THANK YOU for your interest in judging at our Speech and Debate Tournament!!! We rely on community support to help our tournament run smoothly!!!
You will use this web site (Stoa Hub) to pick the time that works best for you to judge. All speech events will occur on Friday and all Debate events will occur on Saturday.
Please arrive 45 minutes prior to your selected speech and/or debate round in order to receive orientation.
TIME COMMITMENT FOR JUDGES
Lincoln Douglas Debate: Approximately 2 – 2.5 hrs, which includes 45 min for training and 45 minutes for the actual debate with the remaining 30 min to an hour allotted to completing the ballot.
Team Policy Debate: Approximately 2.5 – 3 hrs, which includes 45 min for training and 1.25 hrs for the actual debate with the remaining 30 minutes to an hour allotted for completing the ballot.
Speech: Approximately 3 – 3.5 hrs, which includes 45 min for training and 2 hrs for the actual speech round with the remaining 30 minutes to an hour allotted for completing the ballot.
For scheduling purposes please allow an hour to complete the ballots. The students value your comments on the ballots and will learn from them. Some judges can give great feedback in a short amount of time, others need longer.
During Judge Training, you will be given a good overview of the events and the judging process at the tournament. There will be three types of judge training - Lincoln Douglas (LD) debate, Team Policy (TP) debate, and Speech. Speech training will only occur on Friday, which is the day that all speech events will take place.
Once you have completed training for Lincoln Douglas (LD) debate, you may judge additional Lincoln Douglas debate rounds without the need of repeating the training. However, additional training will be required for judging a Team Policy (TP) debate round. The converse is also true.
Also if you arrive early, stop by the Judge Deliberation Room where you will find a variety of good things to eat and drink. These goodies will also be available while you are completing your ballot.
You will receive an e-mail giving details about check-in, judge orientation, etc. approximately a week prior to the tournament.
If you would like to learn more about judging and the debate events prior to the tournament, some resources are included below.
DEBATE TRAINING SLIDES
Please feel free to read and become familiar with the LD and TP debate training slides content by clicking on the links below.
LD Debate Orientation Slides Oct - December 2024
TP Orientation Slides 2024-2025
YOU ARE QUALIFIED TO JUDGE! The goal of our competitors is to be able to communicate their ideas clearly and respectfully to anyone. If you are a good listener who is over 18 and not actively competing in high school speech or debate, WE NEED YOU!
If you are on the fence about whether or not to give community judging a try, watch this short video.
TOURNAMENT LOCATION
The tournament will be held at the Community Church of Monroe at 224 E Old Highway 74, Monroe, NC 28112
Look for the neon green poster board signs for directions.
More instructions will be emailed out to registered judges about a week before the tournament.