Policy Debate

It is an expectation of the tournament that students will accurately represent material read during speeches. In order to ensure compliance students may record their opponents speeches. It is the responsibility of coaches to ensure that their debaters and parents understand this tournament requirement and complete the paperwork necessary to ensure compliance with applicable state laws.

Judges are expected to be available one round past their school's elimination, at minimum through the octafinals.

Competition will start Friday October 12 on the St. Mark's campus and conclude on Sunday October 14 at the tournament hotel (Westin Park Central).

We will use a 30 point scale, allowing tenth points, for speaker points in policy debate.

The fee for each team will be $125. We have an escalating schedule of drop fees depending on how late you drop your teams.

Each team is expected to provide four rounds of QUALIFIED judging for each team entered. At minimum we ask that your judge be at least one year removed from high school debate and have a background in judging policy debate. Additionally, we ask that your judge be committed to the principles of switch side policy debate and commit to selecting one and only one winner of each debate. If you have first year out judges please assign them to judge the Sophomore Hoe Down. They can cover your policy debate commitment but this early in the year we prefer that our main varsity cx pool not use first year our judges. If you have any questions about what constitutes a qualified judge please contact the tournament director, Tim Mahoney, at pacedebate@gmail.com.

If you are unable to provide qualified judging we will happily hire judges for you at the rate of $50 per uncovered round.

Please have each of your judges submit their judging philosophy on tabroom.com http://docs.tabroom.com/Judging#Updating_Your_Paradigm

Failure to do so prior to October 1 may result in a $100 fee. Judge changes after MPJ is posted may be charged $50 in addition to other relevant fees and, in many circumstances, will not be allowed at all.

We will not break brackets should teams from the same school meet in elimination rounds.

We agree with Greenhill "that a willingness to take part in a collective case list – in both spirit and in practice – is an essential characteristic to accepting the invitation to our event" in policy debate. At minimum, we expect comprehensive 1ac information and representative negative information to be posted on the wiki:

http://wiki.debatecoaches.org/Policy+Debate

We will also facilitate the accumulation of speech documents as done by MBA in 2018. It is an expectation that teams will make all of their speech documents available to the entire tournament.

We reserve the right to remove from the tournament teams who fail to comply with these norms.

Our speech times are 8-3-5 with 10 minutes prep time.

Varsity Policy Debate Schedule

MPJ sheets are due before 5 pm on Thursday.

Thursday, October 11th – Online check in begins 

8:00 am - Online check in begins continuing through Friday morning at 7 am

There will be a fee of $200 if you register electronically without actually being in Dallas. Please don't force me to assess this fee.

Friday, October 12th – at St. Mark’s

7:00 Pairings released - free breakfast on campus for all participants (coaches, debaters, judges, observers) starting at 7 am - Great Hall for competitors, Judges and Coaches in N114.

8:00 am Round One

10:30 am Round Two

11:45 - 2 pm - free lunch on campus for all participants (coaches, debaters, judges, observers) starting at 11:45 am - Great Hall for competitors, Judges and Coaches in N114.

2:00 pm Round Three

5:30 pm Round Four

Saturday, October 13th – at St. Mark’s

7:00 am Pairings released - free breakfast on campus for all participants (coaches, debaters, judges, observers) starting at 7 am - Great Hall for competitors, Judges and Coaches in N114.

8:00 am Round Five

10:00 am College Debate Preview Reception – Green Library

11:00 am Round Six

11:45 - 2 pm - free lunch on campus for all participants (coaches, debaters, judges, observers) starting at 11:45 am - Great Hall for competitors, Judges and Coaches in N114.

2:00 pm Assembly in the Great Hall - Announcement of Elimination Rounds and Speaker Awards

3:00 pm Double Octofinal Round

6:00 pm Octofinal Round

Sunday, October 14th - at the Westin Park Central

8:30 am Senior Speakers breakfast by invitation (strike cards for quarterfinalists, if possible)

9:00 am Senior Speaker - Malachi Robinson Woodward Academy

10:00 am Quarterfinal Round

12:30 pm Semifinal Round

3:30 pm Final Round