Judging Guidelines
Resources for Judges
Teams always need judges for speech and debate tournaments. Without enough judges, teams pay penalty fees and tournaments are more challenging to run. If you have a child involved with speech and debate, the South Carolina Forensic Coaches Association encourages you to attend a tournament and judge. Judging virtually? Visit our dedicated page.
Online Ballots
Most tournaments use an online program called Tabroom to run tournaments. A few use SpeechWire, but in the Carolinas, Tabroom is the primary way tournaments are run — meaning, you use this web-based program to enter your ballots.
Tabroom: Key Things to Know
Tabroom is generally how you will judge rounds in this region.
Before using Tabroom, you must have a working, accessible Tabroom account before the tournament! Your primary, personal email must be linked to a Tabroom account. Your coach can assist with this.
Each judge needs their own Tabroom account. This means each judge has a unique email address that is linked to a Tabroom account. You CANNOT share a Tabroom account with your child, husband, wife or coach. Ballots are sent to each judge individually. Your coach can assist with Tabroom issues.
Judging is electronic. Preferably, use a laptop computer (Windows or Apple Macintosh) or an Apple iPad. Each judge should have their own device for judging. Don’t plan to share.
Historically, judging does not work well on Chromebooks. We do not recommend the use of Chromebooks!
Business laptop? It may be locked down for security and unable to access school Wi-Fi networks or Tabroom. Use caution.
Make sure your PC, Mac or iPad is up to date. We recommend running software updates a night or two before, so you are not unintentionally interrupted during a tournament with the dreaded “Restart your computer now” message! This can also help ensure everything works optimally.
What Are the Event Rules?
We’re glad you asked. We have a page dedicated to speech and debate event rules.