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National Parliamentary Debate Invitational

2023 — Berkeley, CA/US

The National Parliamentary Debate Invitational

Hosted by Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley

November 11–12, 2023

IN PERSON @ UC BERKELEY (for real this time)

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Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley cordially invites you to participate in the fall semester’s premier parliamentary debate tournament, the National Parliamentary Debate Invitational, on November 11 and 12, 2023.

This tournament places a premium on providing a unique educational experience for all participants. It will feature an Open division and a Junior Varsity (JV) division, with each division guaranteed five preliminary rounds. All Open division rounds will be adjudicated by individuals holding a background in high school and/or college parliamentary debate. Following the conclusion of each round, judges will disclose the victor of the round and provide a constructive oral RFD of no more than fifteen (15) minutes in length.

There will be one topic area, to be announced, which will be used for at least one prelim round. The topic committee will consist of current debaters and coaches on or known to the PDB team.

We will also be hosting an equity forum on Friday night virtually, discussing issues of bias, microaggressions, and harassment in the debate community. We highly encourage everyone who can to participate.

Entry Limit:

The entry limit per school is 7 entries per division; if, for whatever reason, you feel that an exception should be made, please email calparli@gmail.com. We can accommodate a total of ~130 entries between both divisions.

Hybrid and Independent Eligibility:

We do allow hybrid and independent entries, just notify tournament administration about them before the entry deadline, by sending an email to calparli@gmail.com.

Junior Varsity Eligibility:

To compete in the Junior Varsity division, debaters must have no more than two years of prior debate experience.

Judge Requirements:

Each school will be required to provide 1 qualified judge for every two entries or fraction thereof. A single open-qualified judge can cover both an Open and a JV entry.

Open: A qualified judge is at least a high school graduate or equivalent AND a coach or former open debater. Experience in debate events outside of parliamentary debate is accepted. Any questions about what characterizes a qualified judge should be directed to calparli@gmail.com. Judges found to not meet judging qualifications will be removed from the judge pool, and schools will be charged relevant fees.

Junior Varsity: Anyone who is at least a high school graduate (or equivalent). Do not have to have debate experience, but they can. Anyone who satisfies the above Open requirements is also qualified to judge JV.

ALL judges will be required to provide a paradigm by Thursday, November 9, 2023, and judges are highly encouraged to give an oral Reason For Decision after the round.

Additionally, due to delays caused by ballot distribution in the past, we require that ALL JUDGES have individual Tabroom accounts set up prior to the tournament. The tournament will be using online ballots only.

Schools will be charged $50 for every judge without an individual Tabroom account linked to their entry at the start of the tournament. A team-wide Tabroom account that the judge can access is NOT sufficient; they must have an individual account and a paradigm. This does not apply to teams that have hired judges from the tournament. Please email calparli@gmail.com for any questions about this.

Tournament Announcements:

Tournament-wide announcements, such as topics for each round, will be posted on this document: to be inserted. We will also announce topics in the main auditorium.

Announcements regarding tournament logistics may be emailed to registered schools via Tabroom.

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Payment & Fees Tournament Fees:

The cost of competing in the 2023 NPDI will be $150 per entry. The cost of room reservations has gone up significantly :/

Any drops after November 8, 2023 will be assessed the full entry fees.

Schools may choose to pay a hired judge fee of $300.00 per uncovered entry.

Payment:

Payments should be made through PayPal to the account associated with calparli@gmail.com by end-of-day November 10, 2023. Email us if you have questions about payment logistics.

Invoices will be managed directly through Tabroom this year. You can view fees due and access your invoice under the “Fees” header when viewing your tournament registration.
Please write in the notes/title of the payment: [School - NPDI Entry Fees Payment]
If you need an invoice directly from Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley, email calparli@gmail.com to request one, no later than November 5, 2023. Please ensure that all entries and judges are finalized before making this request.
If penalties are imposed for missing judges/paradigms, those will be added to Tabroom invoices during the tournament. All schools should check the “Fees” section after November 12 and pay any outstanding dues.
If you have any questions, contact calparli@gmail.com.

