Varsity and Junior-Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate

The resolution will be the September-October National Forensic League topic. Both LD divisions will follow the 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 format. Debaters will have 5 minutes of prep time. Ties will be broken based on record, high/low adjusted points, double-adjusted points, opponent’s record, total points, judge variance, and flip of a coin, in that order. There will be seven rounds in Varsity and six rounds in JV; the break will be to double-octafinals in both LD divisions.

Students in 9th or 10th grade, and those in 11th grade with less than two years debating experience, may enter JVLD, but should also feel free to enter VLD. Students with more than two year’s experience and those in 12th grade should enter VLD. Any student who broke at a national tournament in JVLD last year should enter VLD. We strongly encourage coaches to choose divisions with the educational purpose of debate in mind. That purpose is hurt if overqualified debaters compete in JV. Students shouldn’t enter JVLD to “win trophies”; JVLD is a learning division.

Policy Debate

There will be a single, open division of policy debate using the 2010-2011 NFL resolution. Teams will give 8-minute constructive speeches, 3-minute cross-examinations, and 5-minute rebuttals, and will have ten minutes of prep time. Ties will be broken using the same criteria as Lincoln-Douglas Debate. The break will be to quarterfinals. We will host an open room with wifi available for collaborative tournament prep throughout the tournament. This room will stay open during Saturday rounds.

Public Forum Debate

There will be a single, open division of public forum debate. Public Forum will follow all NFL rules, except that each team will be given FOUR (4) minutes of prep time during the round, not two. The tournament will be using the NFL topic for September of 2010. Ties will be broken using the same criteria as Lincoln-Douglas Debate. The event will break to double octafinals.

Parliamentary Debate

There will be a single, open division of parliamentary debate. We will follow Osterweis style with the 4-5- 5-5-2-3 format. For a full style guide, please visit http://www.yaledebate.org/osterweis/parli.html. We will release the straight-link resolution fifteen minutes before the start of each round. There will be five rounds with a likely break to semifinals; the break will be determined based on size of the field.

Congressional Debate

There will be a single, open division of Congressional Debate. Chambers will be comprised of no more than 20 members. Sunday’s competition will again feature a semifinal round in the morning and a final round in the afternoon. Legislation must be emailed to yalebills@tabroom.com by 7 PM on Tuesday, September 13th, 2011. Legislation must include the name of the school and the author, and comply with the guidelines for legislation provided at http://yale.tabroom.com (follow the Congressional Debate Info link); failure to do so will result in the rejection of the legislation. Only one item may be submitted by each registrant to a maximum of four items of legislation per school. Legislation from authors not registered for the tournament, or legislation that has not been received by the date listed above, will not be included.

Please note that Congressional Debate registration is due earlier than other divisions, as we will assign chambers and dockets and publish both on the Yale Invitational website on Friday, September 17th before 12pm.

Speech Events:

Speech event entry this year will change. Students will be limited to entering a maximum of three events. Students are strongly encouraged to limit themselves to two events, as we will not be following the “pattern” system as in years past. Instead, the tournament will schedule five preliminary rounds this year, instead of four.

Students may enter each event only once. Students may use the same source material in only one event; you cannot perform the same piece as a Prose and a DI, for example.    Students performing the same source material in more than one event by tab’s judgment will be disqualified from both events. Two works from the same collection/volume/anthology won’t count as “the same material” – but two cuttings from the same work would. Feel free to email us in advance if you have questions about this rule.

Extemp, Oratory, DI, HI and Duo will follow National Forensic League rules and guidelines. Oral Interpretation of Literature will follow National Catholic Forensic League rules and guidelines. We will use the NCFL’s guidelines for published material in interp events. The grace period will be 30 seconds for all speech events. Any IE participant who exceeds the grace may not receive a rank of 1 in the round; any further penalty will be at the discretion of the judge. A participant may only be penalized for a time violation if the judge has used a precise timing device and notes the penalty on the ballot.

Speech events will break to either quarterfinals or semifinals based on the size of the events; an event with 60 or more competitors will break to quarters. Speech tabbing will be cumulative throughout the tournament, with the worst prelim score dropped. As logistics permit, we will advance as many students tied on ranks to each consecutive elim round as we can; if there are too many tied competitors to advance all competitors with a given cumulative score, reciprocal ranks will be our next tiebreak. Students on the edge of breaking who are tied on both ranks and reciprocals will always be advanced into the next elim round.

The Extemp final round will feature cross-examination in accordance with NFL rules.

Source Integrity

All students must bring copies of all sources, which must include the full context of the citation, not simply a retyped list of short sentences and quotes.

Debaters must make said sources available to either their opponent(s) in the round, and/or their judges after the round upon request.    Debate entries failing to do so, or debaters who significantly misrepresent sources in the round may be disqualified at the discretion of Tab.
Speech contestants should have the full original source of all material in interpretive events available at the tournament, in addition to their cutting. Oratory and Extemp students should have the text of any material they cite in their speeches available at the tournament. Students misrepresenting sources or using sources not available may be disqualified at the discretion of Tab.

All rules are subject to change. The tournament will make you aware of any changes at registration.