Resources for Judges
Sections in this Unit:
General Resources
Sample Ballots
Policy Debate
Congressional Debate
Online Tournaments
Why Judge?
This video, produced by the Citi Foundation for the Saint Louis Urban Debate League, highlights the role of academic debate—and by extension speech and interpretation of literature—and the volunteers who support competitors.
General Resources
These resources are applicable to virtually any speech & debate event you will find at a typical high school competition.
The Process
What to Do Before, During, and After the Round. This video walks you through the process of judging. The first 30 minutes focuses on your arrival at the venue, what should happen during the debate from your perspective as a judge, and what you should do after the round is over. The last part of the video highlights some things that can go wrong and how you can deal with them. While the video is specific to policy debate with the St. Louis Urban Debate League, most of the information is applicable to any speech & debate event.
Principles of Judging
In October of 2020, I worked with the Arizona Speech & Debate Coaches Association to host several Zoom-based webinars on judging speech & debate. This video discusses the basic principles of judging speech and debate competitions.
Understanding Academic Debate
This segment discusses the nature of competitive, academic debate. It explores the foundations of the activity to give judges insight into what and how to judge debate. (I reference many of the concepts in Steve Johnson’s Winning Debates as I progress through this video.).
Adjudicating Debates
This segment of my judge training sessions walks you through the steps of determining a winner in the debate round and filling out the ballot with meaningful comments with all the necessary requirements.
High School Formats
The final section of my judge training session, introduces judges to the main formats of debate in high school: Lincoln Douglas Debate, Policy Debate, and Public Forum.
Electronic Ballots
More and more tournaments are having judges use electronic ballots rather than paper ballots. I tend to use SpeechWire when running tournaments, so I have provided a link to a tutorial put together by that platform.
Are you a judge who is supporting a tournament that relies on electronic ballots from SpeechWire? If you are judging a virtual tournament, it is definitely using e-ballots. Even many in-person events have opted to save trees. This video talks about speech, debate, and congress e-ballots, as well as how to integrate with various asynchronous and synchronous approaches to online tournaments.
Sample Ballots
Here you can find several “completed” ballots so you can see the types of things that go into finishing the ballot(s) for the round you have been assigned to judge. I also have annotated ballots so you can see why certain things are on the ballots.
Policy Debate
These resources are applicable to Policy Debate (aka - Team Debate, Cross Examination Debate, CEDA, & NDT). Many of the concepts are used in other formats such as NPDA, and to a lesser extent Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum.
Intro to Policy Debate
This video introduces new judges to the Policy Debate format. It provides a brief synopsis of the event.
Policy Debate - Extended Version
This video serves as an extended introduction to Policy Debate for those volunteers who wish to learn a bit more about the event. In addition to the basics, it introduces judges to the foundations of an affirmative case and the types of offensive arguments the negative team might make in a debate round.
Congressional Debate
These resources are applicable to Congressional Debate or Student Congress.
Intro to Congress
This brief presentation introduces judges to the Congressional Debate format.
Congressional Debate - Extended Version
Online Tournaments
This section provides resources for those tournaments that take place completely online.
Yaatly
Are you a judge who is set to watch rounds on Yaatly? This video, put together by Steve Johnson, Director of Debate at the University of Alaska Anchorage and co-owner of Yaatly, walks participants through the tournament experience on Yaatly platform.
Tabroom & NSDA Campus (Part 1)
In October of 2020, I worked with the Arizona Speech & Debate Coaches Association to host several Zoom-based webinars on judging speech & debate. The first three parts were recorded by Richie Glover, and I did the last four segments. The ASDCA uses Tabroom.com (to run the tournament) and NSDA campus (to host the tournament) when holding online tournaments. The first video walks volunteers through the process of setting up a Tabroom account.
Tabroom & NSDA Campus (Part 2)
Part 2 of the ASDCA series walks volunteers through the process of finding their ballots, watching competitors, and submitting ballots using Tabroom.com and NSDA Campus for virtual tournaments using this software.
Tabroom & NSDA Campus (Part 3)
Part 3 of the ASDCA series offers some Dos & Don'ts for judges when evaluating competitors.