Judges Guidelines
The first thing that judges should do is to relax and not worry. You will enjoy yourself and you will do a good job, whether or not you have any experience. Indeed, it is important that public speaking and debating are judged by non-experts since the essence of public speaking is the ability to convince, impress or entertain an diverse audience, not just an expert one. The only essential requirement for judging is that the judge be able to ignore any of their own opinions and make their own decision based solely on the material presented.
This sheet contains some information and guidelines that may help you with your adjudication. You do not need to worry about the speaking order, rules, times etc.. The chair will handle all of the procedural details.
There are time penalties, but these will be dealt with by the tabulation room so you should not deduct them from your score, and you do not need to worry about them. It is important than you note the length of the speech down on the scoresheet so that the tabulation room will know whther they should apply the penalties.
After you have heard all of the competitors in the room that you are judging, the competitors will leave the room for 5 minutes so that you have time to discuss the round and your scores with the other judges. You do not have to agree with the other judges, but we have found that judges find it useful to have a chance to compare notes with their fellow judges. At the end of the 5 minute conferall period, the competitors will return. At that point, you will be asked if you wish to make any comments. You do not have to, although the competitors are always eager to hear your opinions. If you do offer comments, please do not reveal any scores or, in the case of a debate, which side won. Please hand in your scoresheets at the end of each round.
There are guidelines for each event printed on the back of the scoresheets. We also have additional information below to help you judge each event. Thank you for judging,
Impromptu Speaking Briefing for Judges::
1) Each speaker will draw three topics, which may be a word, a quotation, a phrase or anything not related to current events. They must choose one of them and then has up to two minutes to prepare. They may write notes but may not bring them up with them when they speak.
2) Speakers may speak in favour, against, in favour and against or about the topic. Speakers may take a humorous approach, a serious one or some combination of the two. Wit, humour, logic, philosophy and sentiment are all equally welcome. Judges will be looking for agility of thought, for substance, for organizational ability and, above all, for the ability of each speaker to communicate with style and originality.
3) They may interpret the topic in a way that you don’t expect, as long as their interpretation is within reason. For example, if their topic was The Grateful Dead, you might expect a speech on the band, but it would also be fine if they gave a speech on why people might be grateful to be dead or a speech on the funeral industry. They must speak about the topic that they have been given rather than simply presenting a standard set of remarks, however brilliant.
4) Remember that they have only had 2 minutes to prepare, and were not allowed to do research or access outside material when preparing. Given that, did they do an excellent job. These speeches are unlikely to be as polished as the prepared events.
5) The speech must last from 3 to 5 minutes. Speakers who do not reach the minimum 3 minute time mark receive a penalty, but the tab room will do that – you should not alter your score except insofar as it means that you presumably would not be as impressed by that speaker.
6) The best guideline for scoring is to ask yourself if you had to pick a high school student to speak to an audience with only a couple of minutes preparation and it was very important to you that the speech go well and have some content, is this the student that you would want. A mark in the 90’s means that you would be delighted to have this person speak — given that a high school student is your only option. High 80’s means that you would be happy to have this student as the speaker, low 80’s that you would be neither be happy nor alarmed, high 70’s that you would not want them to speak, and low 70’s that your event would be a disaster with them speaking. 70 is the lowest possible score and 95 is the highest possible score.
Persuasive Speaking Briefing for Judges:
1) This speech is designed to persuade and must be on a serious topic, although this does not mean that humour might not be useful at points in the speech.
2) A problem/solution approach must be taken, i.e. speakers must identify a problem (it need not be an earth-shattering one) and propose, or at least examine, one or more solutions to it.
3) Judges will be concerned primarily with how persuasive the speaker is and should give more credit to speakers who undertake more challenging topics. The persuasive element may be in convincing you that the problem exists, or its significance, or it may be a problem that everyone knows exists and the persuasiveness is in convincing you that the solution is valid. Obviously, this may mean that they devote most of their time to the problem and less time to the solution, or the other way around. As long as it is convincing, that is fine.
