Debate Judges' Manual(2008) 
The National High School English Debate Tournament

1. What Judges Should Always Keep in Mind
Debate judges should always keep in mind that you are not only judging but you are also teaching the students through that process. To accomplish this, always keep the following three basic principles in mind.
FAIRNESS: Always try to be fair. Needless to say, never take other personal attributes such as nationality, sex, appearance, school-name, school-location, etc. into account. Winners should be decided by the debaters' performances within the round you're judging. Don't be bothered by any other previous information.
OBJECTIVITY: Don't make decisions by hunches or feeling. Try to be rational and objective. Namely, never cast a ballot unless you clearly know the reason why you've decided team A is better than B. 
ACCOUNTABILITY: Make the students understand your reason for decision. At the same time always try to cheer them up! Find good points in both teams and make them feel good. 

2. How to Decide the Winner
Winner of the round should be decided by comparing the outcome of the ISSUES of both teams. In short, if you are convinced that supporting the proposition gives more Advantages(ADs) than Disadvantages (DAs), you vote for the Affirmative side (AFF). If you are convinced otherwise that the DAs outweigh the ADs, then you vote for the Negative side (NEG). NO TIES; pick a winner even if you think it's not possible! (In extreme rare cases, neither AFF/NEG issues were convincing enough to vote for. In such case, it is presumed that the proposition is not true, so vote for the NEG.) Each judge should decide the winner independently without consulting the other judges.

Always take notes ("flows") during the round. Pay attention to the proof and disproof of each issue (AD and DA). After the round, follow the next procedure and fill in the "DECISION MAKING CHART" to make your decision.

1.List the issues that were extended: How many ADs and DAs were presented, and how many of them were defended and mentioned in the final stage? Write down the titles (tag-lines). The issues should be properly presented following the tournament rules: Maximum number of ADs and DAs should not exceed two. (Ignore the "AD3"s and "DA4"s!) Don't count new arguments after the constructive speech.
2.Judge the probability (evidential support) of each issue: First consider how convincing the alleged "ADs" or "DAs" were in terms of factual probability. Especially, you should look back at the strength of the proof (evidence) provided within the round. Weigh them lightly if the causal relation between the plan (proposition) and the ADs or the DAs are not supported by evidence. Also diminish the probability, if the opponent's attacks were successful, or the defenses were poor.
3.Judge the value (significance) of each issue: Next consider the importance of each alleged "AD" and "DA". What is the value at stake? How much impact will the "DA" bring in terms of quantity and quality? Unless the value mentioned in an issue is explained well by the debaters themselves, don't weigh such issue as significant (Even if you yourself think it's important). Note here that values can be sometimes "flipped" by the opponent's good arguments. (For instance, AFF might argue that "gaps are bad". However NEG might "flip" the issue by arguing that "gaps are rather welcome". Compare the reasons supporting both claims. If you think the NEG value assessments were convincing, then the alleged "AD" should rather be treated as a "DA". )
4.Judge the strength (=multiply probability and value) of each issue: Multiply the above probability (2.) and value (3.) for each remaining ADs and DAs. Note here that "ADs" and "DAs" should not be regarded as "strong" unless both their probability and their value are effectively proven and defended. 
5.Compare the net sum of the issues: Sum up the strength of the ADs and consider if it outweighs the strength of the summed-up DAs. If the ADs outweigh the DAs then AFF wins, else the NEG wins. 

Try to avoid your own point of view coming in. Recollect the latter stage speeches (summary) of the debaters. If a team has explained the "value criteria" for deciding whether the ADs outweigh the DAs, such debater's "criteria" should be used to determine the winner. (For example, AFF insisted that "each child should have enough math ability" but NEG argued that "children's individuality should have priority". Which is more important? Such comparison should be done by the debaters themselves. A good AFF summary may present a "value criterion" insisting that their plan can meet the necessary "
civil minimum" concerning "math ability", and the value of such necessary ability outweighs the vague "individuality" value. If the NEG can not present a counter-criterion, a judge should decide in favor of the AFF). In some debates, neither team is able to present such value criterion effectively. In that case, a judge should compare the ADs and the DAs rationally, using one's own value judgments.

