Points Entry
Points offer students and coaches recognition for their participation in speech and debate. Points are numerical values earned through competition and service activities. For example, students receive six points for winning a debate round and three points for losing a debate round.
Coaches earn points alongside their students: A coach receives 100% of the points their competitor earns. As students and coaches reach point benchmarks, they also earn distinction by advancing through higher degree levels in our Honor Society.
Why Points Matter
Programs directly benefit from recording points. Points:
- Provide motivation for students as they track their progress over time.
- Contextualize speech and debate experience into a national framework for college applications or resumes.
- Make students and coaches eligible for additional Honor Society awards for competitive success, service, academic excellence, and longevity.
- Are earned regardless of the outcome of the round, demonstrating the educational value of participation.
- Contribute to school awards and the number of students a school can take to the district tournament.
Points are a means to track your progress and boost morale. Points foster friendly competition among fellow debaters and motivate everyone to do their best!
Getting Started with Points Entry
Points can only be approved by an advisor or coach with designated permissions via their NSDA Account. Coaches add points by logging in to their NSDA Account and visiting their school roster. To assign points to a student, they must first be added to their school’s roster.
- Instruct new students (who have never competed at another school in middle or high school) to visit www.speechanddebate.org/join to create an account.
- Go to www.speechanddebate.org and select Member Login in the top right corner of the page. Use your username and password to log in to your account. Once you’ve logged in, select Account in the upper right corner, which will take you to your profile page.
- On the left side of your screen, select School Roster. The screen that opens will say Student Roster for (School Name). Make sure that you are on the Student Roster by checking for the yellow Student box at the top of the screen.
- Select “school roster” on the lefthand menu.
- Now, on your school roster page, a red banner across the page will read that there are pending students to approve to your roster.
- From this banner, select “create new” on each student, to approve adding them to the roster (since they are not already on it, needing to be merged).
Note: We strongly recommend asking students to create their accounts before adding them to your roster to ensure that their personal details (name, email, grad year, etc.) are entered correctly. Their names will be listed on their membership certificate as entered when the account is created.
1. The best way to transfer a student is with their NSDA ID. To find it, please:
a. Navigate to your account page.
b. Use the “search records” button on your left-hand vertical menu of your account page to search for the student’s name or email address.
c. Copy their NSDA ID number.
2. Navigate to your school roster page.
3. Select “add student” next to the Students tab at the top and paste their NSDA ID.
4. This should create an approval banner across the page for you to approve and “create new.”
How Are Points Calculated
Detailed instructions for calculating points are included in the Unified Manual.
DEBATE
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- Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, Big Questions, and Policy Debate are recorded in the “Debate” category, and are worth six points per win and three points per loss or non-decision. Only one win/loss is recorded per round, so for a panel of judges, the prevailing decision is entered.
- Non-Association debate events, such as Mock Trial, Parliamentary Debate, or Spontaneous Argument are recorded in the “Debate” category, and are worth four points per win and two points per loss or non-decision.
CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE
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- Congressional Debate or other assembly speaking is recorded in the “Congress” category. No more than 36 points may be recorded per calendar day. At least four hours of debate must be held.
- There are two ways Congressional Debate points may be awarded. Coaches may select whichever method they prefer as the methods may result in different numbers of earned points.
- Speech-Score Method: Using a one to six point scale, students earn points per speech or per complete hour of presiding. If speeches are not scored on a one to six scale, a conversion conversation table is provided in the Unified Manual. Only one score is recorded per speech, so for a panel of judges, the average of the scores rounded to the closest decimal is recorded.
- This method works best for students who give several speeches over the course of the day and/or if they do not place in the final round.
- Speech-Score Method: Using a one to six point scale, students earn points per speech or per complete hour of presiding. If speeches are not scored on a one to six scale, a conversion conversation table is provided in the Unified Manual. Only one score is recorded per speech, so for a panel of judges, the average of the scores rounded to the closest decimal is recorded.
- Final Placement Method: Students are awarded points based upon their final placement in the tournament.
- This method works best for students who competed in finals and placed well. It may also be used at tournaments where individual speech scores are not provided.
SPEECH
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- Public speaking or interpretive events are recorded by their individual category name. Student ranks, or rank equivalents (conversion for point totals or alternate systems) are used.
- Only one rank or round placing may be entered for a panel of judges. For elimination rounds prior to a final round, an average of a panel’s ranks may be used, with the average of the ranks rounded to the closest decimal recorded. For the final round, tournament placement is the rank.
- Main Association events may earn six points per first rank, five points per second rank, four points per third rank, and three points per rank of four or below. Those events include Extemporaneous Speaking (both international and United States), Original Oratory, Informative Speaking, and Humorous, Dramatic, Duo, and Program Oral Interpretation.
- Non-main Association events may earn five points per first rank, four points per second rank, three points per third rank, two points per fourth rank, and one point for ranks of five and below. Use the appropriate category name, or a similar category name as appropriate. Extrapolate what speech categories best match outside contests. For example, American Legion Oratorical Contest’s two speaking events are recorded as Original Oratory and Extemporaneous Speaking. Poetry Out Loud, Slam Poetry, and Spoken-Word Poetry are recorded as Poetry.
SERVICE
Students can earn points for using their skills in service of others.
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- Students can earn up to 20 service points per day and a maximum of 200 points per year. If an advisor or coach with designated permissions deems an activity as eligible for service points, they may enter them as they would points for competition.
