***CLICK THIS LINK TO REGISTER***

https://forensicstournament.net/birch/24

2024-2025 Regular Season

Tournaments Invitation

link to full invitation

Dear Forensics Community,

We are excited to welcome you to our 2024-2025 Regular Season online tournaments. These monthly synchronous and asynchronous tournaments are a great way to prepare your competitors for Nationals & afford extra rounds to competitors on your team. A condensed three preliminary and final round schedule competitors get the practice they need without the hassle of waiting around all day for rounds. Save money with $0 travel costs. Run by experienced tournament directors, these tournaments are sure to be some of the best online tournaments your competitors attend all year.

The tournaments will offer competition at all levels, from kindergarten to college, in a wide range of events. We have the very best qualified tournament staff assembled to ensure a smooth day of fun competition. Our schedule will only take half the day (see schedule here). Winners will receive Bronze/Silver/Gold medals.

Key Points:

• Registration is due by 6pm Pacific the Tuesday before each tournament on ForensicsTournament.net

• Each school is required to provide one judge for every 5 IE entries per pattern/2 debate teams. At the discretion of the Tournament Director, uncovered entries may be allowed but penalty fees will apply.

• The synchronous tournaments will use video conferencing. Please see the Best Practices section of this invite for tips on how to effectively prepare for competing online.

• A complete list of NOF rules can be found here.

We hope you and your team can join us throughout the season. If you have any questions please feel free to email us at info@nationalonlineforensics.org

Sincerely,

Robert Cannon, Danny Cantrell & Alexandra Smith

National Online Forensics

2024-2025 Synchronous Information

***Schedule***

(all times Pacific)

Round 1: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Round 2: 11:45 AM - 1:15 PM

Round 3: 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM

Elimination Round 1: 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Elimination Round 2: 4:45 PM - 6:00 PM (if necessary)

Awards Ceremony: 6:30 PM (earlier if possible)

Events offered:

• Competitors may triple-enter in IE events with the exception of Extemp which is limited to double-entry.

• Competitors may only single-enter in Debate events, including Congress

• In the event of small entry sizes, we may need to collapse events within their event category (so interp events collapse to an “interp” event).

Individual Events

• Three prelims will be held; one final round will be held, unless the number of entries exceeds 30 per event, in which case, a second elimination round will be added.

• Competitors may enter a maximum of three IE events except competitors in Extemp who may only double-enter.

• 1 Judge is required for every 5 entries.

• Prelim Ranking: Ranks/Decimal/Drop High Rank

• Elim Ranking: Total Rank/# of 1st in Event/Rank in Elim/Decimal in Elim/Judge Pref in Elim

• Speaker Points will not be used.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honors awards.

• See the NOF Bylaws for more information about NOF events and awards.

Debate

• The current NSDA topic will be used for LD, Public Forum, and Policy.

• All preliminary rounds will be randomly paired. In Elims, brackets will be broken to facilitate debating.

• One final round will be held, unless the number of entries exceeds 30 per event, in which case, a second elimination round will be added.

• Competitors may only enter one format of debate and no individual events.

• 1 Judge is required for every 2 debate entries.

• Speaker Point Scale will be 70-100.

• Prelim Ranking: Wins/Total Points/HL Points/Z Score/Opp Wins.

• Speakers Ranking: Total Points/HL Points/Ranks/Z Score.

• An award for the top speakers in debate events shall be given. The top 15% of competitors shall be recognized.

• A 5 minute forfeit rule will be put in place for all debate rounds.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honors awards.

• See the NOF Bylaws for more information about NOF events and awards.

Awards

• School sweepstakes: Top schools will be recognized at each division (college, high school, middle, and elementary school).

• Competitors winning Gold, Silver, or Bronze will receive physical awards that will be shipped to coaches following the tournament.

• Coaches will be asked to verify their shipping address at registration. Please contact the tournament director ASAP if you would like your awards shipped to a different address than on file. Additional shipping costs may be assessed if an incorrect address is supplied.

Judging

Any schools seeking to buy out of their judging requirements must have approval by the Tournament Director. Please contact the tournament early to request uncovered entries.

The tournament reserves the right to assign ballots to judges when they are scheduled:

Due to the complex nature of the schedule, judges may be asked to accept ballots in events they did not initially register. For example, if a judge is signed up to accept debate ballots, but the tournament needs more Impromptu judges, then that judge would be expected to take the Impromptu ballot. We will do our best to accommodate event requests, but may not be able to do so.

To ensure timely pickup of ballots, all judges should wait in the Judges Room until dismissed or they have picked up a ballot via email. This will ensure judges are not missing ballots pushed to them during the tournament.

Fees

• School Fee: $40

• Individual Event Entries: $25/entry

• DUO Event Entries: $40/entry

• Congress Entries: $30/entry

• One person Debate (LD, IPDA, NFA-LD) Entries: $50/entry

• Two person Debate (NOF Parli, PF) Entries: $60/entry

• Three+ person Debate (World Schools) Entries: $75/entry

• Judges: First Missed Ballot - $25 / Subsequent Missed Ballots - $50

• Uncovered IE/Congress Slot (with Tournament Director Approval): $30/slot

• Uncovered Debate Team (with Tournament Director Approval): $125/team

• Changes after entry deadline - $25 per change (subject to tournament director approval)

• Judge drops within 24 hours of the tournament will be charged a $150 judge no-show fee.

• Judges who submit incomplete eBallots (with little to no substantive feedback) may be charged a judge no-show fee for failing to complete their judge assignment which includes both ranking the speakers along with giving sufficient comments.

• Delay of tournament fees may be assessed from $20-$100 based on the severity of the delay.

• Competitor no-shows (coaches did not notify the tournament prior to the missed round) - $35