Dear Coach and Speakers,

Welcome to the ANNUAL BEN DAVIS DEBATE TOURNAMENT on October 12th, 2019.  The meet will be held at Ben Davis High School located at 1200 N Girls School Road, Indianapolis, IN 46214.  Doors open at 7:00 am.

Judges/Debaters Meeting at 7:45 AM in cafeteria

DIRECTIONS AND PARKING

Please park in the front of the building and Entre through Door 1.  Buses please use the bus lot.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE

All Registration will be done on www.speechwire.com. No emails, faxes or paper entries will be accepted. We strongly encourage that entries be made as early as possible (like right now, so you don’t forget) Registration will be locked (meaning no adding of entries can be added) on Wednesday, October 4th, 2019 at 5:00 PM.  Coaches will be able to make names changes and such until Friday, October 11th, 2019 at Noon. 

TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE

This will be a novice and open tournament with multiple rounds depending upon the event.  The numbers of rounds will run as following:

• 5 rounds – Big Questions, Extemp Debate, Lincoln Douglas (LD), and World School Debate (WSD)
• 4 rounds – Public Forum (PF) AND Policy Debate
• 2 rounds/sessions for Congress

DIVISIONS

We will run a novice and open divisions.  For our tournament, we are defining a novice debater as a first-year debater who has no or limited debate experience.  A novice debater must not have any NFL(NSDA) points.

JUDGES

Any reasonable adult or varsity debate student is eligible to judge. Student judges must have at least 150 NFL (NSDA) points and will only judge novice events.  We would like very well-written critiques. We will ask you to label your judges as either adult or student in Speechwire as well.

*An event may be capped.  So enter quickly.

TOURNAMENT RULES:

If there are low novice entries in any events, they will be absorbed into the open event.

For our tournament, we will observe IHSFA rules.

DEBATE EVENTS & TOPICS

BIG QUESTIONS (OPEN DIVISION) – Objective Morality Exists (single entries only)

CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE (NOVICE AND VARSITY DIVISIONS): We will use the following IHSFA Bills:

• #13 AI Technology
• #9 Aid to Africa
• #11 Decriminalize Drugs
• #5 Vaccination Exemptions
• #14 Abolish Postal Service

EXTEMPORANEOUS DEBATE: Topics will be released at the tournament

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS (NOVICE DIVISION): national novice topic on civil disobedience 

LINCOLN DOUGLAS (OPEN* & VARSITY DIVISIONS): College admissions *Only Novice students may be entered in this event under the Open slot.  This will be listed as Lincoln Douglas - Junior Division (OPEN). 

POLICY DEBATE (NOVICE & VARSITY DIVISION): Arms Control 

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

1. Students may not run kritiques or counterplans.
2. Novice policy is limited to these AFF:
   1. Saudi Arabia
   2. India
   3. Small arms and light weapons
   4. Drone Exports

PUBLIC FORUM (NOVICE & VARSITY DIVISION): Belt and Road Initiative topic

WORLD SCHOOLS DEBATE (WSD)

• Rounds 1 and 2 Prepared Topic - This house supports reparations for African Americans.

• Round 3- Impromptu - TBD only two books, no computer usage during prep of 60 minutes
• Rounds 4 and 5- Prepared- This house believes that arranged marriages are better than love by chance.

DROPS

Call late drops to (317) 988-7188 by 7:15 am on 10/12/2019.

BALLOT RETURN

All judges should return their signed and properly scored ballots and completed critique sheets at the end of each round to the ballot table located outside of S107.  Judges are expected to stay for the entire meet.

BALLOTS and WIN-LOSS Records

All Ballots will be uploaded on Speechwire after the tournament for any coach to download.  WIN-LOSS records will be printed and distributed during awards.

CONCESSIONS

There should be no leaving the building as food for students will be served in the cafeteria. Complimentary food for judges, coaches and bus drivers will be provided.

JUDGE REQUIREMENTS

Judge requirement will be 1 to 4 ratio i.e. 1 judge per 4 debaters examples: 2 policy teams = one judge or 1 judge per 3 Congress and 1 LD

Judges: any reasonable adult or varsity debate student is eligible to judge. We would like very well-written critiques. We will ask you to select the appropriate judge type: adult or student in Speechwire.

AWARDS

Individual awards are 1st through 8th place.

Questions: If you have any questions please email Gary Peters, Tournament Host, at gary.peters@wayne.k12.in.us or Fred Douse, Tournament Manager, at fred.douse@wayne.k12.in.us. 

We want to thank you for coming to the ANNUAL NOVICE BEN DAVIS DEBATE TOURNAMENT.

Warmly,

The Ben Davis GIANT SPEAKERS COACHING STAFF

 

(vr)