Bellarmine Summer School Lincoln Douglas Debate Tournament

Hosted Online on Microsoft Teams - "Intro to Debate" and "High School Speech and Debate" Teams

Friday, July 16th, 2021 - Thursday, July 22nd, 2021

Tournament Directors/Tabroom Staff: Xavier Liu, Jason Cappelloni, Sherwin Lai

Executive Directors: Xavier Liu and Jason Cappelloni

Equity Officer: Xavier Liu

Tournament Helpdesk Number: +1 (408) 964-0688; Please TEXT before calling

Event Offered: Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Tournament website: http://bcpsummerld.tabroom.com

Table of Contents:

1. Announcements and Notifications

2. Notes for Students

3. Judging Instructions

4. Students' Instructions for Tabroom Accounts

The tournament schedule can be accessed by clicking on the "Schedule" page on the sidebar to the right. The schedule is now posted.

1. Announcements and Notifications

Both students and judges: Please be attentive about emails and Slack notifications. Sign up for “Live Updates” using the tab above - this will alert you with text or email notifications about new pairings/postings.

Announcements will take place in the General Channel for your respective Team - either "Intro to Debate" OR "High School Speech and Debate." Please pay attention to the General Channel for important updates!

2. Notes for Students and Judges

- Pairings for all rounds will be posted on Tabroom. The tournament schedule will be listed on a separate custom page on the side bar. Please make sure that you know which room you will be speaking or debating in. 

- You will be debating in a total of four rounds. The first round is a PRACTICE ROUND denoted as Round 0. Everyone will receive 30 participation points for debating in that round, and 20 points for taking a picture and submitting their flow on Canvas. The other three rounds will be worth 50 points each. 30 points will come from the refutations, argumentation, and delivery that you have in the actual round. The other 20 points will come from submitting a completed flow at the end of the debate. Since we have an ODD number of debaters per class, one student will receive a "BYE". In that case, points will be averaged. The student with the BYE will end up flowing a debate in a specific room for their 20 point assignment and will write a quick RFD about who they think won the debate. Depending on if we have enough judges, the student receiving the BYE may also end up debating Jason.

- ALL competition will take place in either the "Intro to Debate" OR "High School Speech and Debate" Team on Microsoft Teams, depending on which class you are enrolled in. Each room is marked with a number and is a separate channel on the Team. Prior to the start of each round, please check your room number and head over to your room at the scheduled start of your round, head over to your room and either wait for a Judge to start the call for "tech check" or start the call yourself.

- Pairings will be released one day prior to the start of all Rounds. We will aim to have pairings posted no more that 15 minutes after the end of class. i.e.: Pairings for Round 0 will be blasted immediately after class ends on Thursday.

- 5 minutes prior to the start of each round there will be a mandatory "tech check." This is required for both judges and students. This is to ensure that all technological issues are straightened out prior to the start of the round. Students and judges should ensure that their cameras and microphones work. Both students and judges must be present in the room which you are speaking or debating in on Microsoft Teams. Judges, please "initiate the call" 5 minutes prior to the start of the round for the tech check.

- Rounds should start PROMPTLY and ON TIME when class starts. We have no time to waste. This means that the first speaker must start giving their 1AC at either 8:30 AM or 10:40 AM. Join the call early if necessary to ensure that your technology works and that you can start the speech

- We will be enforcing a strict five-minute forfeit time after the scheduled start of the round. There is no time for dilly-dallying - students and judges need to show up at the scheduled start of the round. If you are unverified or excessively tardy, you will receive an automatic loss and a failing grade in that debate.

- During the round, both judges and students should have their cameras on and should be muted unless they are speaking. The only exception is if we go into "limited tech mode," where to stop lagging video and poor audio quality, only the judge and the speaker should have their videos on. 

- To have a record of all debates held, judges please record the round. Judges and students, please act appropriately during the round. If you cannot do it in person, please don't do it over video during the round. 

- To access comments, ballots, and results, you will need to use your Tabroom.com account. If you do not have a Tabroom account or do not know how to link your account to a competitor, please look under "Students' Instructions for Tabroom Accounts" below.

