Judge Qualifications
Some circuits see lay or inexperienced judges recruited from the community as an important "part of the game." Debaters in these circuits must be able to adapt from presentations to individuals with no debate experience at all, to judges who have themselves been debaters. This use of lay judges significantly impacts delivery and argumentation as the rapid-fire style and complex debate-theory arguments are frequently incomprehensible to lay judges. For this reason, other circuits restrict policy debate judging to qualified judges, generally ex-debaters. The use of lay judges, and its impact in speed, presentation and argumentation is a source of great controversy in the US high school debate community.
See the following for recent reviews of the issue.
- Bob Bilyeu (April 2004). "An Army of One - A challenge to Debate Coaches". The Rostrum 78 (8): 72–86. http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/pol0404bilyeu.pdf.
- John Durkee (April 2005). "DEBATING ABOUT DEBATING". The Rostrum 79 (8): 49–52. http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Rostrum/pol0504durkee.pdf.
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