Last week I went to a debate camp. A three day intensive camp preparing me for having to speak and argue in front of judges for sport. The first day consisted of writing an Affirmative case, the next we wrote our Negative, and the last day we held a single day tournament. To my surprise during the award ceremony (but not to you, because you read the title) I got first place! When checking my ballots afterwards I realized something else, I also got last place.
What do I mean by this? Well, there are two sections in this debate. Speaks, and overall. Speaks rank your delivery, rebuttal, arguments, organization, how you speak. Whereas overall is your win/loss ratio. I got first place in speaks, I had the best delivery, rebuttals, arguments, organization, for all intents and purposes I was the most persuasive person at this tournament. But my win/loss ratio was abysmal. Out of the six rounds I debated, I only won once. I only convinced 17% (rounded up) of my judges that I was right. But I was the most persuasive speaker? How did this happen?
Before I continue, I'd like to explain how these debates are judged. Me and one other person debate about a topic, and one person judges it. That person will give a score on their delivery, rebuttals, arguments, organization, their speaking ability. Then that person will give the win, based on who had the most convincing, persuasive arguments. So the very same people that said I was the more persuasive than my opponent (every single round) also said my case wasn't persuasive enough... what?
"Well ok," you might say, "You may have said your arguments the best, but that doesn't mean you had the best arguments. So you must have had the worst arguments, right?" "Fair point" I would respond, "But you have to keep in mind a few things."
You see, it doesn't quite work like that. First of all, the judges are told to judge by what they think is most persuasive, so calling my the more persuasive and voting against me is a direct contradiction. Furthermore, the speaks actually cover arguments as well. When checking my speaker points on the ballots, I realized that my argument specific speaks (Support and Refutation) were higher than my opponents... every single time. Finally, I've never, ever seen anything like this, usually speaks correspond with results. Of course some people speak better than others, but due to the very nature of this competition if you speak well you usually do well on a whole.
So what the heck happened? Well, it comes down to the judges. These judges usually don't know anything, they're mom or random people off the street. And when trained on how to judge, they are told to judge on whatever they think is most important. This can lead to some crazy (and out right wrong) decisions. For instance (this is less crazy), one girl I debated had tons (and I mean TONS) of evidence. So the judge said that while I was more convincing in most aspects, the evidence was for her most important, and therefor I lost. Another time I lost because the judge didn't like my tie as much as my opponents (I wish I was lying).
So the judge parameters are very subjective. To make matters worse, the judges aren't always the best listeners. As my debate coach said, "Expect your judge to ignore or not hear 20%-80% of whatever you say." This is another reason I lost, my judge either didn't hear, remember, or understand one of my points about the Negative's job, and gave me a loss because she thought I wasn't doing my job, which isn't true.
So at least half of my losses weren't fair, were wrong. Does that mean I blame my judges? Well, kinda. It goes like this, this activity has two possible goals, competition, or education. If our goal is competition, I have every right to be furious with every single judge that has every judged me wrong (that is A LOT of people), but that isn't the goal. The goal is for me to learn, how to speak, how to debate, how to deal with idiot judges.
In life our 'judges' (whoever that might be) will almost always have a biased viewed. Or will determine the win based on stupid criteria. This program, frustrating as it may be, is preparing me for what life'll be like.
That said, if anyone gives me a loss because of my tie again, I'll ronpa the hell out of them! (http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Gakkyuu-Houtei)
-The Madman
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