SpeechWire Tournament Services - Forensics Tournament Software

Welcome back for another year of the Twin Cities Forensics League tournaments – this year, we’ll be online like everyone else!

TCFL #1 will be conducted synchronously through Speechwire and Zoom. It’s recommended that your students get online accounts through Speechwire before the tournament starts.

Rules: The Twin Cities Forensics League uses AFA rules for IE’s. For the purposes of virtual competition, they are modified from the normal AFA-NST speech descriptions as follows:

3. Physically present audiences (aside from the camera operator) are not allowed.

Entries: A student may enter no more than two events. If a student is double-entered in Extemp and another event, the student may be asked to go to the other event first, and then go to Extemp Draw.

Extemp Draw will be held in a separate Zoom room, which will be announced to the competitors. Topics will be sent via private Zoom chat to each competitor.

Impromptu: Topics will be provided to the judges before the round. Judges should dismiss all competitors except the speaker who is speaking. Judges will then send the topics via a private Zoom chat to the competitor.

Once the competitor has finished speaking, they may remain in the room. The next student should then be admitted from the waiting room.

For limited preparation events, students are not allowed to communicate with coaches, competitors or other persons while preparing their event. We trust that students and coaches will honor those requests.

There is no limit on the number of entries from any one school; however, the tournament reserves the right to move entries if absolutely necessary in order to facilitate the use of judges.

Please make sure that your version of Zoom is at least version 5.3 – this is necessary in order for double entered competitors to switch breakout rooms without requiring a manager for each room.

Judges: Schools must provide one judge for each six entries or fractions thereof. Judges must remain available for final round judging. Judges may be hired for $10 per uncovered entry slot. Conflicts with particular competitors/schools, or events for which the judge is not qualified, should be noted at the time of entry.

1. Students will be competing under a wide variety of circumstances. Some will be able to compete on campus. Some will have to compete from homes or apartments off campus. The quality of internet connections will vary tremendously. We encourage judges to not penalize competitors for any issues related to audio or video quality – judges should judge the content and nonverbal delivery.

2. As the competitive season begins, tournament judges and directors are navigating new means of competition. For many competitors and judges, this may be the first (or second or third) online competition. Norms are developing for online competition, but will be somewhat different than what has been done in the past. Your tournament staff, while very experienced in directing face-to-face competition, is less experienced in directing online competition. Probably the best way of thinking about this tournament (and tournaments in general) is to extend grace to all – competitors, judges, and staff – as we navigate this new environment together.

3. The tournament staff will be available between 3-3:30 to help with testing, debugging, last minute changes, etc. before competition starts.

Elim tiebreaking: Lowest ranks, judges’ preference, total speaker points, then number of 1^st place ranks in finals, 2^ndplace ranks in finals, 3^rd place ranks in finals; then number of 1^st place ranks in prelims, and then 2^nd place ranks in prelims.

Entry Deadline: The initial entry deadline is Friday, November 13 at 12:30 p.m. Changes in entries must be entered by Tuesday, November 17 at 10:00 a.m. Nuisance fees of $5 per drop or no show apply after this time.

Judging fees will be based on the entry as it stands on Friday at 12:30. Even if you anticipate changes, you must enter by Friday and make changes later. Events with insufficient entries on Friday are subject to cancellation.

Speechwire will remain open for entries and changes until Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. At that point, Speechwire will close for changes. Please email any changes after that time directly to Michael Dreher: mdreher@bethel.edu (please put TCFL entry change in the subject line).

Accommodations: Please let us know if there are any accommodations that students and/or judges need.

Dues: Dues are $100 for the first two planned TCFL tournaments. Dues allow for unlimited entry at each TCFL tournament, subject to providing sufficient judges with the entry. At this time, we are assuming that we will have two TCFL tournaments during the year. If there is interest in more tournaments, then we will assess a “second season” fee at pro-rated amounts. $50 for a tournament (or the usual $175 if we do decide on 4-6 tournaments) – that’s about as good as it gets! (We do have to still pay Speechwire and hired judges, after all.)

At this time, we don’t have an electronic payment option. Please send your entry fees to:

We will do everything we can to make your new TCFL experience pleasant, user-friendly, memorable, educational, and even fun!

Twin Cities Forensics League c/o David Lapakko
Augsburg University
Minneapolis, MN 55454

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