Message from the Berlin Bid adjudicators

Greetings! We’re both incredibly excited to serving as co-Chief Adjudicators for Berlin WUDC 2013.


Of course, we can’t reveal our favourite motions to you or name our DCA panel before applications have even opened, but we’d like to set out the principles by which we propose to manage the adjudication of the World Championships:

1) We believe that motions should be serious, challenging, and fair.
Perhaps the most important aspect of serving as part of the adjudication team is setting motions that will offer debaters a chance to engage with interesting issues.
To that end, we will:
· ‘Fairness test’ all of our motions, debating them in secret amongst the adjudication team to ensure that there are a wide range of arguments available to both sides.
· Publish full statistics following the tournament regarding the performance of teams from each position on the table.
· Ensure that all of our motions would be accessible to a well-informed global citizen. There should be no requirement to have specialist knowledge in order to have a good debate.

2) We believe in due respect for ESL and EFL debating.
We don’t regard the ESL or EFL breaks as trivialities, but as integral components of the experience that is the World Championships.

To that end, we will:
· Manage the tab to ensure that teams with a strong chance of breaking in any division (including ESL and EFL) receive the highest-quality adjudicators and the best opportunities for thorough and constructive feedback.
· Set aside at least one DCA space for an ESL or EFL candidate.
· Ensure that motions selected for break rounds in all divisions reflect the importance of these public debates and offer the advancing teams the best possible opportunity to display their talents.
· Severely punish teams that ‘throw’ debates. In the past, certain teams have judged themselves out of contention for the open break and have treated their third-day debates flippantly, causing chaos in their rooms and disadvantaging teams who were in contention for other break categories.

3) We believe that top-quality adjudication is indispensable.
Every speaker’s ambitions depend upon having a team of experienced adjudicators to dispense judgment and feedback. Our priority over the coming months will be assembling the best judging pool that money can subsidise.

To that end, we will:
· Set aside the registration fees and defray travel expenses for top adjudicators from around the world.
· Work with our DCAs to build adjudication skills in developing societies.
· Announce, within the next several weeks, a list of top adjudicators who have tentatively agreed to judge at Berlin Worlds 2013.
· As at Koc, manage a full feedback system for chairs on wings, wings on chairs, and teams on chairs, taking the results very seriously when managing judging allocations in the preliminary rounds and the break.

Thanks for taking the time to read through our adjudication policy. If you have any comments or queries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

We look forward in hope to seeing you in Berlin!

All the Best,

Sharmila and Doug