3. Judging Instructions

If this is your first time judging, please be sure to link your Tabroom account to a judge. Click on "Link your person to a judge" and search for yourself. There will be a page that pops up that lists all judges registered on Tabroom with your name. Please look for your name and "judges for: Bellarmine College Prep" and click to link yourself to that judge!

- It’s super important that you attend the round on the day that you are assigned to judge. We have little to NO back-up judges, so we need you to attend your round if you are slotted in to judge. We will have a quick meeting 10 minutes prior to the start of each round, please attend that meeting in the "General Channel." Alternates listed to judge OR judges that may have to be moved around due to absent students, please stay in the General Teams meeting UNTIL you are released by Xavier.

- When you log in to your Tabroom account, you should be taken to a page where you will see the round that you need to judge along with the words "START ROUND" in a green box.

- Before the round: Judges, you MUST PRESS “START ROUND” once you receive your ballot. Doing this alerts Tab that you have officially “picked up” your ballot and that the round has officially started. You may do this during "tech check."

- We will be using FULL speech times for LD. You ballot will have these times listed. You should not have an issue fitting a round in a class period. Please be sure to keep things moving so that students don't drag the round behind. Please do not let the students dilly-dally.

- Points will be on a 30 point scale. Use the scale found on the ballot.

- You must submit your decision and points, by the end of the period. Please do not delay the tournament by waiting to submit your rankings and comments at the same time. You can edit RFD/comments later even after you've submitted your rankings. Do not disclose your decision to the debaters in any round.

- We strongly recommend that you type your comments on a Google Doc and then copy and paste them into the Tabroom page or vice versa to back your comments up. Tabroom has been known to "randomly delete" comments from the Tournament. RIP Sherwin in 2019, RIP Kush 2020. 

- Your RFD and feedback on Tabroom will be available to the debaters at the conclusion of the tournament. However, you MAY give them oral feedback that does NOT reveal the decision after the round ends. Please keep this short - no more than 5-10 minutes after each round as we are on a tight schedule. Tell students to return to the General Channel after the round concludes for Final Announcements.

- No show/forfeit procedure: If you are judging a debate with (an) absent debater(s), please DO NOT SUBMIT the ballot. Slack Xavier and Sherwin. We may end up moving debaters together/around if particular individuals show up for a specific day, but others do not. 

4. Students' Instructions for Tabroom Accounts

You will need to use your Tabroom account to access judge RFDs and comments. If you already have a Tabroom account and have already linked your account to yourself, awesome! There's no need for you to read the rest of this. 

STEP 1: HOW TO CREATE A TABROOM ACCOUNT

1. On the main page of Tabroom.com, find the "Sign Up" button on the upper right corner of your screen. Click on that. (Ignore the first question which asks you whether you're an NSDA Coach or PKD Member. You are a student and are neither.) Keep scrolling down, which leads you to a page where you type in your email, first name, last name, phone number, password, etc... While you are only required to input information regarding your email, first and last name, and password, we also highly recommend that you provide your cellphone number and service provider because you can get live text updates of postings and tournament updates! Unless you already have a Tabroom account using your personal email address, please use your BELLARMINE EMAIL to sign up on Tabroom.

2. After you input all your information, click "Create login." This will lead you to a blank page that serves as your Tabroom account. If you see the words "Judging," "Competing," and "Your Account" on the right hand side of the web page, you are in the right place!

STEP 2: LINK YOUR ACCOUNT WITH A COMPETITOR

1. After you log in, click on your email in the top right corner. On the right hand side, scroll down to "Your Account" and click on "Link your person to a student."

2. That will bring you to a page that prompts you to search for yourself. Type your first and last name in the empty boxes and click "Search."

3. Please pick the correct person and link yourself to that student. Look for your name and "competes for: Bellarmine College Prep" and click to link yourself to that person!

4. Tab may also ask you to confirm that you want to link. Please make sure all information is correct and confirm the link. Please DO NOT link your account to anyone OTHER THAN YOURSELF.