Download - Adjudication Concepts
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Your Job:
1. Decide who won the debate + why
2. Convey this to the teams clearly
3. Provide constructive feedback to teams/speakers
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Who are you?
• You are the average reasonable debater
• You do not have specialist knowledge
• You do have a good sense of logic
• You may not enter the debate
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Who wins?
• The most persuasive team?
• The highest scoring team?
• The team that wins on ‘matter’ ie the issues in the debate?
Answer: All of the above, to different extents
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Matter
• Logic (why?)– Does one thing follow from another?– Can this be reasonably inferred?
• Relevance (why should I care?)– Do the premises support the conclusions?– Does the conclusion support that side of the topic?
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Manner
• Vocal– Volume, pace, tone, clarity– Word choice (precision)– Humour?
• Non-Vocal– Gesture, eye contact, stance/body
• Language/understanding?
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ScoringEach speech is out of 100 (40+40+20)
Average is 75 (30+30+15) average is contextual, not constant
Margins:- 1-3 points = close decision- 4-7 points = clear decision- 8 points and above = very clear decision
Priority should be: decision > margin > individual scores
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How to Adj:
• The ‘third speech for the whole debate’ style:– Pick 2-4 themes that encapsulate the debate.– Analyse all the matter in the debate through those
themes– Balance the contributions of each team, across the 6
speakers of the debate, decide which team won– When critically evaluating the matter, refer to
manner and method• Ie. Good method/manner can increase the persuasive effect
of arguments/rebuttal
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How to Adj:
• Using the criteria as your guide:– Who wins on matter, manner and method? How much do
they win by? Who wins the debate?
• Other methods (Ravi? Meredith?)
• Note-taking– Format– Analysis – as you go or at the end?– Dangers – don’t finish arguments or keep incomplete
notes
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How to Adj:
• Scoring:– As you go: most people note an indication of the
range of speech they saw, ie 76/7. – Be willing to change/re-evaluate preliminary scores.
• Your ‘instincts’– Find ways to justify a debate without resorting to
instinct!– Does not mean instincts about a decision are
incorrect, just means they are not sufficient to justify a result.
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How to Oral:
In our opinion, your oral decision should proceed like so:
1. The decision – who won?
2. The reasons for that, as clearly presented as possible!
3. Your feedback to the teams – about the whole debate (whole-of-debate matter, common issues) and each team (cases/tactics)
4. Individual feedback, privately, after the debate, in a sexy way.
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Feedback:
• Constructive feedback is feedback that can be used again! ‘You are dumb’ is not as constructive as you think!
• The compliment sandwich is useful with younger debaters – acknowledging strengths doesn’t make you a bad adjudicator!
• Give examples from the debate, people like to see that you are paying attention, but try to make the feedback more generally useful than just that topic!
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Potential Issues:
Definitions:• Only invalid if undebatable, but if not that
reasonable, keep this in mind.• Reward the negative team that tries.
3rd Speakers + New Matter:• Remember the rules, but be reasonable.• Penalise, but almost never totally ignore.
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Potential Issues:
Burdens:• Teams can say they have whatever burden they
want, and can claim burdens of other teams – only YOU may decide whether something must be proved/shown to win the debate.
• Do not enter the debate and presume one side is harder to win than the other. Presume the topic is balanced and give decision accordingly – too dangerous otherwise!
• Whilst in reality, not always the case, fairness means not trying to correct the difficulty of the topic.
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Potential Issues:
Negative Cases:• Can’t run a ‘pure negation’ – but this is
actually quite rare! Mostly there’s an implicit defence of the status quo.
• Make sure they are negating the topic not just the Aff!
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Potential Issues:
False Facts:• Remember, you are average reasonable
person, can only dismiss false facts if they are obvious, or another team calls them on it.
• Be wary of entering the debate – but you can use your normal logic skillz if the logic of an argument is missing/crappy.
