TDL Changes the Rules

At the coaches' meeting held Saturday, September 20th, at Kellam High School in Virginia Beach, several changes were made to Tidewater Debate League rules and policies.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS: No changes were made.

POLICY: It was decided to eliminate the distinction between contemporary and classic policy debate. There will now be a single category of policy debate which will adhere to neither contemporary nor classic rules. Rather, it will be left to the judge's discretion to determine how each round should be run. The judge will be required to inform the debaters of his or her judging paradigm before the round begins and the debaters will adapt to that paradigm or be prepared to lose the ballot. TDL tournaments will offer two divisions of policy debate, varsity and open. The varsity division will be for debaters and judges with experience in national-circuit style debate or a desire to gain such experience, while the open division will be for judges and debaters of any experience level who are less comfortable with speed, theory arguments, and open cross-examination. Counterplans and kritiks will be allowed in both divisions. Schools may enter up to 6 varsity policy teams and 10 open policy teams in each TDL tournament.

PUBLIC FORUM: It was decided that the TDL will include public forum debate as soon as it is logistically feasible to do so.

STUDENT CONGRESS: It was decided to change the scoring range on each ballot area from 1-6 to 12-20 in order to reduce the likelihood of ties. The topic areas for each tournament's session will be decided at the tournament preceding it. The topic areas will be posted on this site and competitors will be required to submit their legislation in the comments section of the topic post no later than midnight on the Tuesday preceding the tournament. Legislation submitted past the deadline will be rejected and the student submitting it will not be allowed to compete. Each school may enter up to 15 student legislators in each TDL tournament.