This document provides an overview of adjudicating Asian parliamentary debate competitions. It discusses elements of the debate format like speech times, points of information, and preliminary/elimination rounds. It defines the role of the adjudicator as an average reasonable voter and outlines their responsibilities in determining the winning team, assigning scores, and providing feedback. The document gives guidance on assessing arguments, responses, and manner of speakers. It also explains how to determine the margin of victory and individual speaker scores. Finally, it concludes with the sequence and process adjudicators should follow in deciding the results and verbally explaining their decision.

1. EJVEDEAST JAVA VARSITIES ENGLISH DEBATE
Adjudication Seminar
Feri Kurniawan

2. Overview Asian Parliamentary Debate
• Consist of two team in one match , Government Team and
Opposition Team with 3 speakers in each team
• 7 minutes speech, 4 minutes reply (content delivered after
7.20/4.20 won’t be noted.
• 30 minutes case building time
• POI are allowed after 1st until 6th minutes, at max 15 seconds.
• 4 preliminary round, 4 eliminary round (top 16)
• Breaking teams are ranked from VP, teams score, and Margin
• Third Place Battle will determine 2nd runner up.

3. Proposition Fiat
Fiat is the privilege granted to teams, allowing them to assume that their policy will be
carried out by the relevant actor (or whoever “This House” is defined as). This is done so
debates do not become about unnecessary technicalities.
What this means is that feasibility attacks by the opponent that tries to disprove that the
motion will not happen at all/will never take place cannot be credited.
Ex: TH, as the United Nations, would invade Syria.
Government team can assume that United Nations will do the policy (in this case, invasion
to Syria)
Opposition can NOT attack by saying, “Oh, but Russia will veto this resolution in UNSC!”
Government team, however, cannot assume that all parties will fully support this.
Thus, Opposition can still say, “Given Russia is an ally of Syria, they would most likely be
opposed to the attack and still give Assad weapons, which make the invasion fruitless and
ineffective.”
Opposition team, should they choose to bring a counter-solution, is granted the same
degree of fiat as Government team, as long as they utilize roughly similar amount/form of
resources (money, political will).

4. Who is Adjudicator?
Adjudicator assume the role of an average reasonable voter. You
must be average, reasonable, and act as voter.
• Average
• Has average knowledge of topic under the debate, not an expert on issues.
• Read the news regularly
• Understanding debating rules
• Logic and reasonable
• Open minded
• Detach yourself from personal preferences (religious beliefs, political
affiliations etc)
• Moderate Voter
• Balance of information between two contrasting party
• Comparative to all the information presented to you

5. Job Description
• Determine the winning team
• Assign speaker score
• Provide verbal adjudication
• Provide constructive feedback for the teams

6. How to adjudicate
General Process
• Judges individually decide their decision and fill in the score
sheet (panel and chairs)
• After the rounds, the panels and trainee explain your decision
to the chair
• Voting process (only panel and chair) team who got most vote
win the debate
• The chairs will provide adjudication to the reams, explaining
the reason how the judge/panels came up with the final call.
• In case of dissenting chair, verbal still be deliver by the chair.

7. How to Adjudicate
Individual Process
• Prepare to take notes of the debate. You can chose your own technique
like verbatim or only write a summation. Don’t be lazy and rely on your
memory only.
• Assess the debate as it goes. Keep constantly evaluate and compare each
speaker argument until reply speakers.
• Pay attention to claims presented by both teams either in argument or in
rebuttals and scrutinize them with common sense question such as “is
this true?”, “Why is this important?” “How will this happen?”. Generally
teams that satisfy this limits test are more superior as they were capable
to provide clear elaboration
• At the end of the round, list down your justification why you give
winning to certain team. Please remember to put your sense of judgment
of the points made not just repeating the cases.

8. Assessment of the debate
• Judge the debate as it goes, do not step in or judge the
debate base on what you though the debate should be
• Use holistic view
• Clash
• Central issue(s) of the debate: Can be determined through the
contribution it gives to the development of the debate.
It can be indicated through:
• Most discussed (Majority of the speaker dicuss the issue in their
speeches)
• Relevance
• Which claims that proven at the end of the debate (rate how an
argument is initially brought and how it’s responded)

9. Assessing Arguments
• The criteria that adjudicators should rate in an argument
• The depth of logical analysis
• The significance of the argument
• The strength and relevance of evidences provided
• The relevance of an argument toward the teams’ stance, or the contribution of an
argument in reaching the team’s intended goal
• The orthodoxy of the analysis
• If an argument fulfills all the criteria above, that’s an excellent
argument. You should vote for the team that provide better
argumentation based on those criteria.

