Event Rules and Sweepstakes Info

Divisions  

Novice and Open Division in Debate and Events except Congress. Novice is defined as a student's first year of competition. 

Patterns

Debate Pattern: Policy, Parliamentary, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas Debate plus Congress in one pattern. 

Events Pattern: Extemporaneous/Dramatic Interpretation /Expository/Original Prose Poetry / Oratorical Interpretation/ Impromptu /Original Oratory /Humorous Interpretation/Thematic Interpretation and Duo Interpretation.  Please note that Original Oratory, also known as Persuasive Speaking, will include both Original Oratory and Original Advocacy. Extemporaneous will include both Domestic and International, they will not be separated. All Individual Events will be combined into one pattern to make the schedule more efficient.  Double entries in Events are allowed but be warned that it may be a challenge to make it between rooms. Double enter events at your own risk. We may not be able to accommodate double entered students who miss rounds.

General Tournament Rules

School registration in part or whole may be rejected due to space considerations - please register early! Every year several schools cannot attend or have their entries restricted.

The tournament will consist of six preliminary debate rounds and the three preliminary rounds of events. All divisions will receive trophies. We reserve the right to combine divisions if the entry warrants.  

Debate Topics:
L/D Debate Topic: NSDA Sept/Oct topic 
Policy Debate Topic:   National topic on China
Public Forum: NSDA Sept/Oct Public Forum Topic.                  
Parliamentary Debate: one topic will be provided for each prelim; for elim rounds teams will be given three topics and will do strikes to determine the topic

Events Rules  

Generally we use CHSSA rules but there are exceptions that include:  Persuasive will include both advocacy (Original Advocacy) and other "persuasive" speeches (Original Oratory).  Extemp is combined national and international. 

Semifinals will be held in individual events with 50 or more entries or the discretion of the tournament director. Undersubscribed events may waive finals. Due to scheduling, we will only be breaking to Octos, entries permitting. 

Schools entering Duo teams should also email a list of Duo names to Mjaich@scu.edu to confirm that the web entry is correct (yes, last year we had issues with the web entry being wrong).  

Congress  

Congress will have one open division only. Please designate the PO's with a 'po' for every ten entries via email to me. Please note that Congress is listed under IE's. Please enter Congress judges into the IE judge pool. Bills will be included in the official tournament invite, which will be posted on the tournament webpage on Tabroom.com.      

Sweepstakes Rules

The tournament awards a sweepstakes for overall performance small and large entry schools and best speaker awards for team debate divisions.  Small schools are those schools with fewer than 20 entries. Sweepstakes is based solely on students advancing into elimination rounds earning 1 point for each student per event (Events = 1, Team Debates = 2).