<p>I've heard alot of posters talking about participating in national debate tournaments. My school has nothing of that sort, and I'm really interested, so does anyone have any information on such tournaments and how they work?</p>
<p>You'd probably have to be a member of your school's debate team or talk to your team captain. Regionals haven't rolled around for Texas though. They're in March for us. April or May is nationals, I think. You can qualify for state depending on the number of points you have accumulated throughout the season though. I think it's 30....Try doing parli or something. Maybe LD. Those rack up a lot of points fast. But so does winning...LOL.</p>
<p>there is a national tournament for the NFL (National Forensics League) in Philadelphia this June and state tournaments in the spring, but it's not just like you sign up and attend. Teams and individuals have to go and basically win at the national qualifying tournaments in the the different regions. In our region, you have to even qualify to participate in the qualifying tournaments, so it may be a little late to start. If you still want to try though, you have a lot of work to do. For you, I'd probably recommend Lincoln Douglas debate as it's an individual debate event. Good luck!</p>
<p>hey..thanks. Yea, my school doesn't exactly have a debate team, so I'm pretty much looking for individual events. Does anyone know of any in the NYC region? Young_one, do you have any information on Lincoln Douglas debate?</p>
<p>Look on the website nflonline.org to find out more information. You could call and ask for the head of the local chaper of the NFL(National Forensic League). The folks involved in speech & debate are usually only to happy to help out. You have to accumulate 25 NFL points during the year to participate in NFL qualifiers. One other suggestion, if your school does not have a forensics team, the speech category of extemp or student congress might interest you as well. Good luck - it is a great activity.</p>
<p>My school doesn't have a forensics team..does that mean I cannot participate in NFL? Student Congress...we have model congress in our region but my school doesn't participate; it used to exist but the club died.. I tried to start a debate club but we did not have enough funding. So basically, I will probably have to find events where it doesnt require any school participation and is individual. Thanks for the help everyone.</p>
<p>TOC (Tournament of Champions) for policy.</p>
<p>ronlivs:</p>
<p>There are three basic tracks in "Debating" as the activity is known. The first is called the local circuit. This basically consists of local tournaments within your immediate area such as the city in which you live in. The second is known as the state circuit. Teams who travel on this circuit pretty much compete throughout their state (as the track name implies). The third is known as the national debate circuit. Now a lot of people in the above posts have been posting information about the NFLs (National Forensic League. This is completely different from the national circuit. Teams who travel on the national circuit literally travel all over the United States competing in the most prestigious debate tournaments at places such as Berkeley, Glenbrooks, Greenhill, St. Mark's, and the Barkley Forum. Moreover, the budget of these national competing teams runs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (most of the money of that funds these programs comes from the debate tournaments they annually host. It comes as no surprise why teams such as Glenbrooks North / South, Montgomery Bell, et al end up having some of the best debate teams and most competitive tournaments). Moreover, many debaters who either participate in the state or national circuit whose team doesn't have deep coffers end up paying out of pocket for their debate tournaments (meaning mom and pop end up paying thousands of dollars a year). Also, this figure doesn't include debate camps over the summer which costs several thousand dollars.</p>
<p>Now to explain the state track more in depth. Depending on the state you live in you qualify to the state tournament based on the number of points you accumulate from state competitions (from an accumulation of placings) OR by placing above a certain place (ie higher than fifth) at a state qualifying tournament (usually held about one to two months prior to the actual State Championship).</p>
