INVITATION

The National Parliamentary Debate League is pleased to invite you to the NPDL Fall Invitational - an online high school parliamentary debate tournament created with the goal of bringing together the parliamentary debate community from across the United States.

Schedule

Saturday, October 12 - preliminary rounds

Sunday, October 13 - elimination rounds

Entry Fees

$40 per team; no school fee. Please email npdl.board+treasurer@gmail.com if entry fees are a barrier to your participation.

Revenue from entry fees support financial aid for NPDL-TOC.

Entry Caps

Every NPDL member school may enter 8 open teams and 6 novice teams. Any additional teams will be waitlisted.

Eligibility

- Only students from NPDL member/observer schools may compete. To register your school for NPDL,click here. We may allow a few international teams to compete with prior approval, depending on entries from members.

- All students shall be registered under their school or designated as “[SCHOOL NAME] Independent.” Hybrid teams of students from different schools should be registered using both school names.

- Each school will be allowed one hybrid entry in varsity and one hybrid entry in novice.

- Each school will be allowed one maverick entry in novice.

- Homeschooled debaters may enter if they affiliate with a member school.

Divisions

There will be two divisions: Open and Novice.

- A novice debater is a freshman or a sophomore who is in their first academic year of debate competition.

- A freshman or sophomore in their second academic year of debate competition may also enter as a novice if they have competed in no more than three debate tournaments total.

- A novice team is composed of two novice debaters.

Judges

The judge requirement is 1 judge per 2 entries. Judge obligations are calculated separately for each division.

If you cannot fully cover your judging obligation, or, conversely, if you want to volunteer to judge, please email npdl.board+fall@gmail.com

All judges from a given school are obligated for one round past the elimination of the last team from their school.

A judge must:

- be fluent in English,

- be familiar with the basic rules of parliamentary debate,

- have a device with a working camera and audio,

- have experience using video conferencing,

- be at least 18 years old and not be a current high school student,

- be reachable at all times by phone while they are in the judge pool.

Round Rules

We will use theNPDL Online Round Rules, with any deviations noted in the sidebar prior to the tournament, including the pilotNPDL evidence citations rules. This tournament will allow points of clarification during the first two speeches, to ask a non-argumentative question seeking explanation of the other side’s advocacy. The speaker must accept all POCs. Time stops for POCs.