INDIVIDUAL DEBATE COMPETITION RULES.

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL DEBATE TOURNMAMET.

2014

VIÑA DEL MAR

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 JANUARY 2014

I.- I.- About individual participation.

1.- Competition: An individual competition will be part of the Fourth International Debate
Tournament and it is aimed to evaluate the skills related to oratory, reasoning and
creativity in highly demanding contents.

2.- Procedure:

2.1.- Registration: Each team has to register a participant for the individual
competition on October 24th. This debater must be a member of the team
registered for the Fourth International Debate Tournament 2014.
This registration is mandatory. The team that doesn’t register the participants will
be penalized with 30 points. These 30 points will be discounted from the score
obtained by the team in the two classification rounds, carried out on Monday 20
and Tuesday 21, October 2014.

2.2.- Format of the individual competition.

2.2.1.- Selecting the participating couples: The competition will be held on Friday
24th, October 2014 at 9:00am. The registrations of each one of the sites will be
checked at this time and the opponent couples will be chosen at random at this
very moment. Each participant representing a registered team will be assigned a
number which will be put in a glass bowl to choose which couple will debate
against. For example, the participant from Concepción, Chile has number 4 and
the representative form Santo Tomas Houston has number 7. Both numbers will be
in the bowl to be part of the random selection.

2.2.2.-Topics and positions: Once the couples have been elected, they will be called
as they appeared in the list for them to select a specific topic as well as the position
they will take: affirmative or negative. There will be a list of topics including a wide
variety of issues concerning the human knowledge.

2.2.3.- Speeches: Once the topic has been chosen and the positions defined, the
participants will have one (1) minute to organize his or her argumentations. The
affirmative position will begin the 2-minute speech; once it is over, the negative
position has 2 minutes to speak. The schema of the speeches is summarized in the
following chart:

Affirmative position speech : 2 Minutes

Negative position speech: 2 minutes.

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 2.2.4 Competition Chart.

First Round Second Round Third Round Finalists

First Round : 24 debaters participate.

Second Round : 12 debaters, winners of their corresponding keys.

Third Round : 06 debaters, winners of their corresponding keys.

Fourth round : 03 debaters, winners of their corresponding keys, plus the best
scores among the losers of the third round.

Finalists : 2 debaters, winners of their corresponding keys.

Winner : The best score of the finalists will be the winner of the individual
competition.

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  If two participants get equal score in the final round, there will be a new debate
as a runoff to decide who the winner is.

2.2.5 Chairperson:

The chairperson’s duties are:

a) To direct the debate: the chairperson is in charge of directing the
development of the debate, announcing the beginning and the end of
allocated time and keeping order and discipline in the debating room.
b) To keep the score: the chairperson will also get the scores from the judges
once the debate is over and will hand them in a close envelope to the
Organizing Committee.

2.2.6.- Time control:

The time will be controlled though a special system of lights and rings. The green
light means to begin. The yellow light means that there are 30 seconds left to
speak, the red light means that the allocated time is over. The ring means that the
speech is over.

2.2.7.- Evaluation.
The debater’s score and evaluation are in charge of a jury made up of three people,
who will be present in every debate. The maximum score is 15 points for each
participant. The jury’s decision will be unquestionable and definitive.

1.- Argumentation (1 to 5 points)

Evaluating criteria:
 Reasoning.
 Speech logic.
 Evidences supporting the topic

2.- Oral expression ( 1 to 5 points)

Evaluating criteria:
 Correct language usage.
 Vocabulary
 Voice inflections.
 Diction.
3.- Non-verbal communication: (1 to 5 points)
Evaluating criteria:
 Eye contact with the opponent.
 Stage presence.
 Gestures and body posture.

2.2.8.- Penalties.

3 points will be discounted if the debater intimidates or shows lack of respect

towards the opponent, the jury, the audience, the members of the Organizing Committee,
Santo Tomas Institutions, national or international.
3 point will be discounted if the participant exceeds the allocated time.

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 3 points will be discounted if the participant reads any kind of document or piece
of writing.

2.2.9.- Awards:

The best two individual debaters will be awarded.