Oakville Debate Round Robin

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General information

This is a High School tournament in Missouri.

View manager contact information

2025 Oakville Debate Round Robin

Greetings coaches,

We are thrilled to welcome you back to Oakville High School! We plan to offer an outstanding tournament for great competition in the St. Louis area on Saturday, January 11th, 2025. Please read the invitation in detail to make sure you know our plan for this year!

We will be offering Novice and Open divisions of Policy Debate, and Novice, Open, and Champion Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas Debate in a Round Robin tournament format. Divisions of some events will be collapsed into the open division if entries are low. 

Entries must be received by Wednesday, January 1st at 3 pm.  Please let us know you are coming through www.speechwire.com as soon as possible. We are allowing four entries in each event. Additional entries will be granted depending on our judging and building availability. You may add to the waitlist and these will be released on a first-come, first-served basis. However, you must associate an entry with a name to claim those spots in the waitlist line.  Drops can be made without penalty until Wednesday, January 8th at 3 pm. 

Please note the judging obligations for each school.  Fill out our ONLINE JUDGING FORM for ANY of your school judges, including student judges. Of course, if varsity members do not advance they are welcome to visit the judging table to receive an assignment. All coaches who plan to be on site during the tournament, please fill out our COACHES FORM. 

Please contact us with any concerns or questions:

We hope to see you in January!

Erica Williams

Speech Coach

Phone: 314-467-7212

Sarah Petroff

Debate Coach

Phone: 314-467-7284

Oakville High School

5557 Milburn Rd.

St. Louis, MO 63129

COMMUNITY HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS:

• Any attendee can choose to mask however it will not be required. This includes during performances. No judge can rank someone down for the use of a mask. 

• Please practice universal precautions such as hand washing. 

• Any refusal to adhere to guest requests or universal precautions will result in removal from the premises. 

These deadlines will be strictly adhered to in order to ensure the tournament runs on schedule.

Judging 

• Obligation- 1 judge for every 6 entries

• Your MSHSAA-required supervisory adult will be on STANDBY for ALL rounds.

• Current Varsity students who have earned 150 or more NSDA points can judge novices

• Any alumni can judge both varsity and novice rounds

• All balloting will be done on paper

• Please sign up knowing you should arrive in your room 15 minutes before the start time.

• All judge comments should focus on the competitor’s performance in the round, not external elements. 

All judges, including coaches and current students, should sign up HERE. 

General Rules

• ALL SCHOOLS ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE A SUPERVISING COACH PER MSHSAA REQUIREMENTS PRESENT THROUGHOUT THE TOURNAMENT as well as the number of judges required by the entry.

  • We will comply with all MSHSAA rules and regulations regarding the use of electronic devices and the internet. It is a coach’s affirmative duty to ensure their students are aware of the rules and abide by them.

• Schools can enter up to THREE entries in each division’s event.

  • A student may only enter in one format and one division of debate.

  • Please put extra entries on the waitlist.

• A novice shall be defined as a student in their first year of interscholastic competition.

• All attendees are expected to adhere to school rules (ie. no smoking, etc.) and be respectful of the school space.

  • No food or drink is to be taken from the cafeteria/commons. Failure to comply with this regulation will result in the contestant being eliminated from the competition.

  • NO music (earbuds only) or musical instruments are allowed in the commons. 

• All students and judges are expected to arrive in their rooms 15 minutes prior to the start of the round.

• Please bring at least two student judges to Oakville.  Coaches will be used as judges as necessary. 

• Any student more than ten minutes late to a round will forfeit participation in that round (provided the delay is not the fault of the tournament). 

• The use of the internet during rounds WILL be permitted. Please review the MSHSAA rules regarding this issue. While the internet will be attempted, reliable access is not guaranteed. Students should prepare accordingly. There will be no access to printers on site.  

• All rounds will allow for spectators. All individuals in the room are expected to adhere to community health norms and reasonable requests. If these cannot be followed, the tournament reserves the right to remove spectator access.

Debate Rules

• We will default to MSHSAA Rules for all MSHSAA events.

• Email chains should be set up and offered to all competitors and judges before the round begins.

• Per  MSHSAA guidelines, prep time is as follows. 

  • Policy: 8 minutes per side

  • Lincoln Douglas: 4 minutes per side

  • Public Forum: 3 minutes per side

• We will recognize the top SIX debaters in each division and use the following to determine these: 

  • Win-loss record 

  • Head-to-head Record 

  • Wins of opponents lost to 

  • Opponents’ wins 

  • Opponents’ opponents’ wins 

  • Speaker ranks/points 

Policy Debate—(8-3-5 time limits):  Two-person teams will debate the NSDA/MSHSAA topic: Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks. 8 minutes of preparation time will be allowed per team. No mavericks. Novices cannot use Kritiks. They must use a case from the following novice case areas: Patents: Emerging Technologies, Patents: Green Technology, Copyrights: Protect the Creative Arts, Trademarks: Trademark Trolls.

Lincoln-Douglas Debate—(6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time limits): Individuals will debate the January/February NSDA/MSHSAA topic: Resolved: The United States ought to become party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and/or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 4 minutes of preparation time will be allowed per speaker. Per MSHSAA rules, we will NOT be using the Novice LD topic. All students should prepare the Sept/Oct topic.

Public Forum Debate –(4-3-4-3-3-3-2 time limits): Two-person teams will debate the January/February NSDA/MSHSAA topic Resolved: The African Union should grant diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state. 3 minutes of preparation time will be allowed per team. Teams will flip each round even if they have met before. The winner of the coin toss can choose either side (pro or con) OR the speaker position (first or last).  The coin toss loser has the other choice.

$8 per individual entry

$16 per team entry

Entries must be received by January 1st, 2025. 

Checks payable to Oakville High School 

attn: Erica Williams (memo line: Speech & Debate)

Manager contact information

Sarah Petroff & Erica Williams
Email address: petroffs@msdr9.org
Phone number:

Mailing address

None provided