Central Minnesota District Qualifier

for the 2023 National Tournament

Speech Information

2023 Central MN NSDA Speech Tournament

March 10 – Apple Valley High School
March 11 - Eagan High School

All Central MN NSDA schools are invited to participate in the Central Minnesota NSDA District Speech Tournament on March 10-11, 2023 at Apple Valley High School (Friday) and Eagan High School (Saturday). Once again, we will hold the tournament in conjunction with Southern Minnesota NSDA.

The NSDA has many important procedures in registering for the tournament that can seem daunting, especially for schools participating for the first time. Please make sure to thoroughly review the instructions on this website and in any email communications so that you are properly following each procedure. If at any time you have questions or need assistance with the registration process, please do not hesitate to contact Zach Prax at zachary.prax@district196.org.

Before The Tournament

1. Register at centralminnesota.tabroom.com by Friday, March 3rd, at the latest. No new entries will be allowed after this date. Teams will be allowed to make changes to their entries (drops and substitutions) on the registration website until Wednesday, March 8th; after that, all changes must be emailed to zachary.prax@district196.org. Please make sure to fully complete all portions of tournament registration, including submission of Original Oratory, POI, and Informative Speaking titles and all script information for interpretation events. Though there are due dates, I would appreciate your entry of contestants as early as possible so that the committee can make more informed decisions regarding round schedules.

2. Make sure that all competing students are NSDA members at least seven days prior to the tournament, and that your school has completed the annual Chapter Renewal process. The website will not allow non-members to register.

3. Be sure that you have paid all outstanding membership fees for new members. If you have not paid, you will need to pay these fees at tournament registration. A list of outstanding fees will be sent the week of the tournament.

4. Use the invoice provided on tabroom.com to request a check for entry fees. Local dues ($50) will need to be paid at registration in addition to entry fees if your school has not yet competed at a previous point in the 2022-2023 District Tournament Series.

To Bring To Registration:

1. A check to cover entry fees and local dues (if applicable). There is a $20 fee for each entry. There is also a $50 local dues fee if your school has not already paid it during LD/PF, Policy, or District Congress Tournaments. THE CHECK FOR ALL ENTRY/JUDGE FEES AND LOCAL DUES SHOULD BE MADE PAYABLE TO

Minnesota Debate Teachers Association
c/o Zach Prax
6200 140th Street W
Apple Valley, MN 55124

2. A separate check for any outstanding NSDA membership fees (if applicable). You will be emailed any amount due to the NSDA office approximately one week prior to the tournament. THE CHECK FOR ALL OUTSTANDING NSDA FEES SHOULD BE MADE PAYABLE TO:

National Speech and Debate Association
6600 Westown Parkway
Suite 270
West Des Moines, IA 50266

3. Completed Auto-Qualification Forms for students that are auto-qualified to the national tournament based on performance at the 2023 National Tournament.

4. (If applicable) All traveling speech championship trophies.

Other Required Items - not collected at registration, but must be on hand and immediately produced in case of protest:

1. Copies of all Original Oratory and Informative Speaking Scripts (see below for more information).

2. Copies of scripts for all interpretation events in accordance with the rules found in the NSDA District Tournament Manual.

2023 Site Information:

Friday's competition will be held at Apple Valley High School (14450 Hayes Road, Apple Valley MN 55124.)

Saturday's competition will be held at Eagan High School (4185 Braddock Trail, Eagan, MN 55123.) It will run in conjunction with the Eagan Wildcat Speech Tournament.

Tournament operations are conducted by the District Committee, but coaches are welcome in Tournament Headquarters with any questions or concerns at any point throughout the event. Results for rounds will be released on tabroom.com (to coaches only); results from each round will be released at some point AFTER the start of the next round.

Qualification to Nationals:

The Central Minnesota NSDA District continues to maintain Level Three Qualifier status. This means we are guaranteed three entries to attend the NSDA National Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona in each main speech and debate main event, as long as those events have the minimum number of entries established in the NSDA Unified Rules Manual.

