UCLA

UCLA INVITATIONAL

16-17 November 2024

DEADLINE

11 Nov 2024
NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE

ELIGIBILITY

open to middle and high school students

LOCATION

Online through NSDA Campus

Information

The Debate Union at UCLA is pleased to invite you to the 2024 UCLA Invitational, which will be held online via Tabroom NSDA Campus from Saturday, November 16, to Sunday, November 17.

This competition is held by the Debate Union at UCLA, and is not hosted by or affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, itself.

Logistics
Throughout the tournament, please refer to the live docs for updated information. The schedule, which may change on the day of the tournament if there are unforeseen delays, can be found here.

All events will be using the NSDA topics for November-December 2024, when the tournament will take place.

We will offer Novice and Open divisions in all events. If an event does not have a sufficient number of entries, the Novice and Open divisions may be combined, or the event may be canceled altogether. Individual rounds, including elimination rounds, may be cut from certain events if the number of entries is low, or if time does not permit.

Events
All events below have both a Novice and Open division.

Debate:
- Public Forum
- Lincoln Douglas
Speech:
- Original Oratory
- Original Advocacy
- Informative
- Dramatic Interpretation
- Humorous Interpretation
- Duo Interpretation
- Impromptu
- US Extemp
- International Extemporaneous

Depending on the number of entries, some events may have their Open and Novice divisions combined, or be canceled before the day of the tournament.

Novice Status
Competitors are eligible to compete in novice divisions if they are in their first school year of speech or debate, or if they are not yet in secondary school.

Middle school experience does count for students entering their first year of high school, so a student who competed as a middle schooler in the prior school year will not be eligible for novice status in their first year of high school.
A student who competes in a tournament in the current school year (i.e. in September) will retain novice status if they have not competed at all in the school year prior.
- For our purposes, a school year lasts from the first day of August through the last day of July.
- A secondary school student who competes in a tournament on July 31st, 2024 or prior will not be eligible for novice status.
  - A secondary school student who competes in 10,000 tournaments between August 1st, 2024 and November 15th, 2024, but who has not competed in any tournaments July 31st, 2024 or prior will be eligible for novice status.
Prior school-year competition includes middle school competitions, as well as competitions in other debate or speech events.
- An experienced debater with no speech experience for example, would be a novice in any speech event, but would need to enter the open category in any debate event, including debate events they had never done before.

We define secondary school as the last four years of schooling a student receives prior to them reaching minimum school leaving age and graduating from secondary school, as defined in the laws of their country.
Any students who are not in their last four school years of non-collegiate (collegiate including trade schools, apprenticeships, universities and community colleges among other institutions) education are considered “middle-schoolers” for the purposes of this tournament.
- All middle-schoolers are eligible for novice status regardless of their level of competitive experience.
  - A middle-schooler who by some great effort has managed to accumulate 12 years of competitive experience and 100,000 first-place tournament wins will still be eligible for novice status at this tournament.

Double Entry Policy
Double entry in two speech events, or a speech event and a debate event, is technically permitted. However, it is the competitor’s responsibility to manage their rounds should they double enter.

Judges will be informed that if they have a double-entered participant, the participant should go first if possible. Double entered participants may enter a speech round later than the start time due to another event. However, it is not permitted for a double entered participant to enter a debate round late due to another event, as this will cause tournament-wide delays.

Fines

Drop fees after the deadline: $20 per entry
Additionally, a failure of a judge to disclose a necessary conflict will result in a fine of $100 to the affiliated institution.

Judge Information

ELIGIBILITY
Although forensics experience is not required, judges should be proficient in English and meet some minimum qualifications. A qualified judge understands the activity and is either experienced sitting in the back of the room with a ballot or flow pad, or has been carefully trained by the team they are accompanying. A qualified judge knows how to assign ranks or wins/losses, speaker points, and knows how to fill out a ballot. High school seniors 18 years or older will be accepted provided that they have competitive and/or judging experience.

To encourage accurate calls and quality feedback, judges will be required to achieve Level 2, NSDA Judge Accreditation in the events our tournament offers by completing the NSDA judge trainings. Judges should set aside two hours, spread out over the course of the weeks running up to the tournament to complete these trainings. Judges who fail to achieve judge accreditation before the tournament begins will be dropped from the draw, and their school will be fined as if they had entered no judge at all.

