1. The judges are in complete control of the competition. Their decisions shall be final on all questions.
   
2. If contestants are too numerous, preliminary round(s) will be held in written form, after which subsequent rounds will be held orally. If contestants are not too numerous, all rounds will be oral. (January 14 Update: There are a total of 28 contestants registered; all rounds will be oral.)
3. The competition will be conducted in rounds. Each speller remaining in the spelling bee at the start of the round will spell one word during the round.
4. Order of spellers will be determined by draw.
5. The pronouncer will give the speller a word. The speller should say the word once, spell the word out loud, then say the word again (spellers are encouraged to do this in order to make sure they heard the word correctly but won't be disqualified if they don't say the word either before or after spelling it).
6. Before spelling the word, the speller can ask the pronouncer to say the word again, provide a definition, or use it in a sentence.
7. Judges can disqualify a speller who ignores a request to proceed or repeatedly delays proceedings.
8. Having started to spell a word, a speller may stop and start over, retracing the spelling from the beginning. In retracing, however, there can be no change of letters or their sequence from those first pronounced. If letters or their sequences are changed in the respelling, the speller will be eliminated.
   
9. Until the Final Round, upon missing a spelling of a word, a speller immediately drops out of the competition.

FINAL ROUND

• The rules change when the competition gets down to the final two spellers. If the first speller misses a word, the second speller must correctly spell that word and then another in order to win. If the second speller spells misspells the new word, then the first speller gets the chance to correct it. If he spells it correctly he then gets a new word and if he spells that word correctly he is declared the winner (if not, the competition continues).