Elimination Round Information

Guidelines for Determining Elimination Rounds:

Any speech events with 12 or more entries will break to a final round. Any speech event with 24 or more entries will break to a next-in final as well. The final round will consist of 6 contestants, with the possibility of advancing 7 students in the case of a tie for sixth place. The next-in final round will also consist of 6 contestants, with the possibility of additional students advancing in the case of ties.

In Lincoln Douglas and Public Forum all competitors with winning records will advance to the elimination rounds. No entries without winning records will be eligible to advance to the elimination rounds.

As long as there are at least two preliminary chambers Congressional Debate will break to a final session consisting of 12-16 competitors depending on the number of entries.

Tie Breaking Procedures:

Speech Events- cumulative ranks followed by cumulative rating, reciprocals, cumulative adjusting rating (the highest and lowest rating will be discarded) and judges’ preferences to determine rankings after the preliminary rounds. The final and next-in rounds will be sudden death for all speech events except for Extemporaneous and Impromptu Speaking which will be carry over ranks and ratings from prelims. Sudden death rounds will use cumulative ranks, followed by judge preference, cumulative rating, reciprocals, and cumulative adjusting rating (the highest and lowest rating will be discarded) as tiebreakers. Where preliminary rounds are carried over the tiebreakers will be cumulative ranks (prelim and elim), ranks in finals/next-in finals, cumulative rating, reciprocals, cumulative adjusting rating (the highest and lowest rating will be discarded) and judges’ preferences.

Lincoln Douglas and Public Forum- the sequence shall be win/loss record, results of head-to-head debate, dropping of high/low speaker points, opponent’s record seed, and then random methodology.

Congressional Debate- Placement at the end both of the preliminary sessions and the final session will be calculated by the total ranks of all judges (dropping the worst), total ranks of all judges, judge preference, reciprocals, ranks (dropping high and low), reciprocals (dropping high and low, and then the Parliamentarian’s ballot.