Novice Policy Info

Novice Judges:

Novice debaters deserve quality judges. If you want to enter a high school debater as a judge for novice rounds, they must be a junior or senior with significant experience at debate tournaments. Please stress to current high school debaters that judging in novice is a serious responsibility; they must also write up a judge philosophy on tabroom.com.

Qualification:

To qualify for novice debate, both debaters on each team should be in their 1st year of competitive high school debate. If not, they should be entered in the varsity division, NOT the novice division.

Examples for clarification:

I have a team where one or both of the debaters competed in middle school, but they are in their 1st year of high school competition. Are they considered novice? Yes

I have a team where one or both of the debaters competed in LD or public forum in high school, but it is their 1st year doing policy debate. Are they considered novice? No

Argument limitations:

In the novice policy division, teams are restricted to using the NDCA novice evidence packet. Teams cannot create new off-case positions using evidence from the packet; we believe that violates the spirit of the packet, which is creating balanced, prepared debates. Novice judges will be notified of this policy. Please email me before the tournament with any questions. I don't want the novice division to turn into a "gotcha" new argument race.

Link to the NDCA Novice Evidence Packet:

NDCA Novice Packet