<p>Now to clarify the NFL Championship. The National Forensic League each year hosts a speech and debate championship in the United States (this year it's in Philadelphia). In order to qualify for this champsion a variety of factors have to be met. The most important is that a) You are a chartered school. Ronlivs, in reference to you wanting to attend this year's NFL it will be almost impossible because a) the season is almost over, b) you have no experience, and c) I assume you reside in a non-chartered school. Moreover, this doesn't even include the financial aspect of the NFLs. Additionally, one must qualify for the NFLs from their region. Qualification is usually limited to the top two competitors or teams during the qualifying tournament. Meaning if eighty teams from your area show up to debate during the qualifying tournament only two will qualify to the NFL tournament. Also, you have to be a member in good standing which means (like someone earlier mentioned) you have to have around 25 points. And, you can only send X number of total entries based on the number of points your coach has amassed from his team. Basically, what the formula states is that if you are a winning team that is very successful and gets a lot of NFL points (calculated from a win loss formula that gives you 6 pts for a win and 3 points for a loss) your coach will be able to send a lot of kids to the NFL qualifying tournament. If you new and your just learning chances are you wont be as successful as others and your coach wont get a lot of point and your coach wont be able to send a lot of people to the NFL tournament.</p>
<p>My best advice is to go to a camp over the summer and convince your parents that $3000 is the best investment they ever made in you. Learn the basics and the complexities of debate. Then again convince your parentals to fund you with about $2000 and go travel throughout your region/state and kick butt and win and qualify to states and or nats. B/c if you have no experience then you will lose a lot (not saying that losing is bad but that you will waste time learning the basics when you could instead be winning and learning even more complex debate techniques).</p>
<p>And, you can only qualify to the TOC (Tournament of Champions) by receiving two bids from TOC qualifying tournaments. You can only get one bid from any one TOC qualifying tournament. TOC qualifying tournaments are national circuit tournaments. Receiving a bid requires reaching a certain level at the tournament such as making semifinals, finals, or octafinals (at the most difficult tournaments).</p>
<p>Eventually, you'll come to understand the quirks and insanities that characterize debaters. You'll understand the terms spreading, breaking, Foucault, no sleep, laptop computers, flowing, lay judges, and various illicit drugs / alcoholic beverages.</p>
<p>And, I do know that one of the guys from the team that won the Policy TOC about 2 years ago (Anders/Burshteyn) is now going to Harvard.</p>
<p>Thanks. Haha wow... Yeah, I doubt that I will be going on the track you described. I really wish I could, but given the current circumstances, I don't think that would be possible. Are there less..demanding routes? Debate hasn't really been my focus; it is just something I picked up this past year and I've seen other people post about on CC. After reading your post, I regret not starting earlier..and not being rich..haha</p>
<p>try <a href="http://www.cross-x.com%5B/url%5D">www.cross-x.com</a> for policy debate and <a href="http://lddebate.org%5B/url%5D">http://lddebate.org</a> for Lincoln Douglas debate</p>
<p>look at the forums for massive (i mean copious amounts of information)</p>
<p>It's called forensics - its relatively hard to get to nationals, but a few hours of work should do it.</p>
<p>Forensics? Seven Nights just described how it would be practically impossible for me to do that.</p>
<p>Do any of you know any good summer programs for public forum debate?</p>
<p>umm public forum is relatively new. most of the established debate institutes are good. a fellow team member went to stanford's and said it was a waste of time. aside from that I dont know any other ones.</p>
<p>public forum is useless.</p>
<p>ld is less useless.</p>
<p>policy is where its at.</p>
<p>its really not hard to qualify for nationals... but "a couple of hours" wont do it. debate requires like 20+ hours of preparation a week during tournament weeks. on off weeks, i prolly spend about 14 hours doing debate work etc. but then again, i am probably on a more competitive circuit than you will be...</p>
<p>i'm a homeschooler and i'm starting a debate team. how should i introduce our team to the local regular school league/national leagues?</p>
<p>Yeah...IMO policy takes a LOT of work, I've been doing it for 3 years now and still am not very good at it. Unless you're just extremely naturally talented at this kind of thing, don't expect to do well in policy without a massive time commitment over a few years. Then again, I might be biased because for whatever reason, Kansas is one of the most competitive policy debate states. </p>
<p>There's also CFL (Catholic Forensics League-despite the name it has no real religious affiliation) Nationals. I'm not exactly sure how it works but I believe you qualify in the same fashion as for NFL. </p>
<p>einstein - Don't bother, just go finish writing your book. :P Or look on <a href="http://www.nflonline.org%5B/url%5D">www.nflonline.org</a>.</p>
<p>Harvard Model Congress...I just got back from it last Sunday night...</p>
<p>the actual Speech and Debate competition or the Model UN</p>