The following more or less standard rules will apply to rounds at tournaments sanctioned by the Vermont Debate and Forensics League.

ORDER OF SPEECHES:

First affirmative constructive speech 8 minutes

Cross-examination of first affirmative by either negative speaker 3 minutes

First negative constructive speech 8 minutes

Cross-examination of first negative by either affirmative speaker 3 minutes

Second affirmative constructive speech 8 minutes

Cross-examination of second affirmative by other negative speaker 3 minutes

Second negative constructive speech 8 minutes

Cross-examination of second negative by the other affirmative speaker 3 minutes

First negative rebuttal 4 minutes (novice) or 5 minutes (varsity)

First affirmative rebuttal 4 minutes (novice) or 5 minutes (varsity)

Second negative rebuttal 4 minutes (novice) or 5 minutes (varsity)

Second affirmative rebuttal 4 minutes (novice) or 5 minutes (varsity)

Preparation time during the rounds shall be 8 minutes total for each team to be used in portions as needed before a team's next speech, but not before a cross examination.

CROSS EXAMINATION RESPONSIBILITIES

Each debater is responsible for two cross-examinations - one cross-examination as the questioner and one cross-examination as the respondent. When a team has one debater serving as the questioner for more than one cross examination period or serving as the responder for more than one cross examination period, that debater's team will forfeit the round of debate. (This is known as the Closed Cross-X rule.)

A debater may waive his or her cross-examination period. If a debater plans to waive his or her examination period, the individual must notify the judge and the timekeeper in order to ensure accurate timing procedures. The waiver of cross-examination time does not allow the three-minute period to become additional preparation or presentation time for the team that exercises the waiver.

SPEAKING ORDER

Teams are permitted to switch speaking order in the rebuttal speeches. The other team and the judge(s) must be notified before the debate of the switch in speaking order. Failure to notify, before the debate, the opposition and the judge(s) of the switch in speaking order will result in a forfeiture loss for the team switching speaking order.

USE OF CHARTS

No non-verbal communication will be acceptable in a round of debate. Charts or pictures will not have any weight as evidence in a round.

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TEAM MEMBERS

The oral direction or prompting of a speaker's presentation by his or her partner during constructive speeches, rebuttal speeches, or cross-examination is prohibited. The intent of the prompting rule is to prohibit any exchange of information which will substantively alter or direct a speaker's argument, questions, or answers. Prompting may be either verbal or written, which does include the exchange of notes during a constructive or rebuttal speech or the cross-examination period by either the team of the questioner or the team of the respondent. Examples of prompting include, but may not be limited to: answers provided by a speaker's partner during his or her cross-examination and the verbal or non-verbal interruption of a partner's speech to edit or direct his or her argumentation. Examples of acceptable conduct by debaters that is not to be considered as prompting include: calling out the time when anyone in the room, including the judge, is visually impaired; handing a partner a piece of evidence already presented in a round; handing a partner a pen or requesting a pen; making a comment to a partner before speaking time has begun. Because there may be other practices which might be justifiably interpreted as prompting, the debater is advised to exercise caution regarding inappropriate intrusions into the debate process.

RULES OF EVIDENCE

In debate, complete source citations of evidence must be presented on request by the opposing team or judge in a round for each source used. A complete evidence citation must include the following as identified by the original source: author's name and qualifications, publication title, complete date (and date of access for a web site), and page number (or complete http address). In the event of a violation of this rule, the judge should void the effect of the evidence in question when making the decision.

The author, qualifications, and date of the source should be given the first time each citation is read in a speech.  A complete source citation, as specified above, need not be read during a speech.

Rules of Evidence Authenticity

1. Judges are prohibited from requesting and reading any piece of evidence at the end of a round unless the issue of authenticity was raised during the debate or unless the judge has substantial reason to suspect the authenticity of the evidence.

Authenticity refers to:

1. Fabrication: falsely representing a cited fact or statement of opinion as evidence; or intentional omission/addition of information within quoted material.

2. Distortion: misrepresentation of evidence or of citation which significantly alters meaning or content.

3. Judges should not allow an apparent violation to enter into their decision unless the evidence is challenged by the opposing team or unless the judge has substantial reason to suspect the authenticity of the evidence.

Procedure: The judge will wait until after the debate, when all other arguments have been presented, to investigate an alleged evidence violation. In the event of an evidence challenge by the other team, the judge must be certain that the nature of the violation is clearly specified by the opposing team within the context of the debate; vague accusations do not warrant investigation. If a judge requests to see a piece of evidence, the judge must notify the debaters that the reason is a matter of a possible serious violation of ethical use of evidence.

1. In the case of fabrication, the judge shall award a loss with zero points as the penalty to the offending team and shall report the offense to the tournament manager. In the event of a judging panel, each judge will make his/her decision individually and report the offense to the tournament manager who will call a tournament jury together to review the offense; the tournament jury may then provide an opportunity for the panel to confer if necessary.

2. In the case of distortion, the judge will determine the severity of the penalty based upon the severity of the violation: the judge may void the effect of that evidence or may impose an additional penalty up to a loss with no speaker points; the severity of the penalty should be commensurate with the severity of the distortion violation. In the event of a judging panel, each judge will make his/her decision individually.

3. In the rare event of a judge-initiated authenticity challenge, which has not been introduced by the debaters in the round, the judge must submit the challenge to the tournament director for review prior to any succeeding rounds.

DELIVERY OF SPEECHES

The manner of delivery shall be such that the speech will be comprehensible to the intelligent, educated, non-debating member of the general public. Judges are to warn debaters when the delivery of their speeches is too rapid for a member of the public to follow. As a general rule of thumb, debaters should present their arguments in a manner similar to a member of Congress giving a speech in a congressional chamber.

SCORING

A judge must decide the winning team (there shall be no draws) based on evidence presented orally in the speeches of each round based on the particular paradigm appropriate to the round (best policy¹, most convincing evidence², stock issues³, etc.⁴) Speakers points- from 20 to 30 - are to be awarded for presentation and organization of the individual debater's speeches. An average speaker who fulfills all of his speaking obligations satisfactorily should be awarded 25 pts. More than 25 points should be used to reward exemplary debating, with 30 representing perfect speeches. Points lower than 20 are to be awarded only for exceedingly poor debating (such as 2-minute constructives), ethical violations (such as fraudulent evidence), poor sportsmanship (such as arguing with the judge), or poor delivery of speeches (such as too rapid to be intelligible). Any score below 15 must be the result of punitive action by the judge, not simply weak debating. Judges are also to rank debaters in a round from 1 to 4 (1 being the best debater). Ties in speaker's points will are allowed, but not in speaker's rank. The winning team need not necessarily have the higher speaking points.

FLOWING

All rounds of debate are open to all participants, administrators, and/or visitors. Flow sheets or written notes may be taken by any person participating in or listening to a round of debate.

JUDGES DISCRETION

Judges should use discretion in the application of these rules. Improper behavior by a contestant during a round may be disciplined at the discretion of the judge. For example, judges should evaluate prompting infractions and assign penalties reflecting how substantively the prompting directed or edited the argumentation. Penalties could include oral and/or written criticism, the assignment of lower speaker points and speaker ranks, and/or forfeiture of the round of debate by the school which commits the violation.

JUDGE BEHAVIOR

Judge behavior during a debate should be exemplary. In general, judges should not make oral comments about arguments during a round of debate. Judges must not base their decisions on their own ideas for arguments or on their own criticisms of the case, but will consider the important issues brought out and debated by contestants in the round.

RESOLVE

Vermont rules require that before a round of debate can begin in a room, the resolution must be written out so that it can be observed by all participants in the round.

Endnotes:

1. The winning side presents better (as in having greater impact), more probable, and more convincing advantages as compared to its disadvantages than does the opposing side.

2. Most convincing evidence may be used to resolve which side presents the best policy choice or stock issues arguments in the absence of a clear advantage to either side. More evidence, more recent evidence, clearer evidence, and more credible source for evidence can all be used to determine which evidence is more convincing.

3. Affirmative must present and defend a prima facie case consisting of the following on the resolution:

Harms: affirmative's plan of action must solve some difficulty in the status quo.

Inherency: the harms must be the result of some flaw in the status quo.

Solvency: the plan must be able to correct the harms.

Significance: the plan must correct severe harms or correct a large part of a major harm.

Topicality: is a jurisdictional issue that may be decided before all other issues in the round. If the affirmative team does not argue in favor of the resolution, the judge must assign victory in the round to the negative team.

Most judges make their decisions on combinations of stock issues and advantages and disadvantages that are important in a particular round.

4. Other ways of judging, such as gamesmanship are to be discouraged.