NPDL Rules & Judging Materials

Click one the following links:

1. NPDL Rules that all debaters and judges should know.
2. Judge training video & PowerPoint with essentials links.

Special Notes:

1. This tournament will allow points of clarification during the first two speeches, to ask a non-argumentative question seeking explanation of the other side’s advocacy. The speaker must accept all POCs. Time stops for POCs.

2. XI.7: JUDGE CONFLICTS

A. A judge may not judge a student if the judge and the student may be perceived to have a competitive or financial agreement that may bias the judge’s impartial evaluation of the round. Examples include but are not limited to the following:

- The student attends a school (or a collaboration of schools) that the judge attended, coached for, or competed with in the past six years.

- The judge has a paid or unpaid coaching, consulting, or judging relationship with the student or school during the same academic year. NOTE: Serving as a tournament-hired judge does not constitute a conflict of interest.

- The judge is involved in ongoing negotiations to provide future paid or unpaid coaching, consulting, or judging to a school or student, or otherwise anticipates providing such coaching.

- The judge has provided exclusive pre-round preparation to a student either before or during a tournament through any method including electronically, verbally, or through the transfer of resources. NOTE: Sharing of information does not constitute preparation, but the discussion of strategies, arguments, evidence, etc., would constitute preparation. If such preparation is provided during a tournament, the judge should immediately (before pairings are released) recuse themself from judging the student they prepared for the rest of the tournament. In general, scrimmage/practice rounds between schools do not create conflicts, but if a given person frequently (more than five times in the preceding six months) judges and gives feedback to a student from another school in a scrimmage round, the judge is conflicted against judging that student at a tournament. An oral RFD (reason for decision) given after a round to which the tournament assigned the judge and the student does not constitute “preparation” for purposes of this rule.

- The judge was a paid staff member at a summer debate institution (or winter or spring debate institution of at least five-day duration) during the same summer (or winter or spring) that the student attended the institution, or has been hired to be on staff for the upcoming summer and is aware that the student will attend during that summer.

B. A judge may not judge a student if the judge and the student may be perceived to have a personal or social arrangement that may bias the judge’s impartial evaluation of the round. Examples include but are not limited to the following:

- The judge and the student may be perceived to have had a personal relationship that may bias the judge’s impartial evaluation of the round.

- The judge and the student are or have been in a familial, physical, or emotional relationship.

- The judge and the student have communications of a personal nature over email, telephone, or the internet including social networking sites that goes beyond casual exchanges. For example, communications that are extensive and/or repetitive may create a conflict. Judges who socialize with the student outside of the competition arena are considered to have established a personal or social relationship with that student.

C. A judge may not judge a student if the judge does not believe they are able to fairly and impartially adjudicate a competition involving a particular student for whatever reason.

D. A judge may choose to recuse from adjudicating a student under the following conditions: if the judge shares transportation and/or lodging with the student’s team on a regular basis, or if the judge has a personal, financial, or familial relationship with the student’s coach or member of the student’s family. It is the affirmative duty of the judge to make such information publicly available prior to the round beginning.

E. The expectation of competitors, judges, and coaches is to engage in the highest levels of professionalism and integrity. While the responsibility is on judges to aide transparency, coaches and student competitors should as well. It is the affirmative duty of all coaches and debaters to assist efforts in transparency.