Evidence Rules

Evidence policies vary from region to region, however in an effort to encourage a minimum academic standard, Harker will run it's tournament utilizing the following regulations:

1. All evidence used in round must be entered into the record during a speech. Evidence cannot just be referenced in a Crossfire and extended to the Final Focus.
2. All evidence, at a minimum, must include author and source in the oral citation. Please do not cite "Harvard" because a university/building cannot write an article. Instead please reference the author's name and the official publication source name.
3. At the request of the other team and/or the judge, the full card must be handed over. A card must include the full citation and the quoted source material. Please see below for samples. Students who do not have cut cards should carry a highlighted copy of the full source and hand over the highlighted page & the full source citation.
4. Students should also carry the full source material either printed and/or stored on a hard drive or portable drive. You can print full html sites to PDF for off-line storage.

Exchange of Evidence: Debaters may ask to see opponent's evidence but should do so at the end of the appropriate speech and these requests should not be used with malintent. Judges should not charge the requesting team any prep time unless the number of requests seem out of line with the debate in progress. It is the job of each debater to be organized and accountable for the evidence they utilize in the round and thus should hand it to a requesting team in a timely manner.

Misunderstanding and/or Misconstruing is when a debater reads a piece of evidence and misapplies it in a round. An opponent should explain what the evidence means and how the opposing team misuses it. This is not necessarily grounds for an automatic loss, but rather the evidence should then be ignored by the judge. It is up to the challenging team to explain this and to request the evidence be ignored.

Falsification is when a debater adds or deletes parts of a piece of evidence to alter it's meaning. It is also when evidence is completely fabricated. This is an incredibly serious ethics charge and one that is tied directly to our honor code, thus we do not take this challenge lightly. If a debate team believes this type of evidence violation has occured, we ask that if possible, it first be addressed in round. However, in addition to the inround challenge, the challenging team should submit a written challenge to the tab room within a timely manner at the conclusion of the round. The consequences for such a violation may include punishments from a loss in the round, to a disqualification from the tournament and a letter to the offenders administration.