Judge

Your role as a judge is important to ensure we have a quality tournament. Anyone who is open-minded, thoughtful, and prepared to apply judging criteria can make a good judge. All volunteers receive onsite training to teach you the key elements of judging debate or speech. 

Everyone interprets a debate differently

There is no perfect assessment of a debate. Even experienced judges disagree about which team won a debate and why, but overtime you will find it easier to judge more consistently.

Follow the criteria established in the rubric

While some elements of debate or speech are subjective, objective measures allow judges to reach similar decisions. Skills demonstrated by speakers are broken down in the rubric to make it easier for judges to determine how well a speaker met the criteria for a skill.

Feedback is important

Speakers are looking for honest, constructive feedback on they can improve their debating skills. We recommend that feedback be structured to provide encouragement. 

Visit our calendar to find upcoming tournaments to volunteer.

Talk to your child’s coach, find a tournament, or Contact Us to sign up to judge.

We’ve made a few updates to the debate scoring rubrics on our ballots used at our national style tournaments based on feedback from judges and tournament staff. Key things to be aware of:

• The structure and scoring remain the same.
• The language in the rubric has been adjusted to help make things clearer for our volunteer judges and improve standards and consistency in judging. 
• Standards expected from debaters have not shifted and we do not expect scores to change significantly.