Workflow Overview

Thirteen steps, from sitting down in the room to submitting your ballot in Tabroom. Each one links to the page that covers it in full.

Before the Round

1. Connect to the tournament

Connect your Tabroom account once, in Settings. Your judging assignments then appear on your dashboard on their own.

Full guide: Tabroom Integration.

2. Check your equipment

Test your microphone, charge your device, and close the tabs you do not need. Rounds run 45 minutes or more.

Full guide: Settings.

3. Start the round

Click New Round on your dashboard. Enter the tournament, both team names and all four speakers, check them against the schematic, and confirm both teams agreed to be recorded. Then click Start Round.

Full guide: Getting Started, which also covers how to practice first, without a microphone.

During Recording

4. Navigate through each stage

All eleven Public Forum stages are set up for you. Click Start when a debater begins, take notes on your impressions, tap a reaction when something stands out, and click Stop when they finish. Each speech is transcribed for you.

Full guide: Recording Your Round.

5. One screen after each speech

One short screen, every part of it optional, with Skip for now always there. It asks whether you could follow the speech, and which arguments were strong, weak, a key point or confusing. From the first rebuttal on, it shows what that speech did to the arguments already made. After the last speech it asks who you think won, before you see any analysis.

Full guide: Recording Your Round.

6. The Timeline, the prep clocks, and the analysis

Three things sit on the recording screen while you work. Timeline, top right, holds every transcript and note so far. The prep clocks, top, count up the prep each team has used. The analysis panel is off unless you turn it on in Settings, and it never says who is ahead.

Full guide: Recording Your Round.

7. Handle crossfire stages

Crossfire is not recorded, because there is no reliable way to tell who is speaking. Click Start and Stop for the timing as usual. Your notes are the only record of these stages.

Full guide: Recording Your Round.

After Recording

8. Wait for final analysis

Press Complete Round and expect about two minutes while the whole round is read through. You can close the tab. It runs on the server and finishes either way.

Full guide: After the Round.

9. The decision wizard

Four steps. First you are reminded what you captured during the round, and your own read of it. Then you tick the two or three issues the round came down to - up to three are ticked for you, and every box is yours to change. Then you decide each one you ticked, picking Pro, Con, or "neither side clearly won this", and writing your reasoning. Then you pick the winner, assign speaker points on the 25-30 scale, and click Complete Decision.

What the analysis makes of an issue stays hidden until you have picked a side and written your reason for it.

Full guide: Making your decision.

Creating Feedback

10. Generate or write feedback

Feedback for each team uses the 3 C's: Compliments, Constructive criticism, Corrections. Write it yourself, or click Draft everything for both teams and your reason for decision at once. Every draft is yours to edit, and nothing reaches the students until you send the ballot.

Full guide: Generating Feedback.

11. Review your complete ballot

Click Preview for Tabroom for the whole ballot on one screen: the winