Points of Information
During any speech except the reply speeches, members of the opposing team may offer points of information to briefly interject a point that the speaker must immediately respond to. The speaker holding the Floor is not obliged to accept all the points of information offered to them, but is likely to be marked down by adjudicators if they do not accept any. Speakers delivering points of information are expected to keep them to 15 seconds or less. Although a speaker's points of information do not have a direct effect on their mark, a mechanism named the "POI Adjuster" has been introduced in recent years: when the quality of a speaker's POIs is significantly different (better or worse) from the quality of their speech, the judge may add or subtract one or two marks from their overall speaker score.
The first and last minute of each main speech, as well as the entire duration of reply speeches, are "protected time", meaning that no points of information may be offered.
Read more about this topic: World Schools Style Debate
Famous quotes containing the words points of, points and/or information:
“Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the “Naught is more real ...” and the “Ubi nihil vales ...” both already in Murphy and neither very rational.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“The information links are like nerves that pervade and help to animate the human organism. The sensors and monitors are analogous to the human senses that put us in touch with the world. Data bases correspond to memory; the information processors perform the function of human reasoning and comprehension. Once the postmodern infrastructure is reasonably integrated, it will greatly exceed human intelligence in reach, acuity, capacity, and precision.”
—Albert Borgman, U.S. educator, author. Crossing the Postmodern Divide, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1992)