Dear Coaches, we are delighted to invite you to the 9th Annual Sunvitational Speech and Debate Tournament at NSU University School in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Last year more than 1,100 entries joined us and we are looking for an even larger event in 2017. Come join us in warm and lovely south Florida to escape the cold and snow everywhere else.

 

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The Round Robin will be held on Friday, January 13, 2017 in the Carl DeSantis Building on the Nova Southeastern University campus. We host round robins in Congress, Extemp, Oratory, and Dramatic Performance. Invitations to the Round Robins will begin going out in November.

 

The regular tournament will be held on the NSU University School campus (attached to Nova Southeastern University) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, January 13-15, 2017.

 

We offer open competition in 11 events: Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, Congress, Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Impromptu Speaking, Program Oral Interpretation, and Informative Speaking. TOC bids for the University of Kentucky tournament are available in all debate events (quarterfinals in LD and octofinals in PF, semifinals in CON) and in all the main speech events (UK TOC, NIETOC, and the Extemp TOC)!

 

All of our champions will receive hand-painted skim boards to take a little bit of south Florida home with them. The championship coaches will receive hand-painted mini-surfboards, as well. 

 

Congress will debate three preliminary sessions on Saturday, then Semifinals and Finals on Sunday. We are doing our best this year to limit the number of bills students have to research, and we're trying to keep chamber sizes small enough that students will have more opportunities to debate. Breaks will be determined by total ranks from all judges, followed by parli preference. In elim sessions, total ranks followed by judge preference will determine the final order.

 

Speech will compete in five preliminary rounds, four on Saturday and one on Sunday. (We are dropping the lowest prelim rank and we will use clean breaks--not cumulative ranks--in each elimination round.) We will break to quarterfinals in each Speech event, if entries warrant. This year we are trying NOT to do prelim sections of seven. Whenever possible, we will keep sections to six speakers. Speech competitors can double-enter within each pattern, so an ambitious competitor can compete in four different speech events. (Pattern A: EXT, INFO, DI, POI -- Pattern B: HI, DUO, IMP, OO) Breaks will be determined by total ranks in prelims, followed by recips. Whenever possible we will break the number of competitors on total ranks, using recips only when absolutely necessary.

 

Debate will compete in six preliminary rounds. The first two rounds will be pre-set randomly and will take place Friday afternoon. Rounds three through six will be power matched (high-low within brackets). Both LD and PF will break to partial or full Triple-Octafinals, depending on the number of entries. The order of tie-breakers is 1) wins, 2) head-to-head, 3) opposition wins, 4) drop high-low speaker points, 5) total speaker points. This year, Public Forum rounds will be preset (NO coin flip in prelims). LD will use MJP and PF will allow for a limited number of strikes.

 

The tournament will provide meals for both students and judges Saturday. On Sunday, the tournament will continue to provide food for judges, and will arrange for a variety of food trucks from which students can purchase food.

 

sunvitational.com

 

Robert Sheard

Director of Forensics and Sunvitational Tournament Director

rsheard@nova.edu

 

Bill Thompson

Middle School Director of Forensics

wthomps1@nova.edu

 

Dan Bishop 

Director of the Arts

 

Danny Swerdlow

Associate Director of the Arts

(vr24)