Please email zachary.prax@district196.org with any questions or if you need assistance registering for the tournament.

Zach Prax
District Chair - Central Minnesota NSDA

SPEECH RULES AND PROCEDURES

The rules found on this page are not exhaustive. All students and coaches should consult the NSDA High School Unified Rules Manual (found at www.speechanddebate.org) to ensure they are meeting NSDA requirements. This page merely highlights important guidelines. If you need clarification on any rule, please email zachary.prax@district196.org BEFORE the first day of competition.

Note: each school will be permitted to bring a maximum of four entries in each main speech event (as long as they do not go over the quota it is allowed by its chapter strength). An individual student may enter no more than two speech and debate events (with the exception of Congress and Big Questions) at the NSDA District Tournament Series in a single year.

Tournament Format

Each entry is guaranteed a minimum of three preliminary rounds, and each entry will receive the same number of preliminary rounds as every other entry in the event. The number of preliminary rounds is determined by the total number of entries in the field for each event. Events with 28+ entries will have four preliminary rounds.

In each event, at least 25% of the field will advance to elimination rounds. The District Committee unanimously voted in 2021 to advance a minimum of 12 entries to semifinals, no matter the size of a particular event; the top six competitors will advance into the final round.

Each preliminary round will be judged by two judges. The semifinal round will be judged by a panel of three judges, and the final round will be judged by a panel of five judges. In accordance with the Unified Rules Manual, entries will be ranked with all preliminary ranks (dropping the lowest rank); new in 2022-2023, elimination round ranks will no longer be multiplied.

Fees

Each entry is $20.00 (this includes Duo Interpretation - both students in the duo add up to a $20 fee). In addition, you will need to pay the $50 local dues fee if you have not paid this in either debate event or in Congress.

General Rules

1. Time limits for speeches are as follows:

Extemporaneous Speaking:7 Minutes
Everything Else:10 Minutes

In addition, each event is given a 30 second "grace period". If the panel of judges all agree that an entry went beyond the time allowed by grace period, that entry is not allowed to get the "1"in the round.

2. No scripts or notes are permitted (with the exception of Program of Oral Interpretation, in which use of a manuscript is REQUIRED). In everything else, all speeches must be memorized.

3. All coaches and contestants are responsible for reading and understanding all rules pertaining to their events. All rules can be found in the Unified Rules Manual available at speechanddebate.org

Script Requirements in Main Interpretation Events (not including POI)

A cutting in each main interpretation event must be a single work of literature: one short story or one play or one novel or one or more poems. The district committee will not collect it at registration, but the original published source of any selection used in Drama, Humor, or Duo must be immediately available at the tournament as well as a complete script of the cutting used. A complete script of the cutting includes:

a. A photocopy of every page from which any line of the cutting is taken; pages are to be in the order in which they are performed.

b. All words used from the script should be highlighted (any words/lines not used should be left unmarked).

c. Any word changes (to eliminate profane language) and/or additions (for transition) must be indicated clearly in ink.

It is the affirmative duty of each coach and each student entered in NSDA Interpretation contests to ensure that the cutting performed meets NSDA rules.

Script Requirements in Program of Oral Interpretation

A cutting in POI must include at least two separate pieces of literature that represent at least two separate genres (prose, poetry, drama). The use of a manuscript is required. The original published source of any selection used in POI must be immediately available at the tournament as well as a complete script of the cutting used. A complete script of the cutting includes:

a. A photocopy of every page from which any line of the cutting is taken; pages are to be in the order in which they are performed.

b. All words used from the script should be highlighted (any words/lines not used should be left unmarked).

c. Any word changes (to eliminate profane language) and/or additions (for transition) must be indicated clearly in ink.

It is the affirmative duty of each coach and each student entered in NSDA Interpretation contests to determine that the cutting performed meets NSDA rules.

