New Speaker Point Rubric: Read All About It!

The MSPDP is pleased to announce the program-wide adoption of a new rubric for speaker points. Download a PDF copy of the new rubric here. The major difference in the rubric is that it assesses students on a 100-point scale rather than on a 30-point scale. There are other differences as well – we have substantially revised the content of categories to reflect more nuance and tweaked wording to increase ease of use.

A number of coaches over the years have suggested that we make this switch, and after we tested this rubric in our new High School Public Debate Program for a whole year, we found that it eliminated ties, increased student, parent, judge, and coach satisfaction with scoring, and increased the comfort level of new judges. We have also increased the font size (I know we are all thankful for that!) and moved it to two pages.

One of the most important characteristics of the MSPDP is our judge training and certification program. Judges work hard to make good decisions in debates and assign appropriate points. It is our hope that this new rubric will allow for more nuanced and meaningful point assignment, giving students even more guidance than ever before on how to improve their performance in debates.