Judging Information

Judging Instructions

These rules will also be listed on the online ballot itself.

It’s super important that you do not miss school on the day that you are assigned to judge. Please Slack Mr. Langerman by 8:15am the morning of the debate so that he knows you are at school! There are no backup judges. It messes up the entire tournament so please, unless you are literally on the surgeon’s table, make it to school. If you are assigned to one of the Lokey study rooms, you must see Mrs. Atkinson in the Principal’s office to the get the key to open it up.

If there is any discrepancy in judging assignments between another spreadsheet and the pairings listed on Tabroom, go with what is listed on Tabroom.

During the debates, time is of the essence. There are only a few minutes to spare so the debaters must begin speaking at the moment the class begins and you must be very strict about speeches and cross-examinations starting promptly! Do not let the debaters dilly-dally or take time to organize their papers. When prep time ends, they must start speaking promptly. Rhetoric Times will be used for speech times – see your ballot for more information!

Before the debate: Judges, you MUST PRESS “START ROUND” once both teams are present in the room. Doing this alerts Tab that you have officially “picked up” your ballot and that the round has officially started.

You must submit your decision, along with each debaters' points no later than 4 pm (2 pm on Friday) on the day that you judge so that we can pair the next round. Please do not delay the tournament by waiting to submit your decision, RFD, and comments at the same time. You can edit RFD/comments later even after you've submitted your points + decision. Do not disclose your decision to the debaters in preliminary rounds.

Choosing a winning team: vote for the team who think does the better debating. If you are not a policy debater, you can either evaluate the round through a policymaker paradigm (ask yourself: if I was a policymaker, am I persuaded that the affirmative plan is a policy that I would want to implement?) or a stock issue paradigm (ask yourself: has the affirmative upheld their burden under the stock issues of harms/significance, inherency, solvency, topicality, and the disadvantage?). We have emphasized a lay style of debate in the class, so pretend that you are a league judge, rather than a circuit judge, when evaluating these rounds. 

Assigning grades: On the ballot, you will be asked to grade the debaters. If they've clearly done a decent amount of research and prep, they should at least get a B. If they are clearly unprepared, they should get no higher than a C. A's should be reserved for those debaters who are clearly demonstrating a masterful grasp of the concepts and the core skills of debate (clash, line-by-line, overviews, etc.). A grade breakdown will be listed on the online ballot for you to refer to. Increments of half a point are allowed: i.e. 45.5 or 47.0. Tied points are also allowed.

Comments: Judges, please make sure that your comments are constructive in nature. Do not demean students or give shallow comments. We are expecting substantive RFDs and comments that suggest areas of improvement and strength. After all, it is only through learning from the best that each one of us can become better debaters and speakers.

Your RFD and feedback on Tabroom will be available to the debaters at the conclusion of the tournament. However, please directly email comments (that do not reveal your decision) to the students to give them useful feedback as they incorporate those comments into their subsequent rounds!

Please let Mr. Langerman know if there are any issues with or if you have any questions about the round.

If you have a question about or issue with Tabroom, send a Slack to Sherwin Lai and/or Xavier Liu immediately. (On the days of the Tournament, Sherwin will serve as Tab Director on call. Xavier will assist with questions or issues as soon as he can feasibly. Either way, if you are having issues with Tabroom or online ballots, please do not hesitate to reach out to Sherwin or Xavier.) If something doesn't work, start the round first anyway! We can deal with the issue later.

If there is a no-show/forfeit, DO NOT SUBMIT THE BALLOT ELECTRONICALLY. Please message BOTH Mr. Langerman and Sherwin ASAP.