Last changed on
Fri January 15, 2021 at 12:52 PM EDT
About Me: I am a parent judge with my first experience starting in 2019. Since then I have judged 30 rounds as of end of 2020. I have primarily judged Public Forum for high school students but have also a few rounds of Parliamentary debate for middle school.
Why Debate Matters To Me: As Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "“the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” To me, debate is one of the best real life arenas where this gets tested. I believe in debate as a forum for highlighting the strength of narrative, expression and persuasion that is based on a foundation of research and thoughtful insights and sharpened by intellect. I see it as a dynamic mix of strategy and tactics that is an essential life skill in any professional or social setting.
Procedural Preferences: A limited list of things that I like to emphasize to help debaters present their case, and for me to do justice in understanding your arguments:
(i) Please minimize spreading - this is not a speed-reading contest. If I as a judge cannot clearly follow your argument, I will have limited basis to judge you on the merits of your contentions and overall case
(ii) Signposting is important - both while setting up your contentions and when rebutting your opponent's contentions, evidence or impact. It helps me establish your case and cross-reference it to the rebuttals
(iii) Identify yourself - at the start. I will ask for this explicitly to ensure that I get your names and the order in which you will present so that I can correctly assign speaker points
(iv) Time yourself - I will not be validating or judging you by how many seconds under or over the limit. A few seconds over is not going to be penalized. I am less impressed when you wrap up 20-30 seconds before your allotted time.
(iv) Be polite - to your opponents. We are not at war. Similarly, the judge is not here to put you down - relax!
Evaluation Criteria: My evaluation criteria goes with the flow. What that means is that, as you progress through the flow, I expect you to build on your contentions, cite the impact of your evidences, de-emphasize your opponents' arguments and rebuttals, and finally summarize the progression in the Final Focus.
With that context here are a few guidelines of my evaluation -
1. Case building will be evaluated on the depth of your research that truly emphasize your contention(s). Great contentions with weakly supported evidences and impact will not get you high points - but, and this is important, I will not unilaterally evaluate the merit of your contention, if your opponent team does not clearly highlight the weaknesses
2. Evidence is important, but your support of that evidence to reinforce your contention and weightage is far more important. Simply citing a source as the truth is not enough, it has to be proven by facts and supported by analysis. Just because a publication or a source says something, does not make it true
3. Cover all of your opponents contentions and evidences in your rebuttals. Leaving a point un-responded, essentially means that you have not been able to find a good contrary argument and evidence and hence strengthens the opposing team's argument
4. Weightage is important, but not just by stating it. It has to be accompanied by reasons why your weighting framework is better than your opponents'
5. Speaker points are provided on 3 specific criteria - presentation, quality of argumentation, and strategic choices. The strategic choices are your extemporaneous evaluation of your opponent's case and how you choose to re-position your case and work through your research to analytically de-emphasize your opponent's key contentions, evidences and impact
That's it. Good Luck to one and all!
Rakesh Purohit