> given little to no guidance That's a shame. Most tournaments I've been involved with organizing had an optional 15 min training session and/or handed out a o

> given little to no guidance That's a shame. Most tournaments I've been involved with organizing had an optional 15 min training session and/or handed out a one page information sheet. You should suggest something similar if you ever judge again. In particular, such a sheet should begin with something addressing (c) -- "you are in charge, make any decision you want". > However it has never quite gotten to the level where anything really felt resolved and it indeed always feels like a bizarre "game". This is mostly to be expected, and is true pretty uniformly throughout the various styles of debate (including those outside the USA). Turns out the majority of high school students aren't very good at designing and presenting arguments. It doesn't help that in the first speeches they are often presenting arguments that they didn't actually write themselves.