Debating Rules

· Except as explicitly noted, the rules for this tournament are the same as those for Worlds.

· Teams must decide on their speaking order before the round begins. To reduce the likelihood of errors on the ballot, please seat yourselves in the order in which you will speak.

· Debaters should debate the motion well within the spirit of the motion and the tournament. In other words, these are ‘tight link’ motions that all should have obvious interpretations.

· Points of information should not exceed 15 seconds in length.

· The debater who is speaking may ask the person offering a POI to sit down where the questioner has had a reasonable opportunity to be heard and understood.

· The debater who is speaking should not allow debaters to remain standing for more than 30 seconds waiting to offer a point of information. Either clearly decline the point or accept it within that timeframe.

· Points of information need not be put in the form of a question, but they should directly challenge the speaker in some clear way.

· Points of order or personal privilege are not permitted.

· The ‘model’ presented by the Opening Government team should not be set in time other than the present (or the very near future).

· The model may not be ‘place set’ unfairly or without good reason. If the Opening Government team wishes to set the model in a particular geographical region, then this must be a region that the other teams could reasonably be expected to know about and the Opening Government must explain why placing the debate in this region makes for a better debate. Keep in mind that this is an international tournament.

· The Government Whip is permitted to present some new lines of argumentation, but the Opposition Whip may not present new lines of argumentation – though a new perspective on and analysis of existing lines of argumentation is much appreciated.

Other Policies

· Any comments or complaints about judging should be directed to the chief adjudicator, or to the equity officer, as appropriate. All comments are appreciated and will be kept anonymous.

· Rounds should start promptly at their appointed times, 15 minutes after the motion is announced. Any delay of 5 minutes or more should be reported immediately to the Tab Room (Stern 101).

· If a team is late for any round, we will not hesitate to replace them with a swing team and assign them zero points for that round. We are committed to running on time.

· Use of electronic equipment is prohibited after the motion has been announced (during preparation and debate), aside from the standard exceptions made for ESL students.

· Debaters may not talk to anyone other than their partner during preparation.

· In order to limit the influence of bias into the decisions, teams in preliminary rounds will be referred to by their code. We ask that you avoid discussing with your judges what school you are representing. Obviously, judges will sometimes know where debaters are from, but we will nevertheless attempt to minimize the potential influence that this might have.

Adjudication Expectations

· Adjudicators should expect closing teams to continue to endorse and promote good arguments made by the opening teams. Failure to do this suggests that they are unaware that these arguments were good, which reflects poorly on them.

· Adjudicators should expect all debaters to accept and offer points of information. A debater’s failure to accept 2 POIs during her speech should be considered as a negative, particularly if she accepts no POIs. Failure to attempt to offer POIs throughout the debate is also not good. Of course, offering and accepting POIs are just two factors among numerous important factors that adjudicators should weigh, but they are significant and can enter into decisions about both individual points and team rankings.

· Timekeepers will begin a debater’s speech time with her first words, regardless of whether these are about roadmapping, expressions of thanks, or substantive analysis.

· Timekeepers will bang once at 1:00, once at 6:00, twice at 7:00, and continuously starting 7:15. Speeches over 7:30 should be penalized substantially.

· Adjudicators should aim for their point scale at this tournament to replicate the point scale at Worlds. So, giving a speech here a 75 means that the panel considers that the speech would have been an average speech at Worlds. HWS judges have been calibrated to this scale, and many visiting judges have adjudicated at Worlds, so this standard seems the most reasonable.

· Individual points (i.e., speaker points) should reflect the overall quality of a person’s debating in that round. It should reflect the quality of their manner and their matter equally.

· Adjudicators should assess arguments from the viewpoint of the average reasonable and intelligent person.

· Adjudicators should ask debaters to quickly leave the room at the end of the debate, to allow the adjudicators to quickly begin their deliberations. Please make every effort to arrive at a decision and a completed ballot within 15 minutes. Timekeepers will be coming to get your ballot at that time.

· During the first three rounds, where there is oral adjudication, ballots must be handed in before the oral adjudication begins.

· Any oral adjudication must be done by the scheduled ending time of the round. In other words, if the debating or the decision process runs late, then this will result in less time for oral adjudication.

· Because of the round robin format, it is literally impossible to adjudicate two rounds and not see one team twice. We do not consider it to be a significant problem if you see a team twice. However, in order to judge three rounds, you must either see the same team three times (which we very much want to avoid) or see two more teams for a second time (which is not as serious). The more rounds you judge, the more teams you’ll see twice, but you should never judge the same team more than two  times and you should never be on a panel with another adjudicator more than once.  To maximize the quality of the judging, we do expect to use most judges in four or five of the rounds.

Equity Policy

· Tournament participants are prohibited from engaging in any behavior that will undermine the fairness, respectfulness, or accessibility of this event by:

1. their offensive language or behavior;
2. making denigrating comments on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, or disability;
3. harassing, threatening, assaulting or intimidating other participants; or
4. damaging or destroying any property that does not belong to them.

· A box for anonymous complaints will be provided.

· The tournament’s Equity Officer will be announced at the start of the tournament.

Preliminary Round Pairings

· Each team will debate each other team once and only once.

· Each team will debate in each position at least once.

· Whenever possible, rounds will be adjudicated by a panel of three .

· Whenever possible, teams will not be judged by the same adjudicator more than twice.

· Our goal is that no two adjudication panels contain two of the same adjudicators.

Oral Adjudication

· There is oral adjudication after the first 3 rounds only.

· In rounds 4 and 5, debaters may ask for constructive feedback from adjudicators AFTER the ballot has been handed in. Debaters should not ask for the decision in these rounds.

· Adjudicators are not allowed to disclose their decision of rounds 4 and 5 to anyone before breaks are announced. Constructive feedback should be given in a manner that does not allow teams to infer the decision. Please err on the side of caution.

· Adjudicators from other schools who disclose risk disqualification of their team. Adjudicators from HWS who disclose risk much more.

· Full tab results will be posted on the internet soon after the tournament.

Breaking

· After the five preliminary rounds, the top four teams will compete in a final round, which will determine the winners.

· The top four teams will be determined by the following factors:

1) Team points

2) Direct competition (who ranked higher when they debated)

3) In the event that three or more teams are tied in team points, and direct competition yields a circular result, we will go to total speaker points.

4) Adjusted speaker points (dropping high and low points for each speaker)

5) Coin toss

· The team breaking in first place will be given the choice of which position they will occupy in the final round. The second place team chooses their position next, then the third place team. These choices will occur BEFORE the final round motion is announced.

Speaker Awards

· These awards will be based on the five preliminary rounds only.

· Awards will be determined by the following factors:

1) Total speaker points

2) Direct competition (who had higher points when they debated)

3) In the unlikely event that three or more speakers are tied in total points, and direct competition yields a circular result, we will go to adjusted points (dropping highest & lowest scores) and then, if necessary, go back to direct competition.

4) Team points

5) Coin toss