Opening Ceremony | Live Doc | 2024 Tournament Program |

Updated Elimination Round Schedules

| Awards Ceremony | Awards PPT

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2024 Championships

Invitation

(Invite last updated 5/19/24)

NOF By-Laws

Dear Forensics Community,

Building upon the success of last year’s online championships, National Online Forensics is excited to announce the 2024 National Online Forensics Championships for High School, Middle School, and Elementary.   This will be a synchronous video conference national championship tournament. 

 Tournament Dates:

 National Online Forensics sees a tremendous value in an online national championship that can afford more competitors and programs the opportunity to compete and showcase their skills on a national level.

 Key Points:

• Registration is due May 22 (updated later date) for High School, Middle School, and Elementary at 8pm Pacific time on ForensicsTournament.net

• Reasonable entry fees payable by credit card on the website. Payment will be available the week of the tournament.

• Each school is required to provide one judge for every 5 IE entries per pattern/2 debate teams. At the discretion of the Tournament Director, uncovered entries may be allowed (penalty fees apply).

• The tournament will use synchronous video conferencing. Please see the Best Practices section of this invite for tips on how to effectively use the platform.

• There will be a single championship division for all events.

• The Opening Ceremony, most college final rounds, and the Awards ceremony will be live-streamed on YouTube.

We hope you and your team can join us for a celebration of the hard work our forensics competitors have been doing all season.  If you have any questions please feel free to email us at info@nationalonlineforensics.org 

Sincerely,

The National Online Forensics Team

Topics:

- LD Topic: Resolved: In a democracy, a people ought to have the right to secede from their government.

- PF Topic: Resolved: The United States should establish a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement with the European Union.

- Extemp: US Elections, Economy, Asia & Eastern Europe, Africa

- Impromptu: Elementary and Middle School divisions will use concrete nouns, abstract nouns, and proverbs for prelim rounds and quotations for elimination rounds.  High school will use quotations for all rounds.

- Congress, Worlds, Assigned Platform, and NOF Mock Trial: Topics will be released 2 weeks prior to the tournament (12:00 PM Pacific May 13th).

2024 High School Updated Schedule

* Schedule may be adjusted depending on entries. 

Pattern A: Info, Pers, STE, Imp

Pattern B: POI, POE, Prose

Pattern C: DUO, DRA, HI, Original Interp

Pattern D: Declamation, Storytelling, Extemp 

Pattern E: Congress (may not enter debate)

Pattern F: LD, PF, NOF Parli, World Schools (may not enter Congress)

Pattern G: SPAR

2024 Middle School Updated Schedule

* Schedule may be adjusted depending on entries

Pattern A: Info, Pers, STE, Imp

Pattern B: POI, POE, Prose

Pattern C: DUO, DRA, HI, Original Interp

Pattern D: Declamation, Storytelling, Extemp 

Pattern E: Congress (may not enter debate)

Pattern F: LD, PF, NOF Parli, World Schools (may not enter Congress)

Pattern G: SPAR

2024 Elementary Updated Schedule

Pattern H: Congress, SPAR, Public Forum, NOF Parli, World Schools  

Pattern J: Duo, Impromptu, Declamation, Poetry, Prose, Storytelling, Informative, Persuasive

Updated Elimination Round Schedule

Individual Events

• Three prelims will be held; elimination rounds will be held as necessary.

• Competitors may enter a maximum of four individual events per pattern.

• All multiple-entered students are responsible for making it to their other rounds on-time. Any student not checked-in with their judge at the beginning of the round may miss their chance to speak. Judges are obligated to wait for a competitor until 10 minutes before the end of the allotted time for the round. Competitors missing their round will receive last place in the round.

• 1 Judge is required for every 5 entries per pattern

• Prelim Ranking: Ranks/Decimal/Drop High Rank  

• Elim Ranking: Total Rank/Number of Firsts in Event/Rank in Elim/Decimal in Elim/Judge Pref in Elim

• Speaker Points will not be used.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honors awards. See NOF Bylaws for more information.

• All competitors in elimination rounds will receive recognition. 

• The top speaker in each event will be recognized as the National Champion.

Limited Prep Events:

• Impromptu topics will be provided to each competitor in the Live Video Room (their competition room) chat box.  Judges will need to copy/paste the topics  (provided on the eBallots) in the chat window for the competitors.  