10. Assessing Response
 The criteria that adjudicators should rate in a response
 How effective it proves that the opponent’s arguments will not happen
 How effective it proves that the opponent’s impacts (harm/benefit) will not
take place
 How effective it proves that the opponent’s arguments are irrelevant and
insignificant to the intended goal/team’s stance
 How effective it shows that the opponent’s arguments are internally
inconsistent
 In short: how effective it oppose the logic behind an argument
 Questioning is not the same with responding. Until a speaker
proves an argument will not happen, that’s not a response yet

11. Assessing Manner
• Assessing manner
• The things you should look at when assessing the manner of a
speaker:
• How persuasive and clear a speaker is
• Intonation and volume
• Diction and effective use of words
• Remember, never give a team a victory based mainly on their
manner. But, a speaker with exceptional manner should deserve
an appreciation.

12. How to determine margin?
• The margin of score between winning and losing team
(losing team get negative margins)
• Classification:
• 1 – 4: close winning
• 4 – 6: close-to-clear winning
• 8 – 12: clear winning
• 12 and up: thrashing debate

13. How to determine speaker score?
• The standard of scoring:
• The average substantive speaker (1st, 2nd, 3rd) score is 75.
Range: 69-81
• The average reply speaker is halve of substantive speaker, which
is 37,5. Range: 34,5-40,5
• The average of a team score ( a total score of 3 substantive and
reply speakers) therefore should be: 262,5

14. Mark Matter
69 No effort to fulfill the role. Barely talks.
70 - 72 Shows little effort in trying to fulfill the role. Some claims were made but not
substantiated . Hard to follow, little or no structure.
73-74 A better attempt in trying to fulfill the role. Arguments and responses are in the
form of assertion with weak reasoning. Poor structure.
75 The average speaker. Has fulfilled the basic role. Reasoning for arguments and
responses are adequate, but not fully developed. Relatively easy to follow.

15. Mark Matter
76 - 77 The role is well fulfilled. The structure is unlikely to be problematic. Able to
provide a deep analysis on the arguments and the responses. Brought in a
persuasive manner.
78 – 79 Basically have no problem in fulfilling role and structure. Arguments are fully
developed and to certain extent are unorthodox. The evidences are many,
prevalent, and powerful.
80-81 Flawlessly executed. Able to provide many unorthodox responses and
arguments effectively. Sophisticated words are used that made the elaborations
are extremely powerful and enchanting

16. Oral Adjudication
 Process of explaining the reasons behind your decision to the debaters
 Prepare your oral adjudication!
 Verbal are conducted by the chair
 Issue: adjudicator may receive different result in a close debate
 Dissenting opinion is okay, as long as you have strong reasoning to do that
 Dissenting opinion are discussed in the conference. The chair may include the
dissenting opinion to create a better verbal (even the chair may dissent!)
 Inform the debater:
 The winning team only along with the margin
 Do not inform individual speaker score
 Give constructive feedback
 In this phase, you may give your expert opinions to help the debaters improve in
the next round

17. Conclusion of Adjudicator’s Role
 The sequences of adjudicating
 Decide the winning (assess the debate)
 Determine the margin
 Mark the score
 Give the score sheet to the LO
 Conference among chair and panels of adjudicator
 Note: conference should start only, and only, if all adjudicator already fill the score sheet
 Verbal (5 – 7 minutes)
 End of adjudication session. The debater may ask you while walking to the hall.
 IMPORTANT: Adjudicator should not influence another adjudicator to decide the
result of the debate. All process to decide the winning team should be done
independently
 EVEN MORE IMPORTANT: Adjudicator should always assume the role of average
reasonable person. Do not put your personal knowledge to decide the winning.

18. Thank You
Bibliography : JOVED 2016, EJVED 2016, NUDC 2016.