SCU Novice Festival

Santa Clara University and Notre Dame San Jose High School

May 12, 2018

Hello Coaches,

The SCU Debate Society and Notre Dame San Jose Speech and Debate cordially invite you to the SCU Novice Festival, held at Santa Clara University, May 12, 2018. This will be a NOVICE only tournament for high school students only. If you are a middle school competitor, we encourage you to attend the Peter Burnett middle school tournament held May 19^th.

The SCU Novice Festival is open to all novice high school students. For the purposes of this tournament, a novice competitor must meet all the following criteria 1) a high school student, 2) in their first year of speech and debate, and 3) has not advanced to elims in the event they are competing in. If a novice student has advanced in speech, but would like to try debate for the first time, they may do so.  

This tournament is meant to give newer and younger speech and debate students one last chance to practice before the school year ends. This tournament will also give varsity competitors a chance to judge and provide feedback to younger competitors. Varsity speech and debate students in at least their sophomore year of high school will be allowed to judge.

Web Registration

Entries will only be accepted on-line at http://www.tabroom.com. You can click on the tournament name from the Tabroom homepage to register. You can also search for the tournament by entering "SCU Novice Festival" into the search box. It will take you a few minutes to set up your school's account, but once that is done, the system is a breeze. Plus, the system will save all your judges and competitors - so when you enter the next tournament that uses this system, you will not have to type the judges and competitors names again.

Deadlines 

The system will accept entries until Friday, May 11^th, 2018. Drops will be accepted until May 11^th, 2018. Make drops and adds on the web page after that up until the tournament begins. All space in debate and events will be allocated on a first come, first served basis; register early. 

Fees: All fees will be waived for this event. 

Topics: 

L/D Debate Topic: NSDA Mar/Apr topic  

Policy Debate Topic: National topic on Education

Public Forum: NSDA April Public Forum Topic.              

Parli Topics will be announced 20 min prior to the start of each round, and will mostly be pulled from current events.

Patterns

Debate Pattern: Policy, Parliamentary, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Events Pattern: Extemporaneous/Dramatic Interpretation /Expository/Original Prose Poetry / Oratorical Interpretation/ Impromptu /Original Oratory /Humorous Interpretation/Thematic Interpretation and Duo Interpretation.  

Please note that Original Oratory, also known as Persuasive Speaking, will include both Original Oratory and Original Advocacy. Extemporaneous will include both Domestic and International, they will not be separated. All Individual Events will be combined into one pattern to make the schedule more efficient.  Double entries in Events are allowed but be warned that it may be a challenge to make it between rooms. Double enter events at your own risk. We may not be able to accommodate double entered students who miss rounds.

General Tournament Rules

The tournament will consist of 3 preliminary debate rounds and 3 preliminary speech rounds. Awards will be given to top students in each event.

SCU Novice Scrimmage

8:00-9:00am – Registration in Kenna Hall

9:00am-10:00am – IE Round 1

10:00am-11:00am - IE Round 2

11:00am-12pm - IE Round 3

1pm-2pm - Debate Round 1

2pm-3pm - Debate Round 2

3pm-4pm - Debate Round 3 

Schedule may be adjusted depending on size of tournament. Rounds will be moved up if possible.