- Each approximate hour of activity should be treated as two points.
- Points are entered in increments of one and fall under two categories—speaking (for an audience of five or more adults) and non-speaking.
How to Enable Autoposting
The most efficient way to enter student points is with the autoposting feature. If you connect your NSDA roster, points for tournaments hosted on the tabulation softwares Tabroom.com or SpeechWire are available for autoposting within two weeks of the tournament date. Advisors can log in and confirm pending autoposted points rather than recording them manually.
For points to successfully autopost to a student’s NSDA Account, the student’s NSDA Account must be linked to their Tabroom.com Account.
- Go to www.speechanddebate.org and click Member Login in the top right corner of the page. Use your username and password to log in to your account. Once you’ve logged in, click “Account” in the upper right corner, which will take you to your profile page. (Please note, in order to confirm pending autoposted points, you have to be a chapter advisor or a coach with permissions.)
- On the left side of your screen, click on Enter Points. If you have autoposted points that you need to confirm, a screen will load that has the title Confirm Pending Autoposted Points for <School Name>.
- If you are concerned that the pending autoposted points were manually entered, click the box next to words Show overlaps with manual points. This will highlight the already-entered points in red. If points were already entered manually, then you should click Ignore for each entry that has already been entered manually. This will take the entry off the autopost points page so you will no longer see it.
- Check the autoposted entries for result and coach accuracy. Change the coach as needed. When ready to confirm points, click on the blue outlined button that says Confirm. If you’d like to confirm all autoposted points, you may also click on Confirm All.
- If a pending autopost entry shows incorrect results, then you should contact Tabroom.com or SpeechWire because the actual results may need editing. Or, you can manually enter points for the same dates as the autoposted tournament and not use the autoposted points. If you manually enter points, then you should go in and click Ignore for the entry that you entered manually so it disappears from the autopost points list.
Entering manually does not apply to District and National points as the point values are higher than other tournaments. If a district or national auto post entry is incorrect, they should contact the National Office.
- When logged in to Tabroom.com, click your school under Institutions from the menu on the right. If you do not see Institutions on the right, click your email at the top of the page.
- Next, click the Competitors tab.
- From the menu on the right (under NSDA Points), click Import NSDA Competitor Roster.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Import Students.
- Your NSDA Roster is now synced with Tabroom.com. Anytime a change or add is done on the NSDA side, you must follow the steps above in order to “sync” again.
Need a Visual? Click here to watch a video demonstration!
Time Saving Tips
Entering points may be intimidating at first, but there are a lot of ways to make the process more efficient. Beyond autoposting, there are several ways to save time when manually entering points, including student submission of their own points to be approved by their team’s advisor.
Options for Bulk Point Entering:
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- Enter points for more than one student at a time:
- Add a row and provide information for one student, then use the Clone a Row function (icon: two overlapping boxes) on the far right of that row to create a new entry for which you only need to change the student’s name to their partner’s.
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
(The GIF will loop continuously; there is no audio.)
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
- Add a row and provide information for one student, then use the Clone a Row function (icon: two overlapping boxes) on the far right of that row to create a new entry for which you only need to change the student’s name to their partner’s.
- Enter points for more than one student at a time:
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- Enter all points for one event at one time:
- Add a row and provide the event and coach to whom the points will go, then select the Bulk Add button to select all the students who competed in that event for whom you want to apply points. Once you’ve added all the students, use the Clone to All function (icon: the blue group) on the far right of the first student’s row to apply the event and coach information to all the entries. Enter the appropriate points for each student, select Finish, and then you can do the same thing for another event.
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
(The GIF will loop continuously; there is no audio.)
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
- Add a row and provide the event and coach to whom the points will go, then select the Bulk Add button to select all the students who competed in that event for whom you want to apply points. Once you’ve added all the students, use the Clone to All function (icon: the blue group) on the far right of the first student’s row to apply the event and coach information to all the entries. Enter the appropriate points for each student, select Finish, and then you can do the same thing for another event.
- Enter all points for one event at one time:
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- Entering service points for a group:
- Follow the same steps you would to enter several students in the same event, but also complete the service description and results to apply all the information to the students you’ve submitted in Bulk Add at once using the Clone to All function.
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
(The GIF will loop continuously; there is no audio.)
- Need a Visual? Watch our brief tutorial!
- Follow the same steps you would to enter several students in the same event, but also complete the service description and results to apply all the information to the students you’ve submitted in Bulk Add at once using the Clone to All function.
- Entering service points for a group:
Did You Know?
Students can submit points for your approval through their NSDA Account.
Student-submitted points will await approval or denial in your Pending queue the same way autopoints do. There are checks in the system to catch duplicate entries. This tool is especially useful for submitting service points!
How students submit points:
- Have students log in to their NSDA Account.
- They will see two tabs—one for Profile and the other for Points. The Points tab is for review of their existing points.
- Have them select the Profile tab. Next to their total points is a button that reads Add. Once they select Add, a series of boxes will appear for the student to add the name and date of the tournament and their ranks, points, or wins and losses.
- Once students select Submit, their points will appear with your autopoints as pending approval.
- Important! Acceptance of a student’s submitted points indicates that you have reviewed and approved those points. Be sure to verify their results and service activities prior to approving them. Advisers are responsible for ensuring that all points are entered correctly.