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The Munster High School Debate Team will host a Novice Debate Tournament on Saturday, October 13, 2013. This tournament is intended as an introduction to debate for novice students and schools creating new debate programs. Observers are not only welcome, but also encouraged!

The tournament will feature four rounds of competition in policy, Lincoln-Douglas, and public forum and two sessions of congressional debate.

For the purpose of this tournament, we will use the following classifications for debaters:

Novice is defined as those students with 74 or fewer NFL points. Competition at this tournament is limited strictly to novice students.

JV is defined as those students with 75 to 249 NFL points. Junior varsity students may serve as presiding officers in congress or as mentors/angels for policy and public forum teams or Lincoln-Douglas debaters. A mentor/angel may flow the debate and assist a team/debater during preparation time, but not during speeches. For maximum educational effectiveness, we recommend assigning one mentor to a team/debater for the tournament and not rotating them from round to round.

Varsity is defined as those students with 250 or more NFL points. Varsity students are allowed to judge at this tournament. A team may supply its entire quota of judges through the use of student judges. These students should understand they are writing ballots for novice students, many of whom have never before debated in their lives. Disclosure and oral critiques are not permitted. Save instructions for the ballot.

CXD will use the 2013-14 NFL topic – Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela. We will observe the IHSFA novice case restrictions limited to increasing economic engagement toward Cuba.

LDD will use the "varsity" September/October 2013 NFL topic - Resolved: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory. We will not use the "national novice" resolution.

PFD will use the September/October 2013 NFL topic - Resolved: Unilateral military force by the United States is justified to present nuclear proliferation.

SCD will debate the following six (6) IHSFA bills and resolutions: #2; #3, #8, #11, #12, and #15. All bills are available for download on the IHSFA website (www.ihsfa.org).

Each congress session will spend at least 30 minutes debating a bill before any contestant can move to close discussion and call the previous question. It is our objective to have each chamber debate three bills before adjourning.

There will be limited food and beverages available for purchase and consumption at the school; your team is also welcome to bring its own supplies. There is a designated lunch break plus we expect there to be enough time between rounds for students to grab some refreshments. Sealable water bottles are permitted in debate rounds; no other food or drink is permitted outside of designated areas.

Please bring one judge for every two entries in policy, Lincoln-Douglas and public forum and one judge for every six entries in congress. By allowing student judges and requiring a 1:2 ratio, we hope to be able to single flight all LD and PF rounds to ensure a quicker tournament. There are no limitations on entries; teams may bring as many teams/debaters as they desire, so long as they can cover their entry with judges. Judges are not to leave the judges’ lounge between rounds; we may need an available judge to cover a debate or we may have questions about an incomplete ballot. Judges should not walk away from the ballot table until released by the table staff.

You may either (a) email your entry to Steve Kennedy (emfeingoldlaw@aol.com) or (b) register online via Speechwire. Either way, your entry is due no later than Tuesday, October 8 at 5:00 PM.

Bob Carroll
Email address: rccarroll@munster.k12.in.us
Phone number: 7082542058

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