Yale-NUS Pro-Ams 2020

Tournament Handbook

1. Team Eligibility

This tournament is open to institutional and composite teams of all levels. To qualify as an institutional team, the team must consist only of members currently attending the same institution. As a pro-am tournament, it is required that each team consist of at least one “am”.  

To be considered as an “am” in this tournament, the debater must fulfill BOTH of the following criterias:

1. Has never broken at any major tournament (WUDC, WSDC, EUDC, ABP, ASDC, ESDC, Australs, etc.)
2. Has never broken more than once at any college/university level tournament

Appeals to be considered an “am” may be directed to the adjudicator core and will be considered at their discretion.

2. Tournament Structure

General Structure:

The tournament will take place in the British Parliamentary format. All teams will participate in a total of 4 preliminary rounds of debate before proceeding to the break rounds. This tournament will consist of an open break as well as a dedicated Am-Am break for teams consisting of two “am” members. Teams will break based on their performance: number of wins, number of points, and win margin in that order.

3. Rules of Debate

Debate Format: British Parliamentary

Teams per Room: 4

Debaters per Team: 2

Prep Time: 15 min

Speech Length: 7 minutes

The speeches are given alternating between proposition and opposition, beginning with the first proposition team. The second teams on each side (the final four speakers) must take care to ensure that they offer new ideas to the debate -they cannot simply repeat what the team before them has already said. The final speaker on each side is the summary speaker: they cannot introduce completely new arguments (although they may give some new responses) and should summarise the debate so far. Each team should prepare, and is judged, separately. This means at the end, they will be ranked from 1-4. It is entirely possible, for example, for one proposition team to come first whilst the other comes fourth. (https://www.esu.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/British-Parliamentary-Format.pdf)

Participants will be allowed to use external resources (i.e. case files, the internet, etc.) throughout the tournament inclusive of prep time.

Any further deviation from normal practice in the British Parliamentary format as a result of the virtual format is highlighted in the Technical Brief document.

4. Schedule

*Registration time only for teams partaking in the Open Partial-Quarterfinals. Teams not partaking in the Open Partial-Quarterfinals may register up until 10:30AM.

5. Equity Guide and Acknowledgement

Please refer to the Equity Handbook.

6. Further Enquiries

Any further queries regarding the tournament and its format may be directed to yalenusdebatesociety@gmail.com