Judging Information

Judging Information

Judging Obligations

It is the responsibility of the school’s moderator to ensure that its judges have the appropriate training and experience to adjudicate at this tournament.  At a minimum, all judges (varsity and junior varsity) should be high school (or equivalent) graduates and should have at least several years of involvement in the applicable event. Student judges (seniors or juniors with at least 200 NSDA points) are permitted in the novice division.

School affiliated judges are obligated for all rounds (preliminary, runoff and elimination rounds) through octofinals for Policy Debate, and sextodecimofinals for LD and Public Forum Debates, and, all elimination rounds when your students are competing and one additional elimination round beyond the last elimination round of your students’ competition.  In Speech, judges are obligated for all rounds.  

In the junior varsity divisions, there will be judge strikes but no judge prefs. 

Fees for missed rounds will be assessed $100 per round, and excessive missed rounds may result in additional penalties. 

Judging Philosophies

All Policy, LD and Public Forum judges must post reasonably detailed judging philosophies prior to preferences opening and should be done at least one week in advance.  At the discretion of the tournament, failure to post an adequate judging philosophy will make that judge ineligible and result in the removal of that judge from the school's entry.  Schools will not be able to enter judge prefs to the extent philosophies are not posted.

Hired Judges

Given the online nature of the tournament, there will be no hired judges available through the tournament.  Schools must cover all of their judging obligations. 

Other Information

Schools may make judge name changes in Policy, LD or Public Forum until 9:00 p.m. NY time on October 13. The tournament will release MPJ and strike sheets shortly thereafter.  Any judge change for those events afterwards will make the judge ineligible which may result in a missed judge penalty or entries being ineligible to compete.

All judges must have their accounts set up before registration.  In tabroom, all judges will be required to provide a cell phone and email where they may be reached during the time they judge at the tournament.