HELPFUL HINTS FOR PARENT JUDGES

1.  The judge's packet will include instructions regarding urnament.  It would be helpful to read these instructions.  In particular, some tournaments request that judges distribute their comment sheet on each contestant to the respective contestant at the end of the round, and other tournaments have you turn in the comment sheets with your ballot.  The exception is Discussion, where there is no individual comment sheet for each contestant.  Instead, you wryou write all of your comments on one sheet that is turned in with your ballot.

2.  It would also be a good idea to look at the ballot ahead e ballots can vary from tournament to tournament.  If you have any questions on the ballot, you should ask a coach or another judge.  You will be assigned a judge number and you should make sure that you put the number on your ballot and comment sheets (you will also need to put your name and school affiliation on the ballot and comment sheets).

3. After a round you will have assigned each contestant a Rank and Rate.

Rank is the relative position of contestant in a particular round (from 1 to 5 with 1 being the highest ranked contestant).  If there are more than 5 contestants in the round, everyone after the fourth ranked contestant receives the rank of 5

Rate is a grading of the contestant, independent from how they are compared with the rest of the contestants in the round.  Usually that rating is on a score of 80 to 100, with 100 being the highest and sometimes corresponding to a letter grade A+.

You would typically assign a rate immediately after a contestant has finished their speech, whereas a rank may change after any of the next speakers.

At the parents' training meeting there was discussion of a judging aid - a worksheet grid that is used to keep track of the ranking and rating during the round.  I have found this invaluable when I have judged so I am enclosing a copy of the worksheet grid and an example of one filled out.  This worksheet grid is not turned in after a judging event; it is just for your own use to help keep track of the event.  You simply determine where each contestant fits after their speech in comparison with the others that you have already heard.  If you have any questions on the grid please ask one of the speech coaches.

4. For most events, all of the contestants will be in the room and sit through the speeches of the other students.  Each student will give you a comment sheet with his or her name, contestant number, and title of the speech completed at the top.  I put the comment sheets in the order that the students will speak.  This order is on the schedule that is in your judge's packet but will only show contestant number (not name of the student).  The order makes it easy for me to call the next speaker when I am finished writing my comments.  I also keep the comments in this order in case I need to review the comments to decide ranking.

5. For the events where all of the contestants are in the room for the entire round, the students applaud after each speech and you can too.  For extemporaneous speaking, the contestants draw the topic of their speech just 30 minutes before they are scheduled to present the speech, so they are not likely to sit in the room listening to the other speakers because they will be busy preparing their own speech.

6. The students (and their coaches) take the comment sheets very seriously.  I try to be positive and stress what was done well but also what might have improved the speech.  The comments relate to the substance of the speech as well as the style in which it is delivered.  I usually finish filling out the comment sheet for a particular speaker immediately after their speech, using the notes from the worksheet.

7. It is really important to return your ballot to the Tab Room as soon as possible after the conclusion of each round because it is used to determine the contestant pairings for the next round.

8. Although I was quite nervous the first round that I judged (I wanted to do a good job and I was not confident in my ability to judge because I never did speech or debate in high school or college), I found that judging Speech was less intense than judging Lincoln Douglas debate.  It was easy to write comments during each student's speech.  Because I wanted to get all of my comments written while the speech was fresh in my mind, I would ask the next speaker to wait until I finished writing my comments for the student who just finished.

9. It can be helpful to have a timer when judging, though most of the speeches are well practiced and the speaker knows how long they take.  A timer on the desk will eliminate the need to keep glancing at you watch.

10. I usually take a few minutes before starting the round to organize my judging sheets.  Students will give you their comments sheets.  I take a few minutes to organize them by putting my name of them, putting the students names on my judging worksheet, and put the comment sheets in the order that the students will present.  I find that a few minutes of organization helps the round go better for me.