Debate Nirvana

The awards ceremony always occurs at the end of the day of a debate tournament. After four exhausting rounds, debaters can sit back and relax as they hear the name and stride up proudly to the front of the auditorium to receive their trophy for debate success. They have achieved Debate Nirvana.

The awards ceremony is generally the most relaxed, happiest part of the day. After a month of research and preparation, twenty grueling minutes before each debate to furiously scribble down stuff onto the right-colored sheet of paper, and a half an hour of arguing nonstop, the awards ceremony is a place where those who succeeded in debate that day get recognized with some nice trophies.

There are a bunch of possible awards given out. A list is below in the order that they're handed out:

1. Individual trophies
2. Team trophies
3. School trophies-- # of wins & winning %

The individual trophies, as you can see, come first. These are decided by speaker points. Yes, the same speaker points you've been getting at the end of every debate round. See, it is essential to be a good speaker. There are usually 15 trophies to give out, and, on average, if you have a total of more than 300 speaker points, then you're going to get a trophy. Over 330? Then you're in the top 1. (This means that you'd need to get 75 points on average and about 83 on average per debate, respectively).

Secondly come the team trophies. These are given to each member of a team that places in the top five or so. This is where the wins-loses come into play. You need to be 4-0 to get a team trophy since there are likely going to be three or four 4-0 teams and a bunch of other 3-1 teams. So aim for 4-0 if you want to get a trophy. Now, what happens when teams tie for the best record? (which happens every debate tournament) Well, then they determine the best team by speaker point total. The speaker point total is computed by adding all of the speaker points of all the team members from all the rounds. Again, it helps to be a good speaker. A great team will have around 910 total points, while the #1 overall will have around 930-50 points.

Lastly, come what are called the "Sweepstakes Awards", which are basically just awards given to schools for overall performance. There are two trophies. 1) Number of wins total. This basically just means that whichever school has the most wins at the end of the tournament wins the trophy. It helps to send a lot of teams, for losses are ignored. 2) Winning %. This one counts losses, and counts them against you. The school with the best winning percentage gets this award.