What to expect at a tournament

Guidelines for Coaches and Debaters

Like any activity, there are a number of unwritten assumptions that are part of debating tournaments in Manitoba. That can be confusing for coaches and students who are unaware of them. This document is intended to provide some additional information about what to expect at tournaments. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact the executive.

1. There is an initial maximum number of teams allowed per school, but you are welcome to ask to bring more. If you ask and there is space, the organizer will let you know how many additional teams you are allowed to send.

2. Unless it states otherwise on the invitation, schools need to bring one judge per 2-person team that they send. Judges do not need to be experienced. Judges for senior events may not be high school students. Judges for junior events may be in grade 10 or older.

3. Once the topic is given out, teams must prepare for impromptu debates on their own without help from pre-prepared notes, electronic devices, debaters on other teams, coaches, adults, etc.

4. Coaches should not judge their own students, unless the organizer has specifically approved, something that will only happen when there is no other option.

5. If coaches are just watching rather than judging a debate, they should not make comments during or after the debate, although they may make comments to their own students privately after the debate.

6. Normal dress for debaters is tie and dress shirt, dress pants and dress shoes for boys, and the equivalent for girls. That is an expectation and should be encouraged but is not required, so it should not be a barrier to someone debating.

7. Resolutions must be defined in a straightforward way, i.e. an interpretation that the average person on the street would accept as a reasonable interpretation of the resolution. In some cases the organizer may limit the definition and those limitations must be followed. Definitions cannot use time/place sets (i.e. specify a particular place or time that the debate will take place in, e.g. the British cabinet during the Battle of Britain) or squirrel (i.e. change the meaning of the resolution to something different) the resolution, unless the organizer explicitly allows it.

8. Students may use points of order or privilege but this would be a very rare thing reserved for extreme cases, e.g. a point of personal privilege because the student was significantly misrepresented. Points of information are not allowed in the novice categories but are encouraged in the open category. As a guideline, ideally students should offer 2 per speech but they should not be too frequent, i.e. at least 20 seconds between them. Students should accept 1 or 2 per speech. Students do not have to use points of information but students who use them well should get additional marks.

9. If there are an odd number of teams in a category, the organizer may move a team from one category to another to balance numbers or can use a “swing team”, i.e. an additional team to balance numbers. In order to balance numbers, the organizer may split a team, but only with the coach’s agreement, so that each team member debates on their own as a one person team.

10. Hybrid teams, i.e. teams with members from 2 different schools, are not normally allowed but can be permitted by the organizer if there are students whose partners don’t show up, or if a school does not have enough debaters to field a full team, or for a swing team. Hybrid teams should not be used to produce super-teams, i.e. the best debaters from 2 different schools in one team. That being said, the organizer may allow hybrid teams even if those reasons don’t apply, if they make that clear on the invitation so that everyone has the same chance, and if the event is not a provincial championships or qualifier.

11. Awards are presented to the top speaker from each school, with open taking precedence over novice, and to the top speakers and teams overall. Usually the team awards are based on total speaker’s points rather than win-loss record, although some tournaments use win-loss.

12. Organizers try to avoid scheduling teams from the same school against each other, although it sometimes can occur.