NUDC

2018

ANGGI – BOBY – CARA –

DHANNY – FERI

JUDGE BRIEFING
Why are we doing this?

 Being an adjudicator is a tricky task. It requires in-depth understanding of debating

rules which is necessary to facilitate individuals in making a decision for the rounds.
This seminar acts as a guideline to help N1 judges acclimate themselves to these rules.

 Some judges might be familiar with adjudicating in other formats than BP. It is
important to recalibrate their orientation as BP judging is uniquely different and
should be assessed with a different benchmark.

 Standards in competitive debating constantly evolves, following the new standards

introduced and employed in World Universities Debating Championship every year.
What you thought was ‘good judging’ in the past might not be relevant in today’s
context. Just like the Kardashians, you need to keep up.
What will we be discussing?

I. How to Adjudicate
II. Oral Adjudicate
III. Common Mistakes in Adjudication
IV. Scoring Standards
V. Conflict System
 How to Adjudicate:
KNOWING YOUR ROLE
– Adjudicator assume the role of an globally informed voter. You must be informed, reasonable, and act as a voter.
– You must be a person who has average knowledge of the topic under debate but expertise knowledge of the rules
for competitive debating
– Not an expert on issues
– Read the news regularly
– Understand debating rules
– You must put logic and reason as your guide in assessing the debate.
– Open-minded
– Detach yourself from personal preferences (e.g.: religious beliefs, political affiliations, etc.)
– Your role is to act like a moderate voter deciding their stance on a proposed policy.
– Balance of information between two contrasting party
– Must be comparative towards all the information presented to you.
– IN SHORT, YOU MUST ADJUDICATE THE DEBATE THAT HAPPENS AND NOT THE ONE THAT YOU THOUGHT
SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.
How to Adjudicate:
THE GENERAL PROCESS

1. Judges individually decide their ranks.

2. All judges on the panel will have a conferring to decide the
outcome of the round.
3. The Chair will fill in the Adjudication Sheet.
4. The Chair (or an appointed Panel, if the Chair dissents) will
provide the oral adjudication to the teams, explaining the
reasons how the panel came up with the final call.
 How to Adjudicate:
THE INDIVIDUAL PROCESS
1. Prepare to take notes of the debate. There is no specific way how one should take note, as
everyone has different ways. You may choose to write things verbatim (word per word) or just a
summation of what the speakers said. Don’t be lazy and rely on your memory only.
2. Assess the debate as it goes on. What this means is that as the round progresses, you are
constantly evaluating who wins/loses by that point. This is helpful because it allows you to
continuously compare the teams and by the time the round ends, you have a rough idea on the
team ranking.
3. Pay attention to claims made by each teams (both arguments and rebuttals) and scrutinize
them with common sense questions such as, “is this true?”, “why is this important?”, “how
will this happen?”. Teams that are able to satisfy this litmus test generally are the more
superior team, as they were capable to provide clear elaboration.
4. At the end of the round, list down your justification as to why you felt certain teams deserve to
get the higher ranks and why the others do not. Remember, adjudication emphasizes on your
interpretation, your sense of judgment on the points made– don’t just repeat the cases!
How to Adjudicate:
THE CONFERRING PROCESS
1. Discuss the decision (ranks) with the other members of the panel until a
consensus is reached (everyone agrees on the rank and scores given to each
team/speaker). The Chair adjudicator will facilitate the discussion, with
Panels and Trainees pitching their thoughts about the round.
2. Changing decision doesn’t mean that you are a bad adjudicator. It is
allowed in order to achieve the consensus. Remember that other people on
the panel may perceive the arguments differently with you and thus, keep
an open mind to their interpretation.
3. If a consensus is not reached after a 15-minute discussion, the decision
should be taken by voting. If the number of the votes are even, the Chair
judgee will be the tie-breaker.
4. The chair will fill in the Adjudication Sheet and give it to the LOs.
Oral Adjudication:
HOW TO DELIVER EFFECTIVELY
 Always prep before you deliver!
 A verbal adjudication is not a debate speech. It should not take too long. (5-6 mins
max)
 You are not arguing but showing the debaters how you perceived the debate.
 Again, there is no single style to verbal adjudication. What is important is justifying the
decision. However, try your best to provide clarity during the OA, because if your OA is
unclear, it may impact the team’s understanding of the justifications and will affect
your feedback score.

 You are a human being, not a parrot. Don’t just repeat what the teams have said!
 Separate evaluation from constructive feedback.
 Remember that your decision matters to the debaters and your own final
accreditation!
Oral Adjudication:
WHAT SHOULD BE IN ONE
1. Brief general commentaries on the round
2. Result of the round (the ranking of the teams)
3. The justification of each ranking
– Judges may choose to individually assess each team’s performance, or provide
a direct comparison between 1st and 2nd, 2nd and 3rd, & 3rd and 4th. Just keep in
mind that either way, comparatives must be made.
– Judges should be balanced in their justification– they must show which good
things teams brought made them persuaded and which bad things made them
not. Be fair in your assessment!
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

1. What is an extension? (for closing teams)

An extension is anything new under the sun.
It does not need to be a new argument; it can be a new rebuttal, new framing, new
examples, new ways of explaining a similar idea, etc.

Judges should not be so quick to dismiss Closing’s extensions as “derivative”.

Judges need to weigh how valuable an extension is.
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

2. Assessing arguments and rebuttals

a. Just because an argument is not rebutted, doesn’t mean the argument is strong,
likewise, just because the argument is rebutted, doesn’t mean the argument is weak.
b. Assess the rebuttal the way you assess an argument. A question to opponent’s
argument with no explanation should not be considered as strong rebuttal(s).
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

3. Define your metric/standard of contribution

Contribution metric can vary from things like scale and scope of impact,
likelihood of impact, importance, etc.
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

4. Be FAIR and EQUAL in imposing burdens.

Define your metric of contribution (scale and scope of impact, likelihood of
impact, importance) and make sure you are fair in applying these metrics to
teams.
E.g. If a team lost because they were “not comparative” in a certain clash,
make sure that the team who won was indeed comparative in that clash.

