Policies/Procedures

Other Policies and Procedures

INTERNET POLICY---INFORM YOUR JUDGES!!!!

For Policy, Public Forum and Lincoln Douglas Debate, use of laptop computers, tablet computers, smart phones and other electronic devices able to access the internet are permitted during events. The use of computers during debates is permitted for both flowing and research purposes including retrieval of evidence stored on hard drives and accessing resources via the internet. Students should not attempt to use electronic devices to initiate or respond to contact with outside parties during a debate. The penalty for violation of this rule is loss of the debate in question and zero speaker points assigned to the offending debater. This rule recommends, but does not require, that all text messaging devices and cell phones be turned off during debates. It is meant to restrict the debaters from initiating or responding to any outside contact during a debate round. Example: A student’s cell phone ringing during a debate would not violate the rule. A student calling, emailing, chatting text messaging or responding to any contact from their coach during a debate would violate this rule.

Forfeit Times

Any team arriving later than 15 minutes after the posted start time will be at the risk of forfeit imposed at the exclusive discretion of the event tab room staff. Any team experiencing what they believe to be a legitimate delay should make every attempt to communicate with the tab room if they are going to be late.

Clipping Policy

This tournament will follow the same clipping policy as NSDA. All evidence should have paragraph before and after included, and not have any elipses or deletions of any content within the context of the evidence. Violation procedures will follow the Evidence and Ethics Challenge protocol outlined below.

Flipping Policy

Side Assignment

In elimination rounds, all rounds will be flip for sides, unless teams have previously met, in which case the teams will switch sides from the previous debate.

Coin Flip

Teams should be present in their competition room no later than 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time for the debate in order to flip for sides. If one team is not present at the scheduled time for conducting the flip for sides, then the team which is present will be allowed to choose their preferred side. If both teams are not present at the scheduled time for conducting the flip, then the tab room will assign sides for the debate.

Evidence and Ethics Challenges

If a team believes an opponent committed an evidence or other ethics violation, the accusing team should stop the debate and ask the judge to adjudicate the challenge. This type of challenge includes the following situations:

·         a team reads evidence is that fabricated

·         a team reads evidence that is meaningfully altered to change the author’s original meaning

·         a team misrepresents how much evidence they have read in a debate, such as improperly highlighting their evidence, “clipping cards” (the team says they read more than they actually did by clipping a card short of the indicated end), or “cross reading” (the team skips words or sentences in the middle of the text, but indicates that they read all the highlighted words)

·         a team receives argument assistance or reads or responds to communications from a coach or other person after the debate has commenced, whether verbal or electronic, including the transfer of evidence after the round starts.

The accusing team will explain to the judge what alleged violation is being asserted. The judge will evaluate the violation based on the evidence available to the judge. Prior to evaluating the challenge, the judge should inform both teams whether the round will continue after the challenge if the accusation is found to be false or if the judge cannot determine the challenge based upon the evidence available to the judge. After the judge informs both teams of the consequences of a failure to sustain the objection or challenge, the accusing team will be given an opportunity to withdraw the challenge. If the accusing team decides to pursue the objection or challenge, then the consequences announced by the judge for a failed or indeterminable objection or challenge will be binding on the teams.

If the judge finds that an ethics or evidence violation was committed, the offending team will be assigned a loss. If a single team member committed the violation, that debater will receive zero speaker points. The judge may assign speaker points to the non-offending debater. If the violation occurs prior to the non-offending team member delivering a speech, the judge may award points based upon the cross-examination, if applicable. If the non-offending team member has not delivered a speech or participated in a cross-ex, then the tab room will assign the average of the non-offending debater’s speaker points from prior debates.

Any decision to challenge evidence violations or unethical behavior must be made during the round in which the infraction occurred before the judge submits a decision to the tab room. No challenge can be made to conduct committed in any round after the ballot has been submitted to tab room. The judge assigned to the round will decide the challenge made in the round based solely on the evidence submitted by the teams in the round. No appeal, modification or reversal of the judge’s decision regarding the challenge or the consequences resulting from the challenge is permitted.