BELLARMINE RHETORIC CONGRESS TOURNAMENT

Hosted IN-PERSON at:

Bellarmine College Preparatory

960 W. Hedding St., San Jose, CA, 95126

Friday, May 6th - Monday, May 16th, 2022

Tournament Directors/Tabroom Staff: Xavier Liu, Sherwin Lai, Devansh Bansal, Neal Dwivedula, Jason Cappelloni

Executive Director: Mr. Cleary

Equity Officer: Xavier Liu

Tournament Helpdesk Number: +1 (408) 964-0688; Please TEXT before calling

Events Offered: Congressional Debate

Tournament website: http://bcprhetoriccongress.tabroom.com/ 

Registration: Only Bellarmine College Prep students who are taking Rhetoric in the 2nd Semester of their freshman year will be allowed to enter this intrasquad tournament. All other schools will be dropped from the tournament without notice or warning.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Announcements and Notifications

2. Notes for Students

3. Judging Instructions

4. Students' Instructions for Tabroom Accounts

The tournament schedule can be accessed by clicking on the "Schedule" page on the sidebar to the right. The schedule is now posted.

1. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NOTIFICATIONS

Both students and judges: Please be attentive about emails and Slack notifications. Sign up for “Live Updates” using the tab above - this will alert you with text or email notifications about new pairings/postings.

Announcements will take place over Canvas via the Rhetoric Canvas page.

2. NOTES FOR STUDENTS AND JUDGES

- Be in tournament attire (think dress-up day) on the days you are competing.

- Pairings for all rounds will be posted on Tabroom. The tournament schedule will be listed on a separate custom page on the side bar. Please make sure that you know which room you will be speaking or debating in. 

- ALL competition will take place in classrooms on campus. 

- Students and judges should be in their rooms 5 minutes prior to the start of the round to ensure that the round starts on time.

- To access comments, ballots, and results, you will need to use your Tabroom.com account. If you do not have a Tabroom account or do not know how to link your account to a competitor, please look under "Students' Instructions for Tabroom Accounts" below.

3. JUDGING INSTRUCTIONS

If this is your first time judging, please be sure to link your Tabroom account to a judge. Click on "Link your person to a judge" and search for yourself. There will be a page that pops up that lists all judges registered on Tabroom with your name. Please look for your name and "judges for: Bellarmine College Prep" and click to link yourself to that judge!

- It’s super important that you attend the round on the day that you are assigned to judge.

- Slack one of the Tournament Directors and Mr. Cleary at least an hour prior to the start of the round to let us know that you are still able to judge.

- When you log in to your Tabroom account, you should be taken to a page where you will see the round that you need to judge along with the words "START ROUND" in a green box.

- Before the round: Judges, you MUST PRESS “START ROUND” once you receive your ballot. Doing this alerts Tab that you have officially “picked up” your ballot and that the round has officially started. 

- You must submit your ranking, no later than 15 minutes after the round ends. Please do not delay the tournament by waiting to submit your rankings and comments at the same time. You can edit RFD/comments later even after you've submitted your rankings. 

- No show/forfeit procedure:

1. Take attendance at the start of the round. 

2. Note any missing individuals and alert/Slack Tab and Mr. Cleary. We will attempt to contact missing individuals and compel them to show up to the round.

- If something doesn't work or if the student still has not shown up by the listed start time, please start the round anyways! We can deal with the issue later.

- If the student has not shown up 30 minutes after the start of the session, please give the student an automatic "9" on the ballot and Slack Tab and Mr. Cleary. 

- There will be ONE (1) judge in each preliminary chamber and THREE (3) judges in the Final Chamber. DO NOT START until all judges are present.

- Judges, please record and comment on EACH speech. DO NOT wait until the very end of the session to start adding comments for each speaker. You should give points (1 - 6) for each speech, with 1 being a poor/deficient speech and 6 being an extremely good speech. Please award points in full integers (no 0.5, 0.25, or 0.1). Most speeches should be awarded at least 4 points or higher. Those given 3 points or lower should clearly have comments denoting why their speech is lacking. Reserve 2 point speeches for students who have severely deficient content or delivery issues. Reserve 1 point speeches for speeches which are blatantly sexist, homophobic, racist, etc. or are extremely short (less than 30 seconds).

- You as the judge will also be a Presiding Officer, UNLESS we have another Presiding Officer in the Room. Please set up a recency list randomly to call speakers forward and conduct cross-examination. The ONLY vote that should be taken in the very first preliminary session will be to conduct a vote to determine the docket for the three preliminary sessions.

- Each speaker should speak once in each session. NO speaker may speak twice unless each person has gone at least once or decides to forfeit their speech. A vote on the legislation must be taken at the end of each session. At no point will debate on legislation "rollover" into another session.

- At the end of the round, please submit your rankings within 15 minutes of the round. These rankings should follow Speech rankings, with 1 being the BEST and 9 being the WORST. You are only required to rank the Top 8 in each chamber. The remaining speakers will be ranked as 9th. There will be no Parliamentarian in preliminary rounds.

- If you do not know how to use your Congress ballot, please see this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mRkoDKh-Vc

4. STUDENTS' INSTRUCTIONS FOR TABROOM ACCOUNTS

You will need to use your Tabroom account to access judge RFDs and comments. If you already have a Tabroom account and have already linked your account to yourself, awesome! There's no need for you to read the rest of this. 

STEP 1: HOW TO CREATE A TABROOM ACCOUNT

1. On the main page of Tabroom.com, find the "Sign Up" button on the upper right corner of your screen. Click on that. (Ignore the first question which asks you whether you're an NSDA Coach or PKD Member. You are a student and are neither.) Keep scrolling down, which leads you to a page where you type in your email, first name, last name, phone number, password, etc... While you are only required to input information regarding your email, first and last name, and password, we also highly recommend that you provide your cellphone number and service provider because you can get live text updates of postings and tournament updates!

2. After you input all your information, click "Create login." This will lead you to a blank page that serves as your Tabroom account. If you see the words "Judging," "Competing," and "Your Account" on the right hand side of the web page, you are in the right place!

STEP 2: LINK YOUR ACCOUNT WITH A COMPETITOR

1. After you log in, click on your email in the top right corner. On the right hand side, scroll down to "Your Account" and click on "Link your person to a student."

2. That will bring you to a page that prompts you to search for yourself. Type your first and last name in the empty boxes and click "Search."

3. Please pick the correct person and link yourself to that student. Look for your name and "competes for: Bellarmine College Prep" and click to link yourself to that person!

4. Tab may also ask you to confirm that you want to link. Please make sure all information is correct and confirm the link. Please DO NOT link your account to anyone OTHER THAN YOURSELF.