EXAMPLE: DECISION MAKING CHART

1. List of issues

2. Probability × 　 3. Value (Impact) ＝ 4. Strength

Advantage 1 Math & Science	Hi / Lo No proof: why math  scores will improve	Large / Small well defended: necessary for economy	Strong / Weak / None Very little AD
Advantage 2 Gap Private/Public	Hi / Lo Well defended. Gap will be narrowed	Large / Small Need more explanation  why gaps are bad	Strong / Weak / None A Little AD
Disadvantage 1 Teacher's Burden	Hi / Lo Only little increase: AFF attacks were  good	Large / Small No explanation of the  significance	Strong / Weak / None Close to none
Disadvantage 2 Free Time	Hi / Lo Not defended	Large / Small Not explained	Strong / Weak / None Forgotten by the NEG

5. Compare the net sum of the issues:

○	AFF won: If AD 1 + AD 2＞ DA 1 + DA 2
	NEG won: If DA 1 + DA 2≧ AD 1 + AD 2

Your VOTING ISSUE was:

AD2: I am convinced that the Gap will be solved a little. Since other DAs are not well defended, I will vote AFF for this AD2

3. Instructions / Interruptions during the Debate Round
Basically, judges should leave the debate to the debaters and not intervene in it. However, for educational purposes, do interrupt the speeches in the following exceptional cases: A) SPEECHES are unintelligible (not loud enough, etc.) B) QUESTIONS and ANSWERS are extremely anomalous. C) Speeches are interrupted by NOISE (Chatting, pen-clicking, etc.)

4. Communication Points
Each judge should rate the "communication points" of each team using the following scale. The points should reflect the team's communicating ability with the judges, opponents, and the audience. 5 & 1 should be rare. (Only Integers. No 0.5s)

5	Excellent	Every speech was easy to follow (adequate speed, elocutions etc.). And every team member was successfully communicating with the audience (good eye-contacts, gestures, good manners, etc.)
4	Good	Most of the speeches had no problem in following. And most of the team members were effectively communicating with the audience.
3	Average	Though with some exceptions, the speeches were basically easy to follow. Majority of the members had no problem in communication.
2	Below Average	Speeches were quite often hard to follow. Lack of audience communication can be found often.
1	Poor	Most of the Speeches were hard to follow. None of the team members were communicative.

NB: The winner may have lower communication points (The points are mainly for tie-breaking purpose to select the winners of the preliminary rounds). If a team (or its member) does not obey the judge/chairperson's instructions, being rude, or obstructing the opponent's speeches, you can subtract some points for PENALTY. 

5. Best Debater
Each judge should choose the best debater of each round. Pick the single most valuable debater of the round (The debater that most contributed to the output of the debate round should be picked. Not necessarily the most eloquent.)

6. To Avoid Common Misunderstandings
1.Don't add your own issues, attacks… Leave the job to the debaters. Don't add any ADs/DAs or attacks yourself!
2.Issues that are extended (not forgotten in the latter part of the round) should count: Constructive speeches are just written down speeches. You shouldn't weigh the issues too much, unless they are defended and summarized effectively afterwards.
3. "New arguments" are prohibited: All the ADs and DAs should be presented in the Constructive Speech. Last minute "surprise attacks" especially in the summary speeches should never be counted. 
4.Don't judge the winner by comparing the "speeches": A bad reason for decision typically goes like this: "I'll vote NEG, as I think the NEG Q/As and Attacks were wonderful. I thought the other speeches were even." (Judges should compare the finally defended ADs/DAs. Even if the Q/As were superb, the team can be terribly unconvincing at the end!)
5.This is not a Parliamentary Debate tournament: "point of information" is prohibited. Never decide winners using subjective "speech points". Usage of evidence is to be encouraged not discouraged.
6.This is not a Recitation contest: Don't decide the winners by English fluency, accents, intonation, eye-contacts, etc. Rational contentions should count more than just superficial eloquence. 
7.Distinguish "decision making" and "advices": When deciding the winners, a judge shouldn't add/attack the issues themselves, nor should they weigh English fluency too much. However, advices on these points are precious. Apart from the decision making, advices on the unmentioned "fallacies" or on English skills would be more than welcome.