HOWEVER, different positions entail different burdens.

E.g. Closing teams have a higher burden of response than opening teams.
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

5. What if a team contradicts?

• If it was pointed out by opposing team
Opposing team benefits, with credit given to the speaker who points it out
and explains how dangerous the contradiction is
•Was not pointed out by opposing team
It will reduce the persuasiveness of the points they are trying to prove, thus
making it harder for them to win the clash. But does not necessarily mean
losing the clash
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

6. How do I weigh facts?

•There are many debaters who bring points by just stating a ‘fact’. Watch
out!
•Since the standard of being an Globally Informed Citizen varies from each
individual, we have to take facts that are debatable as a contribution to any
team, unless proven with logical reasoning otherwise.
•You can only dismiss facts that are nonsensical and obviously false. This is
not stepping in!
Common Mistakes in Adjudication

7. What is “stepping in”?

•Putting in specific/expert knowledge in you assessment

•Rebutting the debaters argument in your head, adding new analysis
•Having expectation of what the debaters should bring, and the discrediting
them for not bringing it
•Conforming to your bias
•Trying to be an average reasonable voter is not stepping in!
Scoring Standards:
BELOW AVERAGE SPEECHES
Score Description
60 - 61 This speaker did not provide any relevant content with the motion in
discussion. Either he/she was speaking in another language other than
English, or talked about the weather.
62 - 64 This speaker is able to provide material that seems relevant, however it
was very poorly structured, you are unable to extract much coherent
meaningful content.
65 - 67 The speaker is somewhat relevant, but rarely makes full arguments.
Frequently unclear and confusing; really problematic structure/lack
thereof; some awareness of role.

68 - 70 Relevant arguments are frequently made, but with very rudimentary

explanation– mostly in the form of assertions without any follow-up
substantiation. The speaker is clear enough to be understood the vast
majority of the time.
Scoring Standards:
AVERAGE AND ABOVE AVERAGE SPEAKERS
Score Description
71 - 74 Arguments are generally relevant, and some explanation of them given, but
there may be obvious gaps in logic, seen as simplistic argumentation. May
sometimes be difficult to follow.
75 - 79 Arguments are almost exclusively relevant, and frequently persuasive.
Occasionally, but not often, the speaker may slip into: i) deficits in
explanation, ii) simplistic argumentation vulnerable to competent responses
or iii) peripheral or irrelevant arguments.
80 - 84 Relevant and pertinent arguments with sufficient explanation. The speech is
clear, persuasive, and able to strategically tackle important issues.

85 - 90 Highly compelling; sophisticated responses would be required to refute them.

Delivery is clear and manner very persuasive. Role fulfillment and structure
probably flawless. You can barely think of any ways in which the speech could
be improved.
Scoring Standards:
HOW TO DO IT PROPERLY
 Follow the standard provided by the exhibition debate
 Be comparative among speakers
 Be consistent in all rounds
 Do not disclose the speaker scores to the debaters! Any form
of score leaks will be penalized heavily.
 You may give a qualitative assessment on how the speaker
performed and which range they might fall in (below
average, average, or above average), but nothing more.
 Scoring Standards:
SCORESHEET SAMPLE
Round: Venue:
Motion:
Chair Adjudicator
Panelists: 1 [Panelist’s Name] 2 [Panelist’s Name] 3 [Panelist’s Name]

Opening Government [Position] Opening Opposition [Position]

[Team Name] [Team Name]
1 [Speaker Name] [Score] 1 [Speaker Name] [Score]

2 [Speaker Name] [Score] 2 [Speaker Name] [Score]

[Team [Team
Score] Score]

Closing Government [Position] Closing Opposition [Position]

[Team Name] [Team Name]
1 [Speaker Name] [Score] 1 [Speaker Name] [Score]

2 [Speaker Name] [Score] 2 [Speaker Name] [Score]

[Team [Team
Score] Score]

(chair signature)
Scoring Standards:
SCORING THE JUDGES
• 1-4 is Trainee quality
• 5-7 is Panel quality
• 8-10 is Chair quality

If debaters give their chair a score of 1-2, this is considered an official

complaint.
Scoring Standards:
COMMON MISTAKES IN SCORING THE JUDGE

– Score of 10 is not impossible. A really good judge in this tournament may

deserve a 10.
– Just because you lose, doesn’t mean the judge is bad or unfair. Give
scores based on the justification of the judge rather than the decision.
And give score based on the Oral Adjudication and not the constructive
feedback.
– If you have complaint with your judge(s), reflect it on the scoring ballot
rather than being impolite and offensive to the judge(s).
– ASK FOR FEEDBACK. THESE PEOPLE ARE PAID TO GIVE YOU
CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK!
Conflict System

– Conflicts of Interest is the condition in which judges’ objectivity might be compromised because they are
judging a team/speaker that they have a unique relationship with.

– They arise in the following situations:

– In a Relationship.
– Attendance at the Same University/Institution.
– Substantial Involvement with Another Debating Society (e.g., Coaching, co-training)
– Other circumstances that may compromise your objectivity in adjudicating the debate (e.g.: Bad
Blood, Boss and Employee, They stole your boy/girlfriend)
– Soft Conflicts (other circumstances where judges believe they might not be objective in adjudicating)

– Judges must declare their conflicts during the accreditation. If new conflicts arise, or some have been
missed, please notify the Adjudication Core at once.
Q&A