PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
Judging Guidelines
Thank you for judging with the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance! Our programs – which have
been statistically proven to improve graduation rates, GPAs, ACT scores, attendance, and more
– would not be possible without your help.
Quick Tips:
1) Bring a pen, notepad, and watch or kitchen timer
if you have one (phone timers work too!).
2) About 10 minutes before a round is scheduled to
start, visit the judge check-in table to pick up your
ballot.
3) Go to your room, confirm all students are present
& start the debate. If a team is more than 5
minutes late, please let us know.
4) Keep time – and remind students to keep time as
well (see diagram on right).
5) Take notes during the debate – this will help you
objectively evaluate which team is making better
points.
High School Time Limits:
CONSTRUCTIVES
1AC—8 minutes
CX by 2N—3 minutes
1NC—8 minutes
CX by 1A—3 minutes
2AC—8 minutes
CX by 1N—3 minutes
2NC—8 minutes
CX by 2A—3 minutes
REBUTTALS
1NR—5 minutes
1AR—5 minutes
2NR—5 minutes
2AR—5 minutes
Each team gets a total of 8 minutes
of prep time to be used speeches.
6) After the debate is over, decide whether or not the plan is a good idea and fill out your
ballot. Please take time to give students verbal feedback!
7) Return your ballot to the judge check-in table as soon as possible. We cannot begin the
next debate until we have all of the ballots from the previous one.
8) Most importantly: there is no wrong way to judge a debate as long as you are
encouraging and kind when you evaluate your students. They are here to learn from you,
no matter what your background or experience level is.
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PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
2
PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
Introduction to Debate
Policy debate is an intellectual competition between two sides – the Affirmative
and the Negative. Each side is represented by a 2 person team from a Dallas
ISD school. Each debate is supervised by a judge (you).
During the debate, the Affirmative team advocates a policy. The Negative team
will argue that policy is a bad idea. Your job, as the judge, is to decide if the
plan is a good idea – as well as to evaluate the quality of each student’s
presentation.
The affirmative team will present a policy in their first speech that reflects the
year’s topic (a.k.a. resolution). This year, the topic is about the United States and
our economic relationship to Latin American countries:
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially
increase its economic engagement toward Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela.
Thus, an example of a policy that is relevant to the topic (what we call “topical”)
would be a piece of legislation that lifts the embargo on Cuba, allowing for more
trade.
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PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
Introduction to this Year’s Arguments
In line with our mission of making debate more accessible, we restrict all non-Varsity
debaters to sets of pre-produced research packets called “Core Files.” This helps us ensure
that students have a controlled introduction to advanced debate topics and concepts. It is
important that students do not deviate from their Core Files, which can skew the fairness of a
debate – if someone in Novice or JV reads non-DUDA evidence, simply don’t use it to
make your decision.
Please note: If you are new to judging debate rounds, you will be assigned judge in the Novice
Division. If you have judged before, you may be assigned to Junior Varsity or Varsity debates
as well.
Novice Division Files
Novice debates in the Fall of 2013 will focus exclusively on the Cuban Embargo. Affirmative
teams will argue that we should lift the 50+ year old embargo on Cuba, claiming it: hurts Cuban
public health, strengthens the Cuban governments’ repressive policies, and undermines
US/Latin American cooperation. Negative teams may contest the points brought up by the
affirmative or argue that lifting the embargo would lead to dangerous oil drilling operations and
create a surge in tourism that could be harmful for Cuba.
JV Division Files - JV debaters receive the Cuba File described above, and a few more
arguments:
 A Venezuelan Oil affirmative, which argues that the United States should invest in
improvements to Venezuela’s oil production facilities. This would arguably maintain
stable oil supplies, guard against political instability in Venezuela, and improve the US’
image in Latin America. Negative teams may argue that a surge in Venezuelan oil
production (and US oil consumption) would undermine the economies of other countries
that produce and consume oil, causing instability.
 A Development Bad Kritik, which allows them to argue that US-led development in
Latin America is based on a bad economic model that sacrifices Latin Americans’ best
interests for the sake of making a profit.
 A Topicality File, which allows them to argue that various affirmatives aren’t “topical”
(relevant to the topic), and thus undermine the educational potential of debate. Please
note: you may want to take topicality debates in JV with a grain of salt, since we
produced the files for the students.
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PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
An Introduction to Speech Orders & Times
Like any sport, we have rules that set how long students can speak and what order they speak
in. Every debater will give two speeches (an 8 minute constructive and a 5 minute rebuttal),
will be cross-examined once, and will cross-examine another student once.
Here are the speeches in order:
1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) – the speaker introduces the affirmative’s case.
1st Negative Constructive (1NC) – this speech will introduce the arguments that the negative team
will use during the debate.
2nd Affirmative Constructive (2AC) – this speaker refutes all of the arguments made by the negative
by reading new evidence & referencing evidence from the first affirmative speech.
“The Negative Block:” 2nd Negative Constructive (2NC) 1st Negative Rebuttal (1NR) – the
negative debaters split up the arguments from the first negative speech and flesh them out while
answering affirmative arguments.
1st Affirmative Rebuttal (1AR) – this speaker has a limited amount of time to answer the arguments
made in the block and to re-assert the affirmative case.
2nd Negative Rebuttal (2NR) – this is the last negative speech – this speaker’s job is to provide a
clear set of reasons why the negative team should win the debate. Think of this speech like a
conclusion to a paper – it’s about quickly summarizing why the negative should win.
2nd Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) – this is the last speech in the debate – this speaker should quickly
refute the negative’s best arguments and then refocus the debate on why the affirmative plan is best.
Cross-Examination (CX) and Prep Time:
Cross-examination – is a 3-minute question and answer session after each constructive, when the
opposing team asks the person who just spoke questions in order to clarify or point out the flaws of an
argument.
Preparation time – each team is given 8 minutes of “prep-time” that they can take at any point before
or after a speech to write notes, find evidence, organize their thoughts, etc. To use it, students simply
need to announce that they want to take some prep time. They only get 8 minutes of prep time for the
whole debate, so they need to use it wisely!
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PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
An Introduction to Rendering Your Decision
There can only be one winner, and it’s your job to choose who it is. The official record of who wins
and loses is noted on the ballot you pick up before each debate – but we really hope you’ll take time to
offer verbal feedback to students as well!
Giving a decision at the end of the debate:




Your decision should center on whether the plan is a good idea or not – this is policy debate, after
all.
Restrict your decision to arguments that were presented in the debate – refrain from interjecting
your own beliefs/opinions about the subject.
Make an independent decision without consulting other judges. It is generally considered
inappropriate to discuss the arguments being made with other judges before you have given your
decision/written your ballot.
Most importantly, don’t tell teams to do more research or find new evidence – this would interfere
with the argument restrictions we have in place and our students may not have access to research
facilities.
Filling out your ballot to reflect your decision (see next page for example):


Win/Loss – this is the easiest to enter. Simply write which team won the debate.
Speaker Points – reflect the quality of individual speakers, and can be used to reward good persuasive
techniques, humor, knowledge of the topic, etc. Speaker points range from 0 to 30 – but we ask that
you restrict your points to a range of 25-29.5. Here is a rough idea of the scale:
29.5 Points: Virtually Perfect. You can’t think of anything they could do to improve.
29 Points: Well above average. An extremely good speaker. Unusually effective; highly persuasive.
28 Points: A good speaker. Slightly above average. Clear room for improvement.
27 Points: Average. With strengths, but also with unmistakable flaws.
26 Points: Below average. An ineffective speaker. Please list 1-2 specific ways this speaker could
improve in addition to leaving positive comment.
25 Points: Something particularly offensive or egregious occurred.

Ranks – the best student receives a rank of 1, second best a 2, onward to 4. These are used as
tiebreakers by tournament staff if speaker points are equal.

Low Point Wins – because the decision reflects the best policy and not the best debating, it is
possible for the better debaters to lose. If the losing team receives more points or ranks than the
winning team, Please check the box on the ballot marked as “low point win.”
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PO Box 670564
Dallas, TX 75367
Tel. 972-926-3832
www.dallasurbandebate.org
An Introduction to Your Ballot – Example
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