• Each competitor will receive a different set of impromptu topics. 

• Extemp questions will be provided through ExtempRoom.com.  More information to be provided. Competitors in extemp should go to the help room with any questions.

Platform Events:

• While competitors are allowed to still use electronic Visual Aids, they are encouraged to have them printed on 8.5x11 pages to show to the audience while presenting. 

• Screen sharing to show a PowerPoint or image is permitted.  Competitors should be familiar with the 8x8 video sharing feature and do so at their own risk. Any technological issues may influence judge ranks. 

Interp Events:

• Books are encouraged but not required. Given the nature of the video conferencing system, holding books while performing can block many cameras. Competitors are encouraged to use them to hold true to traditional forensics tournaments but this adaptation is left to the competitors. Judges are instructed not to penalize competitors for not using books. 

• Competitors may, if they desire, stand up while performing to showcase blocking, but the technology works better sitting in front of the camera. 

Debate

• Standard pairing will be used with 2 random rounds followed by 2 High-Low rounds. 

• In Elims, brackets will be broken to facilitate debating. 

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards. See NOF Bylaws for more information.

• Competitors may only enter one format of debate per pattern.

• 1 Judge is required for every 2 debate entries

• Speaker Point Scale will be 100-70

• Prelim Ranking: Wins/Total Points/HL Points/Z Score/Opp Wins

• Speakers Ranking: Total Points/HL Points/Ranks/Z Score

• A 5 minute forfeit rule will be put in place for all debate rounds.

• See tournament homepage for topics.

Congress

• Preliminary Round Sectioning: Competitors will ideally be assigned to panels/chambers of 10-20 competitors apiece. Each panel/chamber shall not exceed 24 competitors.

• Competitors will remain in the same chambers for all prelim rounds.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards. See NOF Bylaws for more information.

• Prelim Ranking: Ranks/Decimal/DropHighRank/Parliamentarian Ballot

• Elim Ranking: Total Rank/Number of Firsts/Elim Rank/Elim Decimal/Judge Pref/Parliamentarian

• 1 Judge is required for every 5 Congress entries.

Sweepstakes

• Top schools will be recognized in the following categories:

• Elementary, Middle, High School, Community College, and University. 

• Top 5 individual event speakers will be recognized. 

• Top Debate speakers will be recognized in each debate event.

• See the NOF Bylaws for event point values. 

Fees

• School Fee: $50

• Individual Event Entries: $30/entry

• Duo Entries: $40/entry

• Congress Entries: $30/entry

• 1-Person Debate Event Entries: $60/entry

• 2-Person Debate Event Entries: $70/entry

• 3-Person Debate Event Entries: $80/entry

• Judges: First Missed Ballot - $25 / Subsequent Missed Ballots - $50

• Uncovered IE/Congress Slot (with Tournament Director Approval): $30/slot

• Uncovered Debate Entry (with Tournament Director Approval): $150/team

• Changes after the entry deadline: $25 per change (subject to tournament director approval) 

• Judge drops within 24 hours of the tournament will be charged a $150 judge no-show fee.  

• Judges who submit incomplete eBallots (with little to no substantive feedback) may be charged a judge no-show fee for failing to complete their judge assignment which includes both ranking the speakers along with giving sufficient comments.

• Delay of tournament fees may be assessed from $20-$100 based on the severity of the delay.

• Competitor no-shows (coaches did not notify the tournament prior to the missed round) - $35

Any schools seeking to buy out of their judging requirements must have approval by the Tournament Director. Please contact us early so we can let you know if we will be able to approve uncovered entries.  

Any judges seeking to be hired by the tournament may register using the judge interest form on the registration page.

The tournament reserves the right to assign ballots to judges which are scheduled:

Due to the complex nature of the schedule, judges may be asked to accept ballots in events they did not initially register.  For example, if a judge is signed up to accept debate ballots, but the tournament needs more Impromptu judges, then that judge would be expected to take the Impromptu ballot.  We will do our best to accommodate event requests, but may not be able to do so.

To ensure timely pickup of ballots, all judges should wait in the Standby Judge Room until dismissed or they have picked up a ballot via e-mail. This will ensure judges are not missing ballots pushed to them during the tournament.

Official Rules

For more information about National Online Forensics Tournaments, please consult our by-laws: 

National Online Forensics (NOF) By-Laws