Policy Novice Rules & Procedures

The following information is for the policy novice division of the Loyola Invitational only.  The central goal of the novice division is to offer an important foundational novice lecture, a "flow a varsity round" project, five prelims with judges who have policy experience, a simple finals round for all participants to observe, all in a relaxed competive environment.

Basic Information:

• Division: Novice Policy (pending unfilled numbers in the policy cap from varsity).
• Entry Fee Per Team: $95 per team
• Number of Rounds: 5 Prelim Rounds (3 Sat, 2 Sun); 1 Elim Round (Finals Sun Night)
• Judge Commitment: 3 Rounds Judging Per Team; Judge must be "well qualified".
• Tournament Cap: ~ 0-25 teams expected. If the Varsity Policy division does not reach 60 entries, and the LD division not reach 100 entries, any remaining entries will be used to create a novice policy division
• Breaks: Top two teams break to finals. Goal is early season experience for everyone not elim experience for a few. Awards happen in conjunction with a Finals round. It's an ideal "wind-down" for all other non-participating novices (and parents) to watch.
• Other Perks: Foundational Lecture provided on Sat Morning (during Round 1 Varsity); "Flow a Varsity Round" Project will be provided on Sun Morning (during Round 5 Varsity). No Monday debates. 

Novice Division Rules 

• "Novice" Defined. The Novice division is for first year beginning debaters only with less than two other tournaments (including camp) worth of experience prior to participation in the tournament. It is early in the year, most participants are expected to have never been to a debate tournament before. If in doubt, place in varsity.
• Most Varsity Rules. The Novice Division will follow the same rules of the Varsity division, except it will not follow the "wiki disclosures", "judge survey", or "most prefed judge awards" rules. For the "judge qualifications" rule, "well-qualified" is expanded to include (f) those with at minimum one year (four tournaments) experience participating or primary coaching in policy debate at any level. It still excludes parent judges, and judges without policy experience. But it includes parents who did policy in high school, alums who didn't travel the TOC circuit but debated, and JV policy debaters.  
• Same Varsity Schedule. The Novice Division will follow the same schedule as the varsity division with the morning debate both Saturday and Sunday being replaced by a foundational lecture, and "flow a varsity round" project, respectively. A fifth prelim round will take place the first elim round of varsity policy, followed by finals during the second elim round of varsity policy.
• Restricted Evidence Set. Only evidence produced in the NDCA Novice Packet may be used. Debaters may supplement these files with analytics/extensions only. No new cards or updates may be otherwise used, and pre-existing 1ACs-2NCs/ (or other blocks) should not be substantially rewritten. The goal is to simplify the evidence set across tournaments,  level the playing field amongst teams, and is being modeled in some form by many top tournaments in the region.
• Minimal Prefs - Because the tournament already establishes a baseline standard for judge quality, the only prefs given will be a few strikes for each team to exclude select few of those well qualified judges.
• Ombudsperson Complant Process. Any violation will result in a forfeit for the violating team, and any inquiry should be taken directly to the Ombudsperson.
• Loyola teams - If space is available, Loyola teams may participate in the novice division.