Absolutely. It happens more often than you would think that the team with higher cumulative points loses the debate and the team that scores lower points wins the debate. Also, the best speaker could be from the losing team. When scoring, you as a judge should score the individual speakers right after their speech. This is a score for only their speech. However, when deciding who won or lost the debate, the scores should have nothing to do with it. The last couple of pages explain this quite clearly. You would basically have to determine which side made the stronger case. I am pasting an old document that I had come up with to explain how to decide who wins. How do you choose who won the debate? It is NOT the team that scores higher points. Even the best team may deliver very good and sound speeches but may not respond adequately in a particular topic to the rebuttals and therefore may not make a sound case and lose the debate. Or sometimes what you said above could occur. How do you decide?

Remember you should decide the debate based on the criteria offered by the debaters in the round. Also, in a good debate the rebuttal speaker should point out WHY their side should win a debate not just recap what happened as if the judge did not take good notes. They need to give you the criteria why their side is superior in argument. So here is what you do;

First, look at the arguments. Check which ones were successfully refuted and which lay standing on both sides. Your flow sheet will help you there. Make sure to not let your opinion or bias enter here. However it is NOT the number of arguments won on each side either that decides who wins. Now you have your raw material.

Next you answer the following questions:

• • Did the proposition make a case? In this you will have to look at their line of reasoning, the AREs, and the arguments brought forth.
  • Did the opposition show that the case was either flawed, inadequate or a dangerous opinion in any way? Were there refutations complete? Look for the 4 -step refutation or other complete ways of refutation.
  • Were the rejoinders that the proposition brought up adequate in reinstating their stance and did they address all rebuttals brought up?

Typically, this should tell you who won the debate. If the proposition had a sound case and they addressed all rebuttals adequately, they win. If the opposition had brought arguments that the proposition could not satisfy, then the opposition wins. Remember the burden of proof lies with the proposition. Opposition does not have to prove the opposite of the topic rather just negate the proposition. However, it is not always that easy.

Sometimes, as all debates do have two sides, it may not be that clear, especially if both sides are equally good (or bad) debaters. Then we look at some of the following:

• • Let’s say each side proved one argument conclusively. Then you can look at the significance of the argument overall in the outcome of the debate.
  • You may also look at what has a greater impact.(One side is talking about saving millions of dollars, the other side is talking about saving lives by avoiding war)
  • You also look at the probability of the arguments (In the above example, the probability of avoiding war is minimal but saving money is more likely so although avoiding war is better, it may never happen whereas saving money is very probable)
  • You could also look at any arguments that were dropped. Normally you wouldn’t do that if the other side did not pick it up, but in case of a tie, you would.

It is important to note here that although we let the debaters know who won the debate in the preliminary rounds, the winning teams are not the ones that advance to the semi finals. Rather the teams that score the highest. This way we ensure that the best teams move up. In a scenario that you described above it would seem that this team was a good team but just happened to not have come up with good or sound arguments in this particular debate. So they lose the debate but they can still advance as they are a good team. This shows why it is so important for judges to go through the rubric guide thoroughly and refer to it while scoring. This way we can make sure to minimize the human element and differences in scoring.

However, in the semifinals and finals it is the wins or losses that determine who advances or who wins the trophy. The reason being we have already weeded out the weaker teams and now the best are up. This time it is about how they perform in the particular competition.

Hope this clarifies stuff.