---

Debate Judges’ Manual(2006)
The National High School English Debate Tournament

1. What Judges Should Always Keep in Mind
Debate judges should always keep in mind that you are not only judging but you are also teaching the students through that process. To accomplish this, always keep the following three basic principles in mind.

FAIRNESS: Always try to be fair. Decide winners only by the debaters’ performances within the round you’re judging.
OBJECTIVITY: Don’t make decisions by hunches. Never cast a ballot unless you clearly know the objective reason for decision.
ACCOUNTABILITY: Make the students understand your reason for decision.(At the same time always try to cheer them up!) 

2. Judging Standards
In this tournament, winner of the round should be decided by comparing the outcome of the arguments of both teams. No ties; always pick a winner! Specifically, since the debate is on governmental policy proposition, if the proposition has more merits than the demerits, you vote AFF and vice versa. (If you have judged in other debate tournaments, see Section 6. below for the difference).

Three warnings for novice judges:
(1) Don’t add your own issues. Make decisions only by the debaters’ arguments that are properly presented within the debate format: Debate judges should judge the debaters’ arguments (and their counter-arguments). Don’t add any advantages/disadvantages yourself! Presenting “new arguments” (new merits/demerits) in the attacks, defense, summary speech are forbidden by the rules. Ignore them if they are presented.
(2) Only the issues that are extended (not forgotten in the summary speech) counts: Even if a team sounded better than the other in the early stage of debate, that shouldn’t be taken into your decision if they screwed up in the latter stages. As you will soon see, in most of the debates, earlier stages are just recitation of some prepared scripts. If the students can’t properly defend and summarize their own issues, those issues should be taken lightly in your decision.
(3) Distinguish “reason for decision” and “advices”: As mentioned above, don’t add your own issues in your decision. However, in your advices after the round, teaching the students about such hidden “issues” would be very helpful. 

3. Process of Judging
In sum, judging a policy debate is like policy making itself. Just imagine yourself as a rational voter for a national policy referendum, and you are going to vote according to, and only according to the issues that are raised by each opposing party. The following 5 steps might help you to make fairer and more objective decisions.

①List the issues that were extended: How many merits (advantages) and demerits (disadvantages) were presented, and how many of them were defended and mentioned in the final stage. Write down the titles (tag-lines) 
②Judge the probability of each issue: How convincing were the alleged “merits” in terms of factual probability? Weigh them lightly if the opponents attack was successful, or the defense was poor, or there wasn’t much explanation even in the Constructive speech on why the plan can really gain such “merits”. Do the same thing to each alleged “demerit” too.
③Judge the value (significance) of each issue: How important is the alleged “merit”? What is the value at stake? How much impact will the “demerit” bring in terms of quantity and quality? If the value mentioned in an issue is not well explained by the debaters, don’t weigh such issue as significant. Values can be sometimes “flipped” by good opponents. (In debate jargons, “turnarounds”: For example, AFF might argue that the plan brings in a lot of tourists from abroad and it’s good. However NEG might “flip” the issue by arguing that the increased tourists may increase the risk or terrorism.
④Judge the strength(=multiply probability and value) of each issue: Multiply the above ②probability and ③value for each remaining merits and demerits.
⑤Weigh ④the strength of AFF and NEG issues on a scale: Sum up the strength of the AFF plan’s merits and consider if it outweighs the strength of the summed-up demerits. If merit outweighs the demerits then AFF wins, else the NEG wins.

Being fair in weighing the issues might not be easy. Try to avoid being subjective in the first place. Recollect the latter stage speeches (summary) of the debaters. If a team has explained the “criteria” for deciding whether the merit outweighs the demerits, such “criteria” should be used to determine the winner. (Of course, if the mentioned “criteria” are irrelevant or not supported by any reason, you don’t have to follow them Honestly speaking, in most high school debates, neither side will present such criterion effectively. In those cases you should decide using your own “usual” value judgments).

For example, AFF insists that their plan has some merit on “international trade”, but NEG pointed out that it might increase “domestic jobless rate”. Which issue is more important? There is no absolute scale that can measure such value comparison. So, such comparison should be done by debaters themselves. A good AFF summary speech may present a “value criterion” insisting that a good policy should ignore short term “jobless increase” and long term merits outweighs such demerits. If the NEG summary cannot present a counter-criterion, a judge should decide by the AFF in favor of the AFF. 

