FORENSICS NOVICES ROCK!

Your first year of college forensics started under quarantine and you had to learn to speak to a camera instead of a live audience. But, you’ve persevered! Now, you understand Yaatly, can do a virtual one-clap, and typically begin any online conversation with, “Can you see and hear me OK?”

Next season, you’ll move up to Open and contend against varsity competitors. So, we want to give you one last chance to compete as a novice. Therefore, we would like to invite you to the first ever Novice No More Tournament to be held virtually April 14-17, 2021. The tournament will offer IPDA debate synchronously (via Yaatly) on Saturday April 17 and IE’s asynchronously to be judged between April 14-16.  IPDA debate will offer four preliminary rounds breaking to semifinals on Saturday afternoon/evening.

The tournament will also offer an experimental event of Impromptu Haiku Poetry (since April 17^th is National Haiku day). See the invitation for event details.

This tournament is open to novice competitors from any college and university. For the purposes of this tournament, novice competitors are defined as students in their first year of collegiate competition who DID NOT break to finals at the AFA or NFA national tournaments.

The tournament directors reserve the right to limit the number of entries from a school, and/or balance rounds with students from the same school in order to accommodate judging obligations from schools with large entries. All IE events with eight or fewer entries will be auto-finaled.

Please submit entries on Speechwire.com.  The entry and drop deadline is 5 PM CST on April 13, 2021. Limited Prep prompts will be released that evening.

Tentative Schedule (all times listed are in Central Time)

Tuesday, April 13^th  

5:00 p.m.                     Add & drop deadline via Speechwire

6:00 p.m.                     Limited prep prompts released

Wednesday, April 14^th  

5:00 p.m.                     Video submission links due for all IE entries

7:00 p.m.                     Ballots released for all prelim IE rounds

Friday, April 16^th  

12:00 p.m.                   Ballots due for all IE prelim rounds

1:00 p.m.                     Ballots released for IE final rounds

Saturday, April 17^th

8:30 a.m.                     Registration via Yaatly

9:00 a.m.                     IPDA Draw/Round 1

10:30 a.m.                   IPDA Draw/Round 2

12:30 p.m.                   IPDA Draw/Round 3

2:00 p.m.                     IPDA Draw/Round 4

2:00 p.m.                     Ballots due for IE final rounds

3:30 p.m.                     IPDA Semis

5:00 p.m.                     IPDA Finals

6:30 p.m.         (asap after debate finals) Awards

Visit Speechwire for more information.