Debate Rules

Judges

All judges in Policy and LD debate must have a paradigm on Tabroom.com. Judges without paradigms will not count towards a school’s judging obligation. Schools that have judges without paradigms may also lose judge preferences.

Strike Card procedures

Depending on judge availability, we will offer strike cards starting in the quarters of varsity policy and varsity LD. Please make sure you are ready to fill out your card when the schedule indicates they will come out. Failure to complete the strike card in a timely manner will result in the tabroom program randomly striking a judge or judges.

Evidence Sharing (all debate events)

All debate events should have an email speech doc chain set up BEFORE the competition begins (IE, it should be ready to go by the start time of the event.) The competitors and judges all must be included on the speech doc chain.

Decision Time (all debate events)

There will be a decision time in all debate events. Decision time simply means there will be a deadline by which the judge must make a decision in each debate. Each round’s decision time deadline is based on the Tabroom pairing start time. If the judge does not enter a decision in tabroom by the decision time, it is within the Tabroom’s power to flip a coin to determine the winner of that debate. We do intend to enforce this but hope we don't have to.

For example, in a policy prelim with 120 minutes for decision time, if the Tabroom pairing start time is 8am, the judge must enter the decision into Tabroom by 10am or the tabroom will flip a coin to determine the winner. Oral critiques can still take place after the decision deadline and written feedback on Tabroom can be edited until the end of the entire tournament. It is very important to note that the decision time does not change if the debate starts late. There is an incentive for the students and judge(s) to begin the debate at the Tabroom pairing start time and to exchange evidence via email chains throughout the debate and after the debate in a timely manner. Coaches, please make sure the people judging for your school are aware of the use of decision times and start their debates on time. Decision times will be included on the schedules for all events. Use of decision time has been incredibly successful in the high school and college debate communities. Of course, please feel free to vote well in advance of decision time too. The decision time includes grace time for tech issues. If a team’s technological issues take up more than 10 minutes total of the allotted decision time, the judge should forfeit the team experiencing the technical delays.

Evidence/Ethics Violations

If a team believes an opponent committed an evidence or other ethics violation, the accusing team should stop the debate and ask the judge to adjudicate the challenge.

This type of challenge includes the following situations:

· a team reads evidence is that fabricated

· a team reads evidence that is meaningfully altered to change the author’s original meaning

· a team misrepresents how much evidence they have read in a debate, such as improperly highlighting their evidence, “clipping cards” (the team says they read more than they actually did by clipping a card short of the indicated end), or “cross reading” (the team skips words or sentences in the middle of the text, but indicates that they read all the highlighted words)

· a team receives argument assistance or reads or responds to communications from a coach or other person after the debate has commenced, whether verbal or electronic, including the transfer of evidence after the round starts.

.Or anything similar to the above

The accusing team will explain to the judge what alleged violation is being asserted. The judge will evaluate the violation based on the evidence available to the judge. The judge should remind the accusing team that if the judge does not believe the opposing side committed a violation or cannot determine it based on the evidence provided, the accusing team will lose the debate. At this point, the accusing team should have an opportunity to withdraw their challenge without consequence. Ultimately students need to be aware that if they raise an ethics challenge and the judge does not find or agree an ethics violation occurred or cannot determine if one occurred, that the accusing students lose the debate.

If the judge finds that an ethics or evidence violation was committed, the offending team will be assigned a loss. If a single team member committed the violation, that debater will receive zero speaker points. The judge may assign speaker points to the non-offending debater. If the violation occurs prior to the non-offending team member delivering a speech, the judge may award points based upon the cross-examination, if applicable. If the non-offending team member has not delivered a speech or participated in a cross-ex, then the tab room will assign the average of the non-offending debater’s speaker points from prior debates. Any decision to challenge evidence violations or unethical behavior must be made during the round in which the infraction occurred before the judge submits a decision. No challenge can be made to conduct committed in any round after the ballot has been submitted. The judge assigned to the round will decide the challenge made in the round based solely on the evidence submitted by the teams in the round. No appeal, modification or reversal of the judge’s decision regarding the challenge or the consequences resulting from the challenge is permitted.

Policy Debate

Varsity, junior varsity, and novice policy debate divisions will be switch-side, cross-examination style, with an 8-3-5 format, 10 minutes of prep time. Varsity debaters should only include your finest competitors. Policy debaters may not enter any other tournament event.

The policy topic for the 2022 Glenbrooks is Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity.

Right now, there will be seven preliminary rounds in varsity policy. Varsity policy will break to double-octofinals (sextos). Octafinals and subsequent elimination rounds will take place on Monday at the Renaissance Northshore. Please note that the tournament has discretion to make changes to the schedule based on entries.

Appropriate disclosure is required within five minutes of the check in time. Appropriate disclosure includes disclosure of the advantages and plan text if the affirmative has been read before. If not, the team should let the negative know that it is a new affirmative. Negative teams should disclose previous 2NRs.

In order to increase the quality of the judging pool in policy, we are instituting an entourage rule for policy. Any adult who coaches teams at the tournament that is capable of judging must be in the pool for at least 2 rounds and available to judge elimination debates they are obligated for. Please note that we will not know that we need to order you food if you are not in the judging pool.

Novice Policy

Teams competing in novice policy must use the 2022-2023 NDCA novice packet.

Lincoln-Douglas Divisions

Lincoln-Douglas will include Varsity and junior varsity divisions, with NSDA rules and time limits. Varsity LD debaters should include only your finest competitors. LD debaters may not enter into any other tournament event. The November/December NSDA Lincoln-Douglas topic will be used. As of now, there will be seven preliminary rounds in Varsity Lincoln-Douglas. As of now, varsity LD will break into double-octofinals. Octafinals and subsequent elimination rounds will occur on Monday. Please note that the tournament has the discretion to change the schedule based on entries and other factors.

There will be six preliminary rounds in the JV division of LD. This division will break to octofinals, assuming the numbers continue to remain consistent with previous years. We reserve the right to break into octos.

Appropriate disclosure is required within five minutes of the check in time. Appropriate disclosure includes disclosure of the advantages and plan text if the affirmative has been read before. If not, the team should let the negative know that it is a new affirmative. Negative teams should disclose previous 2NRs.

In order to increase the quality of the judging pool in LD, we are instituting an entourage rule for LD. Any adult who coaches teams at the tournament that is capable of judging must be in the pool for at least 2 rounds and available to judge elimination debates they are obligated for. Please note that we will not know that we need to order you food if you are not in the judging pool.

Public Forum

Public Forum will be an open division using NSDA time limits. Please note, we are using the new NSDA speech and prep time rules for Public Forum.

All decisions made by the judge in the debate are final - we will not listen to protests. If you think you need to challenge something done by the other team, then do it in the debate through the judge.

Public Forum debaters may not enter any other tournament event. The November NSDA public forum topic will be used. The Public Forum division will have seven rounds and will break to triple octafinals. This is subject to change based on entries and other factors.

In order to increase the quality of the judging pool in policy, we are instituting an entourage rule for PF. Any adult who coaches teams at the tournament that is capable of judging must be in the pool for at least 2 rounds and available to judge elimination debates they are obligated for. Please note that we will not know that we need to order you food if you are not in the judging pool.

Congressional Debate

There will be multiple chambers of approximately 20. After prelims there will be a semifinal and final session. NSDA rules and time limits will apply; see the NSDA website www.speechanddebate.org for further details.

Each school may enter a maximum of twenty (20) Congressional debaters to start. Based on numbers, the tournament may grant extra spots per school. The Glenbrooks tabroom staff will apportion the chambers and assign committees. Congressional debaters may not enter any other event.

Each school may submit a maximum of three (3) pieces of legislation, but no more than one

(1) per committee (economics, public welfare, foreign policy). Legislation must be in the proper NSDA format and uploaded on Tabroom.com by October 19th. Please only upload legislation on Tabroom.com. We are unable to accept late legislation.

Legislation will be released by October 26th.

Please see the template for Congress legislation on the NSDA website

at: http://www.speechanddebate.org/congress. Legislation is expected to be of sound quality and the tournament personnel reserve the right to exclude legislation that does not meet that standard. It is each school’s responsibility to check the Tabroom.com website for the legislative packet.

Congressional Debate competition will conclude on Sunday. It is each school’s responsibility to make sure they have adequate judging for Sunday regardless of whether their school is competing in the elimination rounds. We can not make exceptions to this policy.