter in the same event. Students may not perform the same selection in different events, or selections/speeches they have competed with in previous years. Students may not be entered in both FX and DX.

• Coaches/sponsors will be on standby to judge. Tab will be open.

• Final placement in debate will be determined by W/L record, head to head, speaker points, opp record, opp speaks, coin flip. Breaks on Saturday will be determined by lowest cumulative ranks from rounds 1-3. We won’t tab quality points. We will try to truncate scores above a 5 to 5 if tabroom allows. Ties will be broken on reciprocals and opposition ranks then raw scores. Final placement will be based on cumulative score of the 3 prelim rounds and 3 finals judges. Ties will be broken in the following order: lowest total ranks in finals, judges’ preference in finals for a 2 way tie, reciprocal ranks in finals for more than a 2 way tie, reciprocal ranks in all rounds for more than a 2 way tie, dropping 1 high and 1 low score, prelim seed, coin flip.

• Extemp questions will be written from news sources no earlier than December 2019.