This year’s competition will feature the events described below.  Speech events will be broken into two groups.  Group A will consist of HI, OO, and DI.  Group B will consist of Extemp, Duo, and OI.  These are different groupings than in years past. A participant may enter up to two different speech events in each group.  Debate or congress students may not double enter.

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, adjusted points, total points, double-adjusted points, judge variance, opponents’ record, and flip of a coin, in that order.  The break will be to double-octafinals in Varsity and JV LD debate.

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 2009-2010 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 (If the field is large enough, an octafinal round may be added).  There will be no policy rounds on Friday night; instead, we will host an open room with wifi available for collaborative tournament prep.  This room will stay open during Saturday rounds.

Public Forum Debate
There will be a single, open division of public forum debate.  We will follow all of the NFL rules for the event as they stand for the start of the school year.  The tournament will be using the NFL topic for October of 2009.  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 four 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 Friday, September 18th, 2009.  Legislation must include the name of the school and the author; failure to include these items will results 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 that date, 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 25th.

Speech Events
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.  Speech tabbing will be cumulative throughout the tournament.  The Extemp final round will feature cross-examination in accordance with NFL rules.