CSU, Fullerton Rookie Policy Practice Tournament– October 16, 2021 

October 11, 2021

Dear District One and Policy Debate Community: 

California State University, Fullerton’s coaching staff is inviting you to a one-day practice/rookie tournament for rookie/novice policy debaters on Saturday, October 16, 2021. The day, which will start with an affirmative lecture followed by a negative lecture will consist of two debate rounds, assuring each team can have one affirmative and one negative round. 

The D1 committee (made up of Eric Maag, Jeanette Rodriguez, Joel Salecdo, and Erika Thomas) originally planned to offer this tournament in September but because several squads were finalizing their team rosters in September and still introducing their students to the activity, it became necessary to push it back. The tournament will be run on the NSDA Campus. Members of the CSUF MS/HS tabulation room along with Eric Maag will lead the coordination of instruction and tabulation that day. 

The tournament is free – no registration costs – as long you can send the appropriate judge coverage for your teams. We are specifying limited evidence use from the American Debate Association packet to be used during this tournament (below).

Please consider sending any rookie/incoming-novice students from your clubs, co-curricular courses, or public speaking/argumentation courses. If students can only attend parts of the day (e.g. just the instruction portion or just the competition), we will do our best to accommodate them. If you have interested competitors but are short judging, let me know and we can brainstorm options. The easiest solution is paying a $50 (1 team) -$100 entry fee (2 teams) so I can hire additional judges. However, contact me if you cannot afford these fees.

Regarding judging, please send high-quality judges who are also nice, friendly, encouraging, and value their role as a teacher or instructor. We want students to leave this day excited about our activity and well-versed on what to expect at future intercollegiate policy tournaments (or other intercollegiate tournaments for other styles of debate). The varsity debaters, graduate assistant coaches, coaches and directors from all of our programs make excellent instructive judging during and after these rounds. 

The rest of our tournament information is included below. Feel free to direct any preliminary questions to me.

Thanks,

Erika, Shanara, LaToya, Max and the rest of the CSUF policy coaching squad

Erika M. Thomas, Ph.D.                                 

Tournament Director & Co-Director of Forensics 

California State University, Fullerton

erthomas@fullerton.edu

Objectives and pedagogical goals:

·      Provide FREE high-quality, practice and virtual competition for District 1

·      Assist recruitment and retention tool for programs with new, novice debaters

·      Teach students key evidence, basic policy debate structure, how to use evidence in rounds, how to develop the arguments, and the key points of clash for this year’s intercollegiate policy resolution

·      Provide a mini tournament-based debate experience for competitors with little or no training in competitive intercollegiate policy debate 

Registration & Prefs: You can register at: http://d1rookieinvitational.tabroom.com Deadline to enter is October 14 at 11:59 pm pacific time.  

Format & Topic:

Teams are composed of 2 debaters each; 1 judge is needed per 2 entered teams. 3 prelim rounds. We will be using the 2021-2022 CEDA/NDT resolution.  Judges should pick a single winning team in each debate and use a 30-point speaker scale with decimals – no ties allowed.  

Debate/Structure Time limits:

1AC: 6 minutes 
2NC CX of 1AC: 3 minutes 
1NC: 6 minutes 
1AC CX of 1NC: 3 minutes 
2AC: 6 minutes 
1NC CX of 2AC: 3 minutes 
2NC: 6 minutes 
2AC CX of 2NC: 3 minutes 
1NR 4 minutes

1AR 4 minutes 
2NR 4 minutes
2AR 4 minutes 

5 minutes of preparation time per team. Total talk and prep time = 62 minutes per debate. 

Evidence: Any evidence from the ADA novice packet can be used during the tournament.

SCHEDULE: Saturday, October 16, 2021
10:00 am                     Welcome and Check in (Zoom/NSDA Campus)
10:30 am -12 pm         Round 1
12 pm – 1 pm              Lunch 
1 pm – 2:30 pm           Round 2 
2:45 pm – 4 pm           Round 3 
ASAP or 4:15 pm       Closing Ceremony/Speaker/Shout-outs