<p> Welcome to the tournament page for the 2013 National Christian College Forensics Invitational to be hosted by John Brown University. The tournament invitation is now available, and the system is ready to accept entries.</p> <p> Updated: 5:00p.m. PST - THE SYSTEM IS NOW LOCKED. If you have need to make any other changes, or have any major concerns or questions, send them to Shannon Scott at: scotts@spu.edu. Pending entry confirmations, fees are now set, and drops after this point will be assessed a fee.</p> <p> SPECIAL NOTES:</p> <p> 1) Readers Theater entries - the system will accept the entry, but does not currently have the ability to accept all cast members - please just add one member and then email the remaining cast members along with each RT selection&#39;s title to Shannon Scott at: scotts@spu.edu</p> <p> 2) I will send out confirmations of your entries along with an up-to-date estimate of your fees one week before the tournament. If you need an official estimate before that time, just let me know.</p> <p> 3) HOTELS: The hotel information is included in the invitation, but here is an additional link to our reserved block in the tournament hotel:&nbsp;<a href=\"http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/groups/personalized/F/FYVSSHX-NCC-20130306/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG\">http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/groups/personalized/F/FYVSSHX-NCC-20130306/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG</a>&nbsp;Information for an additional hotel is located in the invitation.</p> <p> 4) ADDITIONAL JUDGING: When you enter your judges, indicate the events that each judge will be covering. Unless otherwise noted, we will assume that they can judge all divisions of the event you&#39;ve indicated. If you&#39;re bringing along judges who would like to judge beyond your commitments (either to be hired by the tournament or to be given credit against your total entry fee), we would love to have them - email me directly about those additional availabilities. In particular, if you have students who would like to judge Novice elimination rounds (because they are Seniors who have exhausted their eligibility and will not be competing at one of the other national tournaments), let us know and we can virtually guarantee them some action!</p> <p> 5) BUSINESS MEETING: Unless I&#39;m told otherwise, I will assume that the primary contact for your team (as listed on this website) will be your school&#39;s representative to the business meeting. Be sure to verify your representation when you register so that we can pull the right people out of rounds during that meeting.</p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p> We look forward to seeing you in March!</p> <p> Safe travels and all blessings,</p> <p> Scott</p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p> FAQ&#39;s:</p> <p> 1) IPDA DEBATE: IPDA will be offered this year - we will have 4 preliminary rounds, followed by a Silver/Gold set of elimination rounds. Prep time will be 20 minutes. These decisions were made in order to guarantee that the experimental inclusion of the event would have the lowest possible impact on the rest of the schedule, while also giving existing IPDA programs a worthwhile event. IPDA was not scheduled against NPDA due to the lack of space, as well as to the potential burdens on coaches attempting to work with both groups of students in the same time slot.</p> <p> 2) IE PATTERNS: Instead of offerning triple entries in two flights of IEs, this year&#39;s schedule offers double entries in three AFA flights. There were a number of reasons for this decision: a) triple-entering poses a wellness problem, even on a manageable campus, b) if rounds start to run late, triple-entries tend to compound that problem, c) spreading out the flights helped reduce our resource needs per time slot, d) students in Duo and Extemp were unable to triple enter in the two-flight model, limiting their access to competition, and e) matching our flights to the AFA model could provide students a better tune-up experience if they will be attending the NIET.</p> <p> 3) EXTEMP SPEAKING: Issues were raised last year about regional differences in competition. First, we WILL allow electronic retrieval and internet access during preparation rounds. Although this runs counter to the newly (2012) codified rules of the NFA as well as the standing rules of the NIET (our governing document for IEs), I have confirmation from the respective tournament directors that qualifications from our tournament will still be accepted despite this difference. Second, we WILL NOT allow collaboration or conference during preparation time. Both organizations clearly forbid this practice, and the coaches I have contacted have supported the argument that collaboration runs counter to the primary educational benefit of the event. Third, we WILL NOT conduct the cross-examination period suggested by AFA NIET rules. Experience with this aspect of the event has been varied, but the primary concern I have is that the cross-examination could run counter to our explicit efforts to include issues of faith in the extemporaneous topics. (These issues already make the event tricky enough without adding the possibility of students questioning other students.)</p> <p> 4) LAPTOPS, TABLETS, AND SMART PHONES: These should not be used in rounds unless the student has checked in with the tournament administration about an ADA accommodation. EXCEPTION: Smartphones may be used as timekeeping devices; any other use of them in-round will result in a forfeit.</p> <p> 5) NPDA AND LD PRELIMS: We will switch back to the 4 prelims offered in LD from two years ago - this is still consistent with qualification requirements for NFA, and the divisions have often been too small to support a full 6-round slate without having competitors hit each other twice in prelims. The decision to drop one prelim in NPDA was made because: a) we needed to get all prelims in all events out of the way during the weekend, since JBU will be having classes on Monday, b) the wellness tradeoff in IEs couple with the 11-hour cap left us short a block, and c) since IPDA and LD do not conflict with NPDA, each student could compete in two forms of debate at this year&#39;s tournament, creating more potential for burnout.</p>