Judging Policies

Eligibility

In the Open division, judges must either be a junior or senior in high school who has attended at least 6 debate tournaments or an adult over the age of 18 and out of high school. In the Novice and Middle School divisions, high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors who have attended at least 4 debate tournaments are eligible to judge. All judges are required to have Tabroom.com and Discord accounts; email us if you need help figuring out how to get either one. All judges are strongly encouraged to have written paradigms on Tabroom.com. Judges who have never judged parliamentary or online debate before are required to attend judge training Saturday morning.

Judging Burdens

All schools are required to enter 1 judge for every two entries or fraction thereof. Judges are required to be available to judge until one round past their furthest advancing entry (eg if a school had students in quarterfinals, their judges must be available for all rounds up to and including semifinals).

Independent, non-school affiliated entries are allowed to team up with other independent entries to reduce their judging burden (e.g. two independent entries could collectively provide one judge). Contact us prior to judging being due if you wish to utilize this option. If you are unable to provide a judge, contact us and we will let you compete if we have extra judges.

Non-school Affiliated Volunteer Judging

If you are a person who is not affiliated with a school or entry competing at the tournament who wishes to judge, fill out this form. We do offer service hours for judging.