Iowa Forensics League
Resources
Running a speech and debate team can be tough. Through the generous contribution of the coaches and teachers of the IFL member schools, we are currently compiling a database of informative information to help you and your students from the start of a new program to competition.
The National Forensics League was established in 1925 to provide students with a unified set of rules and regulations for speech and debate. Since then, they have expanded into student participation recording, lesson planning, and tournament hosting. On their website, you can find many resources for new and emerging programs.
National Forensics League Resources
The National Debate Coaches Association currently runs a national tournament as well as a massive back file and camp debate evidence collection database. They are currently a non profit who offers their services to all students and educations free of charge.
The Joy of Tournaments website is the main registration site for tournaments in Iowa and around the country. Look for this site if you want to find a tournament in your state for any given weekend.
The Iowa High School Congress tab program was originally designed by Melissa Meier (Ames HS) and Harry Strong (Roosevelt HS) as an excel spread sheet that could tab student congress. As time passed, it was recognized that a software coding was needed to keep the functions of the spreadsheet from corrupting. In 2012, Jesse Meyer (Waterloo East HS) coded the spreadsheet into java. The program exists online free for anyone to use. The program can either be run online or downloaded as a clean excel sheet.
Mr. Rich Edwards, a professor of communication at Baylor University has developed a tab program for debate using Microsoft Visual Basic. This program, called Tab Room on the PC (TRPC) and it's sister program, Tab Room for IE's on the PC (TRIEPC) have been the standard for tournament tabulation for almost two decades. It has been used at every major high school tournament as well as almost every major college debate tournament. His software is free for download.
Mr. Rich Edward's Website (software download)