If and only if you are reasonably sure that you think there is no way to decide whether the merits outweigh the demerits, then vote for the NEG side (according to the tournament-debate convention: “presumption”.)

Filling in the following “Decision making chart” will help you decide the vote:

(Proposition: Japan should make English its second official language.)

①List of issues	②Probability	×　③Value	＝ ④Strength
Merit 1 International exchange	Quite High (Good proof: more foreigners will come to Japan)	Big (More international trade )	STRONG (persuasive)
Merit 2 English will bring together a new global culture	None (Nearly no explanation, no proof)	Big (Global culture)	NONE (Big impact, but no reality)
Demerit 1 Japanese language ability will be harmed	High (NEG proved that the school Japanese language classes will be harmed)	Little (Poor explanation: on the impact of the decline in Japanese language ability)	WEAK (probable, but unclear impact)
Demerit 2 Tax will be wasted	Not defended	Not explained	NONE (Not extended)

⑤Comparison: AFF pointed out that international issues are more important than pure domestic matters. NEG did not show any criterion effectively. 

Conclusion: AFF team wins. The AFF successfully extended Merit 1 and so did the NEG Demerit 1. However, Merit 1 outweighs the Demerit, as the latter’s impact is not clear

and moreover, AFF criterion for decision was agreeable and I am convinced that more will be gained than lost.

4. Communication Points
Judges should also rate the “communication points” of each team. Scale how well were the debate team (not each debater) successfully communicating with the judges, opponents, and the audience in the round you are judging. 5 is the maximum and 1 is the minimum (No fractions, only integers). 3 should be the average. 5 and 1 should be rare. Use the following scale:

5 Excellent	Every speech was easy to follow (adequate speed, elocutions etc.). And every team member was successfully communicating with the audience (good eye-contacts, gestures, good manners, etc.)
4 Good	Most of the speeches had no problem in following. And most of the team members were effectively communicating with the audience.
3 Average	Though with some exceptions, the speeches were basically easy to follow. Majority of the members had no problem in communication.
2 Below Average	Speeches were quite often hard to follow. Lack of audience communication can be found often.
1 Poor	Most of the Speeches were hard to follow. None of the team members were communicative.

PENALTIES: You should subtract some points for PENALTY in the following conditions: If a team or its member A) does not obey the judge’s/chairperson’s instructions, being rude or making noise; B) was offensive or rude during the Q/As; C) not answering at all in the Q/As.; D) not cooperating to reveal the source of their evidence to the opponents. Subtract as many points as you think it deserves. (The minimum point cannot be below 1 though.) NOTE: In extreme cases, the winning team may have lower communication points but that’s OK. (These points are mainly for tie-breaking purpose to select the finalist after four preliminary rounds.)

5. Instructions / Interruptions during the round
Basically, judges should leave the debate to the debaters and not intervene in it. However, for educational purposes, do interrupt the speeches in the following exceptional cases: A) SPEECHES are unintelligible (too fast, not loud enough, etc.) B) QUESTIONS and ANSWERS are anomalous. (Too few questions, too long silence, questioners making speeches and not asking any Qs., etc.) C) Speeches are interrupted by NOISE (Chatting, pen-clicking, etc.)

6. Some Notes for the Experienced Judges:
(1) This is not a Parliamentary Debate (British impromptu style) tournament:
a) Interruption of speeches by the opponents, so called “POINT(s) OF INFORMATION” is not allowed
b) Decide the winners by the outcome of the argument contents (see Section 2), not by cumulative speech points. 
c) The usage of evidence is to be encouraged, not to be discouraged as in some Parliamentary debate contests.
(2) This is not a Recitation contest (Even if some of the rounds may appear to be so!) Don’t decide the winners just by eye-contacts, accents, intonation, etc. Of course those are important for English communication, but as long as the speeches are intelligible, please don’t overweigh such speech delivery aspects when deciding the winners. However, you should comment on them. Please tell the students how to improve their English delivery.
(3) This is not exactly an American Policy Debate (NDT/CEDA style) tournament
a) NEVER encourage fast delivery. Interrupt the speeches, if you think the speeches are too fast.
b) Ignore cheap debate tactics (such as phony “Topicality”, “Counterplans” etc. just to make the opponents upset).