Script Requirements in Original Oratory and Informative Speaking

All entries in original oratory and informative speaking must have a script with them at the tournament in case of protest. The script must identify the quoted materials, state the number of quoted words, include a work cited page in A.P.A. or M.L.A. format (which includes published pictorial material in informative speaking), and both the student and the coach must attest by signature that the speech is the original work of the student. The Central Minnesota Committee will not collect scripts during registration, but you must have them available at all points during the tournament in case of protest.

Informative Speaking: Visual Aids

PLEASE REVIEW THE FOLLOWING AS SOME RULES DIFFER FROM MSHSL GUIDELINES. Audio/visual aids may or may not be used to supplement and reinforce the message. During the presentation, no electronic equipment is permitted. The use of live animals or any additional people as visual aids is not allowed during the speech. Items of dress put on and removed during the course of the presentation are considered costumes and may not be part of the contestant’s presentation. Visual aids may not violate law (weapons, drugs, etc.) The host school is not responsible for providing any facilities, equipment, or assistance in a contestant’s use of visual aids. Expedient set up and take down of aids is expected. If a visual aid displays published pictorial material, the source must be included in the works cited page but does not need to be cited orally.

Judges

Each school is required to provide one judge per every five entries or fraction thereof. All judges must be at least three years out of high school.

In order to facilitate the paneling of judges, all preliminary rounds are flighted with panels of two judges. This means that Friday could be a very long day. To make the tournament function, it is critical that each school completely fulfills their entire judge requirement. To help alleviate the long day for judges, it may be advisable to find multiple people to share a single judge obligation. For instance, two persons can share one judge slot by having Person A assigned to rounds 1A- 2B, and Person B assigned to rounds 3A- 4B. If you choose to do this, please make sure to clearly notate within tabroom.com the availability your judges have, as well as any schools they should not judge.

All judges will utilize electronic ballots through tabroom.com. In order to get through rounds as efficiently as possible, we ask that judges not write any comments; instead, judges will just need to submit ranks.

Central and Southern Minnesota NSDA will be sharing judges to ensure clean judge assignments.

Hospitality

A HUGE thank you to the Apple Valley and Eagan coaching staffs and administrations for their willingness to host this event.

A judges lounge will be provided both days of the tournament. Student concessions will be available on both days of the tournament.

Central Minnesota NSDA

District Speech Tournament

March 10th & 11th, 2023

Tournament Schedule

Friday March 10, 2023 (Apple Valley High School)

**Round 4 will only be run for those events needing additional preliminary rounds of competition in accordance committee-determined guidelines listed above (28+ entries in an event.) Central MN and Southern MN NSDA share the judging pool, so it is possible that some Central MN NSDA judges will be needed during Round 4. WE ARE GOING TO ATTEMPT TO DO ALL ROUND 4 EVENTS WITHIN ROUND 4A if needed - hopefully, there will be no "Round 4B" and everyone will go home early.

Saturday March 11, 2023 (Eagan High School)

**NOTE: Extemporaneous Speaking will be offset during the semifinal round to accommodate double entries...one extemp. speaking event will begin at 9:30, and the other extemp. speaking event will begin at 9:45. This scheduling will be determined and communicated right before or during the tournament.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KNOW BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT WHICH EVENTS ARE IN WHICH FLIGHTS. Speaking order in a round cannot be changed due to confusion regarding start times. Pattern assignments will be emailed to coaches the Sunday before the tournament.

ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT IN SEMIFINALS ON SATURDAY, ALL EVENTS RUN IN BOTH FLIGHTS. ALL EVENTS WILL HAVE ONE SEMIFINAL ROUND DURING FLIGHT A, AND ONE SEMIFINAL ROUND DURING FLIGHT B. DURING FINALS, ROUNDS WILL BE SPLIT BACK INTO THE ORIGINAL PATTERNS FROM FRIDAY. What this means: ALL ADVANCING SEMIFINALISTS MUST BE AT EAGAN HIGH SCHOOL ON SATURDAY FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF COMPETING AT THE 9:30 AM ROUND.

It is recommended that all competing entries arrive at the beginning of the tournament on both Friday and Saturday.