Whitman Debate-IE Team Participation Guidelines

 

Whitman Debate-IE Team Participation Guidelines. 1

Welcome. 3

PROGRAM GOALS. 3

Overall Goal 3

Tournament Travel Goals. 3

Sweepstakes Goals. 3

National Champ Tournament Goals. 3

GETTING READY FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR.. 3

PARTNERSHIPS. 4

The Process. 4

I didn’t get the partner I deserved. 4

WHO TRAVELS TO WHICH TOURNAMENTS IN WHAT DIVISIONS. 4

Students going to any tournament are expected to. 5

National tournaments. 5

Qualification National Tournaments. 5

Two Notes about Tournament Travel Criteria. 6

I didn’t get to go to the tournament I deserved to. 6

In what division do I compete?. 6

RESEARCH AND ARGUMENTS. 6

Integrity of your researched materials. 6

Trading research materials. 7

Borrowing and purchasing materials. 7

Arguments we Prepare and Present 7

Taking Arguments when you leave the team.. 7

WORKING WITH JIM AND THE COACHES. 7

Working with Jim.. 7

Working with the coaches. 8

WORKING IN HUNTER.. 8

TRAVELING TO TOURNAMENTS. 9

PREPARING TO TRAVEL TO TOURNAMENTS. 9

Be ready to go. 9

Items to bring to tournaments. 9

COMPETING AT TOURNAMENTS. 9

Coaching before rounds. 9

Policy preparation during tournaments. 10

Parliamentary preparation during tournaments. 10

Arguing with Judges?. 10

Who advances when two of our teams hit each other in elims?. 10

BEHAVIOR AT TOURNAMENTS. 11

Supporting the team.. 11

Supporting the community. 11

Keep your mental faculties focused at tournaments. 11

Tell us where you are. 12

After Tournaments. 12

VANS-PLANES-HOTELS. 12

Van Driving. 12

Plane travel 13

Hotels. 13

YOUR ACADEMICS. 13

KEEPING HEALTHY. 14

Eating Right 14

Intoxicants. 14

Depressed? Hate that you’re not the best? Overwhelmed?. 14

Treating each other right 15

DECISION MAKING ON OUR SQUAD.. 15

Jim is a Dictator! J.. 15

Policy-Parli-IE Coaches: The “In the Trenches” Dictators! 15

Things that coaches can publically announce. 15

Things that coaches cannot publically announce but that can be stated to the student(s) directly involved. 15

Things that remain with just the coaches. 16

Questions about team policies. 16

Philosophy about Disciplinary Action. 16

Problems?. 16

TEAM ETHICS STATEMENT. 17

 


Welcome

 

          Welcome to the Whitman Speech and Debate Program.

 

          This document is designed to provide you with key information about how our program operates. If you have a question, just ask Jim.

 

PROGRAM GOALS

 

          What are the goals of our program?

 

Overall Goal

  • We seek our students to engage in preparing, practicing, and debating and speaking with a constant effort to improve. In doing so, our students develop argument and presentation skills. Our students gain knowledge about public policy, argument theory, and political philosophy.

Tournament Travel Goals

  • We seek to travel together as a squad to a substantial number of regional and West Coast tournaments. This involves sharing good times; in helping each other; in helping the team and the coaches. In doing so, our students are committed team members with, hopefully, a committed group of friends and supporters.
  • We also seek to travel especially hard working, invested, and successful team members to national circuit tournaments.
  • We seek to break as many teams and speakers as possible into elimination rounds at tournaments.
  • We seek individual teams to excel by meeting or exceeding realistic expectations for their performance at tournaments including toward first place!

Sweepstakes Goals

  • NPDA sweeps for Parli Debate are garnered by the results at our four best tournaments (best tournament determined by four best performing teams at the tournament).
  • CEDA and NDT sweeps for Policy Debate are garnered by the results at our six (CEDA) or eight (NDT) tournaments (best tournaments determined by two best performing teams at the tournament).

National Champ Tournament Goals

  • The culmination of our Policy year is CEDA Nationals (for most of our open division policy teams) and the NDT (for teams that qualify). At max 3 teams qualify to the NDT but only six schools in the country get to qualify a third team. Most teams qualify by getting bids from their district; in our district that happens by getting ranked by your performance versus other teams in the district over the course of the year. If you are one of the top 16 teams in the nation, you skip the district ranking process, and get a first round bid.
  • The culmination of our Parli year is NPDA Nationals (for most of our open division parli teams) and the NPTE (for teams that qualify). At max 4 teams qualify to the NPTE. 54 teams get to qualify for the NPTE and this occurs by earning points at each team’s five best tournament showings.
  • The culmination of our IE year is NIET Nationals (for our individual events competitors). To qualify for the NIET, a student needs to advance three times in an event in open division and place in the top spots with a total of 8 or less placings (or “legs”) (e.g. 1st, 3rd, 2nd, is a total of 6 legs).

GETTING READY FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR

 

          In this section, we’re going to talk about things you are probably wondering about at the beginning of the year: