State Tournaments to Enter
CTMSDL
What is CTMSDL?
The Connecticut Middle School Debate League (CTMSDL) hosts competitive interscholastic Parliamentary Debate tournaments for grades 5-8. Participation is open to all middle schools in Connecticut. Each team is made up of three people, and the motion (or topic) will be released around a month prior to tournaments and scrimmages. Every speech is five minutes. Each year, CTMSDL hosts one scrimmage (October), three State tournaments (December, January, and April), and the Championship Tournament which is around May.
Who Can Enter?
Anyone! There are two divisions (novice and open) so if you have already competed in novice and feel that you are ready, you can compete in the open division. The novice division is for brand-new debaters, so even if you think you are less experienced, all the other teams in novice have never debated before either.
Format - Standard Time Limits
First Proposition Speaker: 5 minutes
Prep Time: 1 minute
First Opposition Speaker: 5 minutes
Prep Time: 1 minute
Second Proposition Speaker: 5 minutes
Prep Time: 1 Minute
Second Opposition Speaker: 5 minutes
Opposition Rebuttal: 4 minutes
Prep Time: 1 Minute
Proposition Rebuttal: 4 minutes
For more information on entering and the rules, check out the CTMSDL handbook: https://ctmsdebate.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/CTMSDL-Handbook-July-2019.pdf
CDA
What is CDA?
The Connecticut Debate Association (CDA) hosts the Parliamentary Debate tournaments for high schoolers. Participation is open to all high schools in Connecticut. However, the rules and format are different from CTMSDL. Each team is made up of two people, and the motion is released around 15 minutes before the round. A packet is released at the same time the topic is released, which each team will use for research because there is very little time to do that research on your own. The packet should have everything you need with a range of articles for each side (the government and opposition sides). The following format is used for the CDA tournaments:
Format - Standard Time Limits
First Proposition Speaker: 7 minutes
First Opposition Speaker: 8 minutes
Second Proposition Speaker: 8 minutes
Second Opposition Speaker: 8 minutes
Opposition Rebuttal: 4 minutes
Proposition Rebuttal: 5 minutes
**For CTMSDL (middle school State tournament) every speech is 5 minutes and the last two rebuttals are 4
To find out more, check out the CDA handbook: https://ctdebate.org/PDFs/CDA%20Parli%20Handbook.pdf
Nationals
National tournaments have the same rules and time format as CDA, except your team will now compete against schools from across the country. Again, anyone can compete in National tournaments as long as you have a team of two! These tournaments are posted on Tabroom, which is the official website created by the National Speech and Debate Association. This is where all tournaments for all forms of debate are posted, including the CDA and CTMSDL State tournaments. This is also where you sign up for tournaments. Many of the National tournaments are close by such as the Yale Invitational and the Ivy League Championship hosted at the Columbia campus.
Link to tabroom: https://www.tabroom.com/index/index.mhtml
Check out the list of National Parliamentary tournaments to enter created by the Connecticut Debate Association (CDA) here: https://ctdebate.org/CDA-OtherT.html
