Adjudication

Rainiel Viray
University of the Philippines [Baguio] Debate Varsity
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When judging…
• 1. Your own opinion on the subject matter does
not count

• 2. Role / Burden Fulfillment

 Clarification: Just because a team failed to satisfy all their burden does not mean
they should already be heavily penalized.
 For a ‘minimally’ good debate to take place, FOLLOW THE
BOOK/GET A TEMPLATE!!! (Safety net for
beginners/rookies)

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Before you judge, remember these
Four!!!
FAQs of JUDGES

“Which comes first? Is it role fulfillment or the

arguments?”

“What if I don’t see the rebuttals in the first

three minutes and I think the debater just
argued? Or What if I didn’t see the structure?”

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When juding…
• 3. Relevance of Speeches

TWO QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF

a. what the most important threads are (and why)

b. how and why their arguments contribute the most important

argumentation to these most important threads

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Before you judge, remember these
Four!!!

•4. But how do you really gauge

the relevance of speeches?

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Before you judge, remember these
Four!!!
1. Quality of argumentation
a. How well developed an argument is
(state, explain, illustrate)
do your debaters expand on their arguments or not?
Do they explain every step in a causal link, do they explain every step of their
policy and why it’s relevant?

b. Logical Consistency
If you belong in the same team, make sure not to
refute each other’s cases. DUH

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Before you judge, remember these
Four!!!
2. Content of Arguments
a. Truthfulness of Arguments
As a judge, you need to identify which argument is
true or untrue. For general knowledge, base it on the exchanges of the two
teams. However, some knowledge require experts’ evidence. (ex. Time travel
demands a lot of energy, etc.)

b. Relevance of Arguments
what kind of contribution did their arguments make
to the key controversy of the debate (issue-based adjudication)

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 Judging Guidelines
• 1. Majority vote wins. NO DELIBERATIONS!
• 2. I recommend you to give speaker points after you decide the win..
This is to make sure you do not accidentally award ‘low point wins’,
(meaning that a team that was NOT highest in total speaker points
won the round). ALWAYS check your points and see if they agree with
the team-ranking! USE CALCULATORS IF NECESSARY!
• 4. Fill in the main ballot, with the speaker points.
• 5. Give oral feedback. In that feedback DO NOT say the speaker
points, but do give ranking of teams and some helpful hints for teams
if you want to.
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What to say in the Oral
Feedback/Adjudication?
• General Comments
• Suggestions [on how they can make the round better]
• The Decision
• Justification of the decision
• Range of the round
DON’T SAY…
• Exact speaker scores
• The Decision if it’s a silent round

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Some questions to help you decide
• 1. Did the team fulfill their role in every aspect? Did they
not hinder the holistic flow of the debate? Weren’t there
any violations on the rules of role fulfillment?

• 2. Then try and analyze the argumentation. First ask

yourself: what were the key threads (issues) in the
debate? Which team got closest to identifying them?
Which team was farthest of?

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Some questions to help you decide
• 3. Which team had the best arguments in relation to that
key question, both content-wise as specified above, and
quality-wise as specified above? Which team had the
worst?

• 4. Which team did the best job of bringing constructive

material, did the best job of refuting others’ arguments
and of defending their own arguments after they have
been attacked? Which team did the worst job?

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Reminders before you Decide
• 1. Don’t let the decision of the other members of the panel influence
your decision. YOU ARE YOUR OWN JUDGE.

• 2. Content-wise, you as a person might not like the debate, but if the
debate itself functioned well, you should reward that accordingly.

• 3. Looking solely at ROLE FULFILLMENT keeps you from what we

call "constructing" the argument (i.e. reading too much or too little
into a team's arguments, simply because that fits better with your
perceptions of how the debate should have gone.)

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Allocating speaker points
(liberally taken from PIDC 2017 Adjudication Manual)
81-83 All of the speech was relevant to the debate, the responses were
damaging to the other teams, and the substantiation was quite
rigorous and concretized.
77-80 All of the speech was relevant to the debate, the responses were
generally strong, and the substantiation was generally rigorous and
concretized .
74-76 All or most of the speech was relevant to the debate, the responses
were generally sound and logical, and the substantiation was
generally sound and logical.
70-73 Majority of the speech was relevant to the debate but the responses
were generally dismissive or weak and/or the substantiation was
generally illogical.
67-69 All or most of the speech was irrelevant to the debate, absolutely or
mostly not responsive, absolutely or mostly no substantiation.
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Adjudicator Feedback
(taken from PIDC 2017 Adjudication Manual)

1 Complaint The judge did not talk at all and never even attempted
to justify his/her decision, or did attempt to justify
his/her decision but used standards that are irrelevant
to the rules of debate (such as personal beliefs,
personal opinion, and ideas that did not come out in
the debate INSTEAD of logic, believability of
examples, responsiveness, and level of substantiation)
or used arguments and ideas that did not come out in
the debate (stepping in).
Below Average The judge spoke but could not articulate a coherent
2-3
logical reasoning of his/her justification; grossly
misapplied the standards in assessing a debate (such
as blatantly considering wrongly an idea as a new
matter); did not listen to a substantial portion of the
debate and could not recall or discuss such portions.
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4-6 Average The judge articulated a coherent logical reasoning of
his/her justification but was neither comprehensive
nor detailed, or definitely misapplied some standards
in assessing a debate, or definitely misunderstood
some parts of the debate, or was vague and ambiguous
in discussing some parts of the debate.
Above Average The judge articulated a clear and coherent reasoning
7-8
of his/her justification but was only either
comprehensive or detailed, or arguably misapplied
some standards in assessing a debate, or arguably
misunderstood some parts of the debate.

9-10 AdjCore The judge articulated a clear, coherent,

worthy comprehensive, and detailed reasoning of his/her
justification, correctly applied the standards in
assessing a debate, and did not misunderstand any
part of the debate 15
 Pitfalls to Avoid
• Dealing with generalities rather than specifics
 “We think that the Opposition really brought the case home for us, so they won the debate.”
“Government had some interesting things to say unlike opposition so they win.” (Well, it’s their job
to begin with!)

• Granting certain ‘classes’ of arguments undue priority

 “Government won because their arguments were moral rather than practical.”

• ‘Penalty judging’
 “You didn't take any Points of Information, so there was no way you could come first.”

• Judging on format rather than content and quality

 “You should have put your argument about rights first.” “You only spoke for five minutes.”

• Swiftly reaching a decision and then finding a justification for it

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 The Oral Adjudication (from Monash training
Handbook)

* In delivering the adjudication, adjudicators should highlight

the critical differences between the teams rather than replay the
whole debate. A useful start is to total the marks in each of matter,
manner and method for each team, and to use this as the focus for
comment.
* There may be one or several strategic issues which were
critical in the debate; issues on which the debate was won or lost.
Focusing on these strategic issues allows the adjudicator to identify
the main reasons for the decision.
* At the end of the adjudication, the debaters should have a
clear understanding of why their team won or lost. Most complaints
arise because adjudicators are not able to clearly identify the reasons
for the result.
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The Oral Adjudication (from Monash training
Handbook)

MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE

STANDARDS FOR
ADJUDICATION

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breaking myTHS

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•A longer adjudication means a better adjudication
because you took your time discussing everything in
detail
•I must be properly groomed to win a debate.
• If I spoke longer than my opponent, I win.
• Givinga debate speech is the same as giving a public
speaking speech.
• Using
hifalutin words makes you sound smarter, thus
making your speech better.

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 Adjudication
Rainiel Viray
University of the Philippines [Baguio] Debate Varsity