Students will take on the roles of Representatives or Senators, depending on whether the chamber is House (junior varsity) or Senate (varsity). During each session, one of the students will take on the role of Presiding Officer. The student PO will run the timer, recognize speakers, and otherwise manage the flow of the debate during the round.

In your chamber (room), you will have one experienced judge designated as the parliamentarian. Their job is to be an authority on parliamentary procedure and provide support to the student PO as needed. Your role as judge is merely to listen to the speeches, assign them a score, and offer written feedback to the student PO and Reps/Senators. If you have questions during the round about Tabroom or how/when to score, feel free to ask the parliamentarian.

Students rising to speak will let you know whether or not they would like the speech to be scored. If they ask for a score, you will need to be keeping track of your feedback and your score for their speech. This is all done with the online balloting system.

• Typical Session and Role of the Presiding Officer

• Role of the Parliamentarian

• Speech Scoring Rubric

• Presiding Officer Rubric

• Tips for Feedback on Congress Speeches

https://www.maineforensic.org/resources/ld/

• Online timer for Lincoln Douglas

• Lincoln Douglas Flow Sheet

Lincoln Douglas is a one-on-one debate, where students argue for (Affirmative) or against (Negation) the given resolution. The round has set timings for each student’s presentation and question periods (“cross examinations”) - the flow sheet linked above gives the timings. Your role as judge is to run the timer (you can use the online timer linked above), and type up your ballot when the round is over. After the round is over and the students are dismissed, you will use Tabroom to select a winner, assign speaker points, and offer constructive feedback on what the students did well and how they can improve next time.

Some details:

1. In LD debate, students should provide a "Value/Criterion." This is the moral philosophy and definition that they are basing their argument off and the criteria for what would win the debate (whoever best upholds the value of X).

2. Tabroom will tell you which student is Aff and which student is Neg, using the student’s competition number. Write down the student number and which side they are arguing - you will need to know this to enter your conclusions in Tabroom.

3. Inform both students that they each have 4 minutes of prep time, and they may take their prep time between speeches and questioning periods (refer to the linked Flow Sheet to see the order of the round).

4. When both students indicate they are ready to begin, count down the first speaker (Affirmative Construction) and start their timer. Tell them the time has elapsed at the end of the 6 minutes, and cut them off. If they finish speaking before the 6 minutes is up, write down how much time they used on the Flow Sheet. You can factor in how well they used the time allotted when you assign them speaker points after the round.

5. Ask if either student wants prep time - use the timers in the linked online timer to keep track of who has asked for it and is using it.

6. Continue moving through the round in accordance with the flow sheet, asking students if they want to use prep time as you go.

7. After the 2nd Affirmative Rebuttal is over, thank the students and close the tab for the room. Go back to Tabroom and select the winner, assign speaker points, and submit those tallies.

8. During any break time, or at the end of all the rounds, go back to Tabroom and type up your comments for the students. Offer specific, constructive suggestions for how they can improve next time.

https://www.maineforensic.org/resources/pf/

• Online timer for Public Forum (note that Summary speeches are 3 minutes long, but this timer allows only 2 minutes for those)

• Flow Sheet for Public Forum

Public Forum is a two-on-two debate, where pairs of students argue for (Pro) or against (Con) the given resolution. The round has set timings for each student’s presentation and question periods (“crossfire”) - the flow sheet linked above gives the timings. Your role as judge is to run the timer (you can use the online timer linked above), and type up your ballot when the round is over. After the round is over and the students are dismissed, you will use Tabroom to select a winning team, assign speaker points, and offer constructive feedback on what the students did well and how they can improve next time.

Flow Sheet- this is where you can keep notes on each speech given. It also gives the order and times for each portion of the timed debate. Prep time is 3 minutes per team

Feedback on the ballot can go to either team, or both if you put it in the RFD tab. I prefer to put all my feedback in the RFD tab so both teams get to see each other’s feedback, but I always let the teams know I am doing this. If there’s anything sensitive you can always put it in just one team’s feedback.

I refer to the competitors by their last names. Make sure you are clear on who is speaking first, what their names are, etc, so that you can accurately assign speaker points.

Coin toss

• The team that comes into the room first gets to call the coin toss

• Whoever wins the coin toss gets to choose (1) what side they argue OR (2) order of speaking

• The team that loses coin toss gets to choose whatever option left to decide

Cross fire

• First speaker gets to ask the first question

• When judging, a team that is constantly asking questions and interrupts their opponent is not a civilized way to debate. This is not reason enough to pause the round and ask for the other side to speak, but it should result in deducted speaker points for over aggressive team

Speaking as judge

• At the beginning figure out what person will be speaking at what time so you can give directed, accurate, and clear feedback on your ballot

• What side is each team on

  • What is the order of teams speaking

• Telling people how much prep time they have and asking if they want to use prep before each speech or cross

• Telling people the time that they’re at or if they are out of time

• When should you not speak?

  • To talk to competitors about their school, debate history, interests outside of debate, compliments you have for them after round. Save your comments for the feedback on ballots.

  • Rounds are stressful for debaters. We can get in our heads and over analyze the smallest details to guess whether we won or lost. Irrelevant comments that a judge makes do not help that.

  • Also, a judge should not stop the round to say something they think about the topic or ask questions about the topics discussed.

How to decide who won the round

• The decision on the round should come down to what happened during the round

• As a judge, you are “tabula rasa” - blank slate

  • No matter how knowledgeable you are about a resolution, outside information should not be used to decide which team won

  • If one team makes a ridiculous claim without merit, it is the other team’s job to state that and negate whatever claim previously made

  • Ex: If one team states that the sky is orange, and the other team never argues against it, as a judge you don’t know any better and must believe the sky is orange.

Often in Maine speech events will be collapsed with multiple events into the same round. Competitors may be double entered in more than one round, in which case they should check in to both rounds first to determine where they need to be first.

As a judge in speech, your top priority is good listening and keeping track of time. Rank the students in order based on the event. Often you're looking for structure, eye contact, speaking style, emotionality, and overall compelling speeches.

https://www.maineforensic.org/resources/speech-events/maine-speech-handbook/