Adjudication Concepts

How to Adjudicate Amit Golder

Your Job:
Decide who won the debate + why
Convey this to the teams clearly
Provide constructive feedback to teams/speakers

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

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN AUTOMATIC WIN OR LOSS!

Who wins?
T h e 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

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?

Manner
Vocal
Volume, pace, tone, clarity
Word choice (precision)
Humour?
Non-Vocal
Gesture, eye contact, stance/body
Language/understanding?

Method
Structure
Priority/timing
Responsiveness

Scoring Each 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

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

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

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.

How to Oral:
In our opinion, your oral decision should proceed like so:
The decision – who won?
The reasons for that, as clearly presented as possible!
Your feedback to the teams – about the whole debate (whole-of-debate matter, common issues) and each team (cases/tactics)
Individual feedback, privately, after the debate, in a sexy way.

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!

Potential Issues:
Definitions:
Only invalid if undebatable, but if not that reasonable, keep this in mind.
Reward the negative team that tries.
3 rd Speakers + New Matter:
Remember the rules, but be reasonable.
Penalise, but almost never totally ignore.

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.

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!

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.

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Adjudication Concepts

by Monash Association of Debaters on Mar 07, 2011

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Adjudication Concepts — Webinar Transcript