Speaker Points
The judge has the responsibility of not only voting for the side that he or she thinks won the round, but also giving each speaker "speaker points." This is a numerical evaluation of the debater's speaking skills ranging from 1–30. The standard variation, however, is 25–29.5, with 30s reserved for "the best speaker you've ever seen." Half points are allowed, such as 26.5, and at the end of a debate tournament the best speakers are recognized. At most tournaments, the teams who "break" into elimination rounds - where the winner of the entire tournament will be decided by single-round elimination - are selected primarily by win-loss record, with ties broken, and match-ups determined, by speaker points.
Read more about this topic: Judge (policy Debate)
Famous quotes containing the words speaker and/or points:
“There is a terrible blindness in the love that wants only to accommodate. It’s not only to do with omissions and half-truths. It implants a lack of being in the speaker and robs the self of an identity without which it is impossible for one to grow close to another.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)