The Wyatt Debate League is always in search of qualified judges for its monthly tournaments. If you are interested, either to fulfill a volunteer requirement or in the possibility of being hired (limited slots available), please
contact us.
Each event features unique topic that rotates on a set schedule. For Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debate, the topic rotates bi-monthly. Congressional debate features a variety of topics, in the form of student-introduced bills, at each tournament. These bills may be different at every tournament, even if they fall within the same month. Finally, Policy debate features the same topic throughout the course of the academic year.
In Lincoln-Douglas debate, there is a unique topic called the Modest Novice topic. This occurs during the first two-month topic cycle of the year, and is the same every year.
The Modest Novice topic, as well as all current topics for each event (except congress), are available on the
NSDA website. Congressional bills will be available on Tabroom the week before the tournament.
Judging is the most important service that you bring to the league. Without enough judges, there can’t be fair and impartial evaluation of every debate round and the tournament can’t happen. So thank you, many times over, for taking an interest in judging.
The NSDA website offers an excellent
judging guide
with tips for each format of debate. The individual events will be linked to from other pages, but all are accessible from the main page above.
Some general guidelines to remember when judging any event are:
- Evaluate the arguments as presented, not your belief in the arguments.
- Focus on providing ideas for improvement when providing feedback, rather than only what was done incorrectly.
- The league DOES NOT DISCLOSE WINNERS. If you opt to provide verbal feedback after the round, you may, but judges at our tournament must focus on feedback and improvement, not disclosure or analysis of the RFD in these instances.