[GFCA] Speech Tab Proposal - Open for Comments

Mario Herrera rioherrera at gmail.com
Wed Jan 18 12:07:44 PST 2017


Hi, everyone!

So the reason that David and I fully support the proposal is that it
mirrors how Speech events are tabbed at the National Speech and Debate
National Tournament. The philosophy centers around the idea of consistency.
All rounds do, in fact, matter. As competition grows tougher with each
elimination round, the level of necessary consistency grows. It is the
total performance for the event, not to be dictated by a large crowd in the
room for finals or, conversely, one bad round because of topic choice or
other factors. It looks at the student's performance holistically. This
philosophy is unique to speech events. It is not a better philosophy than
any other, but unique to this type of competition.

The problem with making the final round the only factor for placement is
that you have changed the rules mid-stream. Before the final round,
consistency for the totality of competition is valued. In finals, previous
performance is discounted. Additionally, it would be possible for an
individual entry to receive scores of "1,1,6" in finals, effectively giving
undue weight to one judge and directly impacting that entry.. By looking at
all judge ranks, this possibility is limited. It rewards consistency of
performance.

Finally, until the guidelines for judges become the actual rules, they are
just guidelines. While I know that every effort will be given to assure the
guideline is met, if it becomes impossible to make happen the assurances
dissipate. There is currently no rule to determine who can or cannot judge
IE's. I'm not sure there is even an agreement among IE coaches as we really
have not had that conversation. I would love to have such a conversation,
but until it occurs, the rule should be consistent. There is not, and
should not be, a strike system for judges. Speech events should not be
treated as debate events. Judging in speech events the state remains
random. This system, addresses that randomness while valuing competitors
and judges.

Thanks, and feel free to reach out to either David or myself should you
have any questions.

Mario

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 1:34 PM Jeffrey Miller <jmill126 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> So this doesn't get lost in our inboxes, I will start the discussion.
> Although I think this proposal is a significant improvement to our current
> tabulation process, one by law still stands out to me.
>
> Currently, our tabulation process puts a lot of value on preliminary
> rounds.  Currently, final rankings are based off finals rankings + prelim
> rankings (drop low).  This is not a normal tab process for any tournament
> outside the state I've ever been to.
>
> However, I think the proposal fixes a lot of this.   For instance, in
> order to advance from Quarters or Semis to the next elimination round, the
> top three in each section advances RATHER than prelim rounds + elim round
> rankings - lowest ranking total.   The proposed method of top 3 in each
> section makes a lot of sense and places value on the elimination round
> rather than on preliminary rounds (something that exists in debate and ALL
> OTHER activities/sports - for instance, the top seed in football doesn't
> get anything besides homefield advantage in the playoffs to help them).
>
> The problem I see though is that the final rankings *still include* preliminary
> rankings in the final rankings.  I do not think *all* rounds matter.  I
> think only finals matters.  To compare to debate, if the top seed gets a W
> in every round, but loses on a 2-1 in finals - they still lose.  In speech,
> if you get all 1's in preliminary rounds, but a 3,2,1 in finals and places
> 2nd in finals - they should place 2nd in finals.  I could use other sports
> or academic activities as an analogy - but debate was the easiest.
>
> I'm interested to see where other coaches stand on the issue of "do all
> rounds matter" in final rankings or do just "final rounds matter"?
>
> I will preempt one response that I thought of to my question and that
> response is "final round judging is unpredictable in speech events."  I
> think Lyndsey's addition to the "Final Round Speech Judge Recommendations
> <http://www.gaspeechanddebate.org/speechfinalsjudge>" solve this - for
> those who are not aware or haven't read the checklists - Lyndsey created an
> additional step for Speech schools at State.  Every speech school is now
> required to recommend at least one judge for a final round based on their
> experience and expertise.   This solves "unpredictable/unqualified judging
> in elims at state".
> --
> Jeffrey Miller
> Marist School
> Director of Speech & Debate
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