The tournament will also be holding two interactive online judge training sessions on the Thursday and Friday before the tournament begins, and judges who attend either one will be accredited for this tournament. These trainings will go over proper standards for judging, note taking, ballot completion and common pitfalls for new judges, and notes will be provided on tabroom after for judges' reference. Judges can still complete NSDA's self-paced, asynchronous judging modules to become accredited instead, and judges with past judging experience are exempt from accreditation requirements.

AVAILABILITY
Judges are required to judge one round past the round in which all of their school’s competitors have been eliminated. If your school’s last competitor was eliminated in octofinals, you are still required to judge quarterfinals. Judges who leave the tournament before the last round they are required to judge will result in a fine for their school.

SCORING
The Debate Union at UCLA reserves the right to adjust speaker scores below 80 points for speech and 24 points for debate. Judges giving scores below 80 points for speech and 24 points for debate should be ready to explain why they gave that score (i.e. egregious behavior, flagrant rule violations)

A 23/79 or lower point speaker might be someone who targets their competitors with derogatory language and personal insults, refuses to abide by the speech time limits, interrupts their opponent’s speeches, brazenly and remorselessly fabricates facts, delivers a gibberish speech that is impossible to understand, and generally acts outside the bounds of acceptable behavior for their event. Don’t give 23/79 points or lower if the competitor is rude but not egregious, give a severely incomplete, difficult to follow, or illogical speech, or for being too nervous to fill their allotted speaking time. You should almost never need to give a score below 23/79 points. For this tournament’s purposes, treat 24/80 points as 0 points. Giving a speaker 2 points in public forum for example, would be the equivalent of giving them -22 points. Coaches should strongly emphasize the importance of abiding by the speaker point scale.

RESTRICTIONS
In order to maintain a fair and equitable competition, judges must disclose any and all conflicts on Tabroom prior to the tournament. Conflicts include:

Competitors from the same institution as them (including any past institutions, such as an alma mater)
Competitors whom the judge knows personally
Competitors whom the judge is currently coaching, or has coached in the past
Competitors whom the judge will not be able to consider impartially for any reason (i.e. due to past judging experience, personal experience, etc.)

If it is discovered after rounds begin that a judge purposefully did not disclose a necessary conflict, a fine of $300 will be charged to the institution which the judge is affiliated with.

Judges are encouraged to post a paradigm on Tabroom, if they have not done so already.

Equity Policies
Matters such as unprofessional conduct or disputes over results should be reported to the tournament’s Equity Officer (see contact information above), and will be considered by the Equity Officer, the Captains, and the Tournament Director.
To anonymously report an equity violation, please use this form: https://forms.gle/38jfRaiEwacV4JXm9

Code of Conduct
All debaters should conduct themselves in a respectful and professional manner, keeping in mind that they are representing their teams and schools. Any disrespectful or harmful behavior towards other competitors or judges will not be tolerated and will be grounds for disqualification from the tournament. Dishonest behavior, such as internet usage during a debate round (not including the 20 minutes of open prep for Parliamentary Debate before the round), will also be grounds for disqualification.

Our full equity policy can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gvSNBAbu_llwJmNwsShUK4fgAIHoVnmEU8hYLcXJ1xQ/edit?usp=sharing

Email Permissions
By signing up for this tournament, you consent to receive occasional emails from the Debate Union at UCLA about this tournament and upcoming tournaments, opportunities and resources for debaters to improve.

Entry Price

One speech event and parent is judging $70
One speech event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $150

Two speech events and parent is judging $90
Two speech events and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $180

One PF event and parent is judging $80
One PF event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $185

One PF event + 1 speech event and parent is judging $100
One PF event + 1 speech event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $215

One LD event and parent is judging $90
One LD event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $200

One LD event + 1 speech event and parent is judging $110
One LD event + 1 speech event and parent is OPTING OUT of judging $230

Each person in a PF team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF team would need to either provide two judges, both pay the judge fee, or one of each option.

Registration will not be complete until payment is received.

NOTE: We will charge set up fees if we have to create tabroom.com accounts for judges. It is recommended you do so on your own.

Schedule

Please click below to view the schedule. Make sure you are looking at the right speech or debate event.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZldSrsf50TbwEbFqOtN1Y7Rh-gN1shn5Oxo-28YMSs/edit?usp=sharing

Drop Fee

Changes or drops made after the deadline will be charged a nuisance fee by the tournament. Drop requests should be made to Victor and Nadia.

