<p>hey guys, my school's debate team really sucks and i've actually never done it. however, i've been really interested for a long time. anyone know if there are any state or national debate contests/tournaments or any sort of competition in it? </p>
<p>thanks for any help!</p>
<p>State-level contests depend on your state. What state do you live in? In Texas, for example, we have two state-level leagues, the Texas Forensic Association as well as the debate branch of the University Interscholastic League.</p>
<p>On the national-level there are all of the TOC (Tournament of Champions) qualifier tournaments as well as NFL (National Forensic League) which has a district meet to qualify people for nationals.</p>
<p>arguing with your teachers is good practics</p>
<p>i currently live in new mexico but yea im now moving to either dallas or austin around mid-july, my parents arent sure. </p>
<p>are the things you mentioned through school? cuz i really dont like my school's debate team and the two potential schools id be going to in TX dont even have a debate team!</p>
<p>anyway, thanks for the info! anymore info on tx?</p>
<p>highland park, tx. hockaday and greenhill are schools commonly seen on the national circuit.</p>
<p>(in LD, I don't know about policy, but I imagine it's about the same)</p>
<p>dittogal - check PMs
logicus - I'm pretty sure those are the only three that compete in TOCs quite often. The unfortunate thing about most schools in Texas (mine included) is that they typically do not fund debate very well, and therefore the schools cannot travel to TOCs every weekend. TFA is well-attended, however (though after winning a few tournaments in a row, you really wish for more competition).</p>
<p>There is only one tournament of champions...it happens in the first week of may. Usually, the tournaments that people travel to on weekends are "bid tournaments" that contain bids to the TOC at certain levels of the tournament(octofinals, quarterfinals, etc). </p>
<p>So, you got to check your terminology there :P</p>
<p>logicus - I meant the bid tournaments. :) Sorry about my lack of effective wording in my previous post.</p>
<p>in illinois, we have two state tournaments each year and there are various other tournaments at the high schools (at least in the chicago area) that happen once a month until the state tournament. If you're thinking about joining debate, then you should go for it and if the team isn't very good then make it into a leadership position for yourself and bring them up.</p>
<p>We're in Cali. Our advisor is a uh...weird lady, and she despises and detests certain tournaments (Stanford, circuits, and most traveling tournaments) for a variety of reasons. We usually go to the Berkeley Invite, and we also go to States for debate and IE.
Yeah, if the team isn't very good, you should not only consider making it into a leadership position for yourself, but really getting some people who could help you. First, you and your officer team need to educate yourselves about debate and practice debating each other. Try to compete individually at tournaments. Our debate team is completely student-coached, and since Speech&Debate is such a large club with many types of debate (Policy, Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, Congress, Parliamentary) and speech/forensics (Extemporaneous, HI, DI, Duo, OO, OA), you need all the captains you can get to supervise each sub-team. It's a big deal.</p>
<p>there's really no need to start with so many different categories. It'd be better to focus on one type of debate and get good at that. Frankly, I don't know how much you could do in one year; there's few people that have the stamina and knowledge base to become really good at debate in just one year.</p>