Event Offerings & Procedures

Events Offerings & Guidelines

Debate: Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Congressional Debate
Speech: Dramatic Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Informative Speaking, Oratorical Declamation, Original Oratory, Program Oral Interpretation

Students entered in Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, or Congressional Debate may not double enter.  Students entering any other events may double enter, but they are responsible for attending both events each round. Under no circumstances will officials delay the tournament to accommodate a double-entered student.  All events will operate under the rules set forth in the National Speech and Debate Association's latest Competition Events Guide as well as the evidence standards contained in its High School Unified Manual with the following additions and/or exceptions:

Lincoln Douglas Debate will argue this year’s November-December topic.  Note that we will observe the NSDA's allotted prep time of 4 minutes per debater.  After turning in their ballot to a runner, disclosure by judges is mandatory and is limited to five minutes. As the size of the field permits, Lincoln Douglas debate will feature judge strikes with additional information provided in the week prior to the tournament.

Public Forum Debate will argue this year’s November-December topic.  Note that we will observe the NSDA's allotted prep time of 2 minutes per team.  After turning in their ballot to a runner, disclosure by judges is mandatory and is limited to five minutes.  As the size of the field permits, Public Forum debate will feature judge strikes with additional information provided in the week prior to the tournament.

Congressional Debate will follow the latest available version of Robert’s Rules of Order on matters where the NSDA's Competition Events Guide is silent.  Coaches of schools authoring legislation for Congressional Debate must submit legislation as a Microsoft Word attachment (.doc or .docx only) to jpeele@charlottelatin.org by 8:00 AM Wednesday, October 17.  This is the only acceptable file format for legislation submission.  The tournament will post selected legislation on this site by noon on Friday, October 19.  Priority/Recency will not reset between preliminary sessions and two presiding officers will be elected to split evenly the time for each session.  Those presiding officers will have one speech recorded against their recency for their time spent leading the chamber.

Extemporaneous Speaking will not have cross-examination in preliminary rounds, but will include cross-examination as outlined in the NSDA's Competition Events Guide for the final round.  The tournament will not provide question topic areas in advance.

Other speech events will operate using NSDA rules and norms with the exception of Oratorical Declamation, which as an event only offered by the NCFL, will operate using that organization's rules.  Entry in Oratorical Declamation is limited to students enrolled in 6th-10th grade.