Please do not drop out last minute to avoid being charged these fees.

Contact Info

Victor Rivas Umana
Contact email: [email protected]
Nadia Budiman
Contact email: [email protected]
Or [email protected]

Registration Form

STUDENT INFORMATION

* Indicates required field

Student Name *

First

Last

Student Email (make sure you have a Tabroom account) *

Student Phone Number *

Does the student have a Tabroom account? *

Yes and it is linked with GSA's account(s) Yes but it is not linked and we need you to add to your roster No but I will create one before submitting registration No but I will pay the additional $35 setup fee

If this is your first time competing, make sure to first create a Tabroom account here: https://www.tabroom.com/user/login/new_user.mhtml
It's super simple and quick (<1 minute), but follow the guidelines here in case anything is confusing: https://docs.tabroom.com/Sign_Up

PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION
Your email address will be the one included when we send the logistics email.

Parent Name *

First

Last

Parent Email *

Parent Phone Number *

EVENT SELECTION
Double entry in two speech events, or a speech event and a debate event, is technically permitted. However, it is the competitor’s responsibility to manage their rounds should they double enter.

JUDGE PROVISION
To encourage accurate calls and quality feedback, judges will be required to achieve Level 2, NSDA Judge Accreditation in the events our tournament offers by completing the NSDA judge trainings. Judges should set aside two hours, spread out over the course of the weeks running up to the tournament to complete these trainings. Judges who fail to achieve judge accreditation before the tournament begins will be dropped from the draw, and their school will be fined as if they had entered no judge at all.

The tournament will also be holding two interactive online judge training sessions on the Thursday and Friday before the tournament begins, and judges who attend either one will be accredited for this tournament. These trainings will go over proper standards for judging, note taking, ballot completion and common pitfalls for new judges, and notes will be provided on tabroom after for judges' reference. Judges can still complete NSDA's self-paced, asynchronous judging modules to become accredited instead, and judges with past judging experience are exempt from accreditation requirements.

Will you (parent) be judging at this tournament? *

Click here to complete the highly recommended Cultural Competency judge training course

Signing up a judge without having a Tabroom account will result in us charging you for the set up fee.
You can do this easily on your own by going to tabroom.com. It literally takes less than a minute.

First time judging?
This is a great collection of short videos that one of the leagues have put together to learn each event: click here.
There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.
Click here to find other training and official certification resources. Or watch our Youtube playlist here.

Tournaments encourage judges to have a paradigm on their Tabroom account, which can be a few sentences on your preferences of debating styles, etc. See here for example. It doesn't need to be this long, but make sure to add something before you sign up. For example: "I am a parent, please speak clearly and slowly and avoid technical jargon".

More tournament resources can be found here.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

I will keep a copy of this form for reference. *

YES

We are signing up with the understanding that my child will work to be ready by the tournament date. If we choose to drop out because my child is not ready that will be considered when making assessments for future classes. *

YES

I understand that if I fail to drop the tournament before the deadline that I will still be responsible for the fees of both my son or daughter, along with that of his or her partner and the fines. *

YES

I understand that if payment is not received we won't be registered and our spot will be given up to someone else. *

YES

I confirm that I have completed all necessary paperwork for this tournament. *

YES

I understand that The Golden State Academy has no control over tournament entries other than the initial sign up. I understand that my child's priority will be based on either the last time I signed up OR the date paid, whichever is latest. *

YES

I understand that my child must check in and check out periodically at the tournament with the coach and that if I do not my child will be barred from participating in following tournaments. This is to ensure coaches can see where students are at competitively and to give any initial feedback for improvement. *

YES

I understand that I can check my entry status through tabroom.com. *

YES

I am a consenting adult. I understand that by submitting this form I agree to all that has been covered. *

YES

Submit/take to payment

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

M-F: 3:45 pm - 8:30 pm
Sun: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Telephone

510-270-8480
510-470-0531

Email (preferred)

For more info email us at: [email protected]

Locations

Fremont: 200 Brown Rd #201, Fremont, CA 94539

Cupertino: 20432 Silverado Avenue Suite 211, Cupertino, CA 95014

Aborn Institute: 2804 Riedel Road, San Jose, CA 95135

Dublin: Loving Tree Academy, 6693 Owens Dr, Pleasanton, CA 94588