Judge Penalty:

If a team's judge misses any rounds, the team will be charged $50.00 for each missed round. This does not apply to teams that have hired judges from the tournament.

Schools will be charged $50.00 for every judge without an individual Tabroom account linked to their judge entry by the start of the tournament. A team-wide Tabroom account that the judge has access to is NOT sufficient; they must have an individual account and a paradigm.

Fee Breaks:

Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley is firmly committed to expanding accessibility of debate. If our fees are financially prohibitive, please contact us at calparli@gmail.com. We tend to be very generous in awarding fee breaks, but we cannot help you if you do not contact us first. We expect that any team receiving a fee break will cover their entries with qualified judges.

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Competitor Rules

1. Prep Time:

During the twenty-five (25) minutes of prep time, debaters may hand-write arguments to bring into round, and they may consult whatever resources they would like. Printed materials, computers, phones, digital files, and Internet access are all allowed. They may not communicate with coaches and teammates.

Exceptions to these requirements can be made for the purposes of accessibility accommodations; email calparli@gmail.com to notify us of any specific accommodations we should account for. Potential rules violations will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the tournament staff.

2. In-Round Materials:

During each round, debaters may only utilize handwritten notes that they or their partner wrote during that round’s twenty-five (25) minutes of prep time. They may not access any notes that were prepared prior to that round’s topic announcement. They may not access any printed materials, or any notes that were hand-written or typed by a coach or other teammates.

3. Speech Times:

Speech times for all rounds will be 7-8-8-8-4-5. There is no protected time in any speech. There are no grace periods.

4. Rebuttals:

No new arguments may be made in the rebuttal speeches.

Points of order are allowed in rebuttals. Points of order will stop time.

5. Flex Time:

This tournament will utilize flex time, which is a small window of time before certain speeches that allows debaters to ask questions of the other team, consult their partner, and/or prepare arguments.

Flex time occurs during the round at the following intervals:

2 minutes of neg flex before the LOC
2 minutes of aff flex before the MG
1 minute of neg flex before the MO
1 minute of aff flex before the PMR

The team controlling flex is allowed to ask questions of the other team, but not the other way around. For example, during the neg flex before the LOC, the negative team may ask questions of the affirmative.

Please note that there is no flex time in between the MO and the LOR.

Debaters aren't required to use their flex time if they don't want to. They don't have to ask questions for the entire time or prep for the entire time; it's up to them.

Schedule

*Tentative Schedule, subject to change:

November 10, 2023

~5pm (especially tentative): Equity Forum

November 11, 2023

8:00 AM-8:30 AM: Registration

8:30 AM Topic Announcement, Round 1, Flight 1

9:25 AM Topic Announcement, Round 1, Flight 2

11:00 AM Topic Announcement, Round 2, Flight 1

11:55 PM Topic Announcement, Round 2, Flight 2

1:00 PM—2:45 PM Lunch

2:45 PM Topic Announcement, Round 3, Flight 1

3:40 PM Topic Announcement, Round 3, Flight 2

5:15 PM Topic Announcement, Round 4, Flight 1

6:10 PM Topic Announcement, Round 4, Flight 2

November 12, 2023

8:00 AM Topic Announcement, Round 5, Flight 1

8:55 AM Topic Announcement, Round 5, Flight 2

10:45 AM Topic Announcement, Elim 1

12:00 PM—1:30 PM Lunch/Awards

1:30 PM Topic Announcement, Elim 2

3:15 PM Topic Announcement, Elim 3

5:00 PM Topic Announcement, Elim 4

6:45 PM Topic Announcement, Elim 5

Past Results

NPDI I

September 8-9, 2012

Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, California

Champions: Saratoga Agrawal & Chiang

Finalists: Bishop O'Dowd Accinelli & Perl

NPDI II

November 16-17, 2013

Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, California

Champions: Dougherty Valley Konath & Wang

Finalists: Bishop O'Dowd Walsh & Zepeda

NPDI III

November 15-16, 2014