LD Information

Lincoln Douglas:

VLD Prefs will be opening Monday at 8AM. If you would like to submit prefs, you need to do so before Friday at noon.

Judge Lounge: FAB105 (Fine Arts Building B room 105)

Tab: FAB103

Please email lincolndouglas@fbkdebate.org with any questions about the LD divisions. 

The resolution in both the Novice and Varsity divisions will be the November-December National Speech and Debate Association topic. Resolved: The United States ought to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels.

The Novice division will not be using the Novice topic.  The Novice Division will be using the same topic as the varsity division.  Please be aware.

Both LD divisions will follow the 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 format. Debaters will have 5 minutes of prep time. 

LD Judging Requirements:

Teams should bring 1 qualified judge per 2 LD entries per division. Novice and Varsity pools are separate; you may not use Novice judges to cover entries in the Varsity division, nor can you cover entries in the Novice division with judges in the Varsity pool. 

ALL LD judges need to have a phone or laptop on which they can submit online ballots. 

Judges must be available for all preliminary rounds, the first full elimination round, all elimination rounds when your students are competing and one additional elimination round beyond the last elimination round of your student’s competition.  Any runoff rounds are not full elimination rounds.  We will assume all judges will stay after their obligation unless you tell us otherwise. Schools will be fined $50 for every preliminary round and $100 per elimination round their judges are not on time for. Every time we have to replace a judge that's a round that will probably run late and delay the tournament so the best thing you can do to help keep the tournament on track is make sure judges are where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there. Please submit each judge's cell phone number in the "notes" section for each judge on Tabroom so if they are missing we can make an effort to contact them from tab and assist in getting them to their round, decreasing fines for a missing judge and keeping the tournament running in a timely manner. Please make sure their phones are on, even if they are on silent so they can receive a text. 

Conflicts: All LD (NLD and VLD) judges are required to register their conflicts on Tabroom (this can be done through their account). Simply listing conflicts in the “notes” section is not sufficient. Judges should be sure to include schools they have competed for, schools they have coached, individual students they have coached, schools or individuals they have shared prep with, etc. All teams are expected to report conflicts BEFORE the tournament begins. If you come to us after pairings are done with a known but previously unreported conflict the tab staff will remove prefs for all student competitors that judge is linked to. If in the rare instance a conflict developed during the tournament, come to use before the next pairings are released.

Prep sharing groups: It is the affirmative obligation of all individuals who are coaching and/or sharing materials with other schools or debaters in private prep sharing arrangements to actively conflict themselves from judging those students or schools. Individuals found to have violated this norm will cause all individuals coached by those persons to have their judge preferences removed for the duration of the tournament.

Entourage rule: In the spirit of community norms, the Florida Blue Key is adopting the “entourage rule”. All parties, which are part of a school’s staff in either an official or unofficial capacity (which are eligible/qualified judges), are expected to be put into the judge pool for a minimum of 3 rounds in order to make the pool as large as possible and reflect the diversity of perspectives that is national circuit LD debate. The determination of eligible/qualified is left up to the tournament staff. The penalty for violations of this rule may range from loss of MJP to the forfeiture of your entries.

Hired Judges: The Florida Blue Key has made a commitment to hiring the best and most qualified judges possible to provide the best circuit-level national LD tournament experience possible, however, our resources are finite. We have a limited number of judges available for hire and they will be provided on a first-come first-serve basis. It is expected that schools with a large entry supply an equally large pool of qualified judges. It is not the burden of the tournament to fulfill your judge obligation. Schools cannot expect to merely hire out their entry. Teams who attempt to hire their entire obligation will not have access to MJP.

Judge Expectations: If a judge is writing on a paradigm “I know nothing about debate except to write this to avoid fines” or “I am a parent don't pref me,” this is not sufficient to meet your judge requirement. A well-meaning parent traveling without debate training is admirable but not consistent with the quality of judging that both coaches and competitors expect from a quarters-bid level LD tournament. Whether a judge is qualified is ultimately the determination of tournament staff.

Penalties: Failing to meet your judge requirement may result in the loss of preferences for your school and could result in the forfeiture of entries.

ALL Varsity LD judges are required to post a paradigm on Tabroom.com by Friday October 18th. Any VLD judges without posted paradigms will be automatically moved to the novice pool. Schools must post paradigms on Tabroom.com by October 18th in order to participate and have preferences honored for their debaters. If schools have judges who have not posted their judge paradigms, the school's judge preferences will not be honored and the school will be fined $25 per missing judge paradigm. If you have any questions or trouble posting a paradigm, Tabroom has a help article explaining the steps and we are here to help BEFORE October 18th.  

We will again be using Mutually-Preferred Judging in LD Debate. Each debater in the Varsity division, provided their judging obligation is covered, will be able to rank all judges from 1-6 (5 being a conflict and 6 being a strike). Please keep in mind that a conflict is a judge who likes you too much, not another chance for you to get more strikes. Students found to be misusing conflicts face repercussions up to and including disqualification from the tournament. Preferences will open on Tuesday (October 29) or Wednesday (October 30) and close by noon on Friday November 1st. Changes to VLD judging will not be permitted after Monday, October 21. If you remove a judge from the VLD pool after Monday (October 21) you will be fined for that missing judge regardless of whether or not you have a replacement because judges entered onto Tabroom after October 21 will not be listed for preferences and are therefore not eligible to judge VLD.