4) Speeches will have been prepared beforehand and should be from 7 to 13 minutes in length. Speakers may use notes.
5) Please remember that you are judging the quality of the speech and presentation, not the quality of the camerawork or recording system
6) You should be neutral about the topic and should not allow any specialized knowledge or bias to influence your scoring. Try to judge on the basis of how the average person would react.
7) The students have chosen their own topics and have written their speeches themselves. This is a prepared event, so they have had a lot of time to do research and work on the speeches. They do not normally cite the sources in a way that you would see in essays or some types of debate competitions such as the US Policy debate. The students do have a maximum time limit, so in some cases where their speech is close to the maximum time, they may go into less detail than they could. In those situations, you should ask yourself did they do an excellent job given the time available, not is there anything more they could have said.
8) The best guideline for scoring is to ask yourself whether you would want this student to be a spokesperson for a cause that mattered a great deal to you, assuming that you had to have a high school student present the case. A mark in the 90’s means that you would be delighted to have this person as your advocate — given that a high school student is your only option, this is the one that you would want to have. High 80’s means that you would be happy to have this student as your representative, low 80’s that you would be neither please nor displeased, high 70’s that you would not want them to speak, and low 70’s that your event would be a disaster with them speaking. 70 is the lowest possible score and 95 is the highest possible score.
After-Dinner Speaking Briefing for Judges:
1. An after-dinner is the kind of speech that is given after a formal dinner to an audience who have a common interest or share some aspect(s) of identity, employment or character (e.g. the left-handed society or the dental association).
2. This category includes the kind of speech given at a convention, e.g. by the Chairman or sales manager of a firm or specialised group, reviewing the practices, policies or employees of that firm or group. The audience can be fictional , e.g. the members of the Avengers or the Fellowship of the Ring, Although not necessarily human, both speaker and audience must be credibly capable of communication through speech: i.e. they may be vampires or aliens, for example, but they may not be animals. The only exception to this rule is that the speaker and/or audience may be animals if they are derived from books, films or plays/musicals in which they already have the power of speech - e.g. characters from ‘Animal Farm’.
3. The speaker must address an imaginary audience of their own choosing. They must deliver some new and relevant insights to them in a way designed to inform and entertain.
4. An after-dinner speech must not be just a stand-up comedy routine.
5. The speaker may ask the person chairing the round to announce who is being addressed immediately before they deliver the speech. In that case, a brief and suitable form of words must be provided. Otherwise the speaker will identify the audience in the opening lines of the speech. Salutation is optional if the person chairing the round has identified the audience before the speech begins.
6. Notes must be limited to both sides of one 3 x 5 inch card, and should be used as little as possible. No props may be used.
7. Each competitor must speak for 6 minutes, with a grace period of 1 minute on either side. There will be a time penalty fot speeches outside of those time limits, but the tabulation room will assess a penalty if the speech is too far under time or overtime so judges should NOT apply a time penalty.
8. The best guideline for scoring is to ask yourself whether, if you had to select a high school student to speak at a dinner that you were organizing and that was very important to you, this is the one that you would pick. A mark in the 90’s means that you would be delighted to have this person as your speaker andtheir speech will be the high point of the evening. The food could be terrible and people won’t care because the speaker is so good. 80’s means that you would be happy to have this student as your speaker and they will definitely add to everyone’s enjoyment. High 70’s implies that the food had better be good because the speech will detract from the event. Low 70’s indicates that your dinner guests will probably never speak to you again and may leave regardless of how good the food is.
Interpretive Reading Briefing for Judges:
1) Each participant should read a passage of prose or poetry (or a collection of poems), serious or humorous, with an appropriate brief introduction. Competitors may choose any piece that they wish to as long as it has been published. Past efforts have included everything from Dr. Seuss to George Orwell.
2) Judges will be concerned with how much the reader's voice and presentation add to the material rather than with the talent of the author. Judges should also consider the quality of the job that the speaker is doing, given the nature of the material, e.g. if it is a children's story, is he or she reading it like one.
3) Please note that this is a reading, not a dramatic presentation. Competitors may stand or sit but should not move around excessively or recite the piece rather than read it.
4) Please remember that you are judging the quality of the speech and presentation, not the quality of the camerawork or recording system.
5) The students have chosen their own readings. This is a prepared event, so they have had a lot of time to work on the reading.
6) The time limits are from 5 to 11 minutes, including a brief introduction.
7) The best guideline for scoring is to ask yourself, if you had to pick someone to read your novel to an audience, a reading which was crucial in determining if you got a publishing and movie contract, and for some reason you had to have a high school student do the reading, is this the student that you would want. A mark in the 90’s means that you would be delighted to have this person read — given that a high school student is your only option. High 80’s means that you would be happy to have this student as the reader, low 80’s that you would be neither happy nor alarmed, high 70’s that you would definitely not want them to read, and low 70’s that they were very weak. 70 is the lowest possible score and 95 is the highest possible score.
Parliamentary Debating Briefing for Judges
1) This is coordinate parliamentary debating. Each competitor will debate with a partner from another school and usually another country. You should mark them according to how well they advance their case, not as a team, although they should try to support their partner’s case if it advances their side. The second speaker on a side does not have to bring in new arguments, although they may, but may instead further develop the reasons that their first speaker has presented.
2) The debaters are not told the resolution until 30 minutes prior to the debate. The side in favour defines the resolution, and the opposition does not know what that definition is until the first proposition speaks. This is a change from previous years. The definition must be reasonable and debatable, but might not be what you were expecting. The debate is about the resolution as it was defined. If the definition is undebatable, judges should consider that when evaluating the two sides and give the opposition credit if they come up with a good case despite the unfair definition.
3) The first speaker will have an initial 6 minute speech and will also deliver a 3 minute initial speech at the end of the debate. The second speaker on each side will have a single 9 minute speech.
4) Points of Information are allowed. To raise one, the speaker can turn on their make and say “On that point”, or can hold a card or their hand in front of their camera to let the person speaking know that they would like to ask a question. The person speaking may accept or decline the point – it is up to them.
5) An excellent debater presents great arguments that identify and develop the key issues, does a superb job of refuting the case and attacks of their opponents, and delivers everything very persuasively. The speaker that does the best debating— and therefore the side that you give the highest score to — may not be on the side that wins the argument. This is similar to the situation in court where the side with the better lawyer may still lose the case— the facts may overwhelmingly favour the other side or their co-counsel might have done a terrible job.
6) Please remember that you are judging the quality of the speech and presentation, not the quality of the camerawork or recording system
7) If a debater has a weak partner or one who has done a bad job, try not to hold that against them. When judging, consider how effective an advocate they have been given the circumstances that they found themselves in at the point in the debate. If their partner does not appear, the remaining debater on the team will have to deliver all of their side’s speeches. Please take that extra burden into account when scoring – base the mark on the first speech if the second speech would lower it.
8) Remember that they have only had 30 minutes to prepare, are working with a partner that they probably had never met until the debate, and were not allowed to do research or access outside material when preparing. Given that, did they do an excellent job. These speeches are unlikely to be as polished as the prepared events.
9) The best guideline for scoring is to ask yourself whether you would want this student to be a spokesperson for a cause that mattered a great deal to you, assuming that you had to have a high school student present the case. A mark in the 90’s means that you would be delighted to have this person as your advocate — given that a high school student is your only option, this is the one that you would want to have. High 80’s means that you would be happy to have this student as your representative, low 80’s that you would be neither please nor displeased, high 70’s that you would not want them representing you, and low 70’s would be the person you would want to have arguing against you. 70 is the lowest possible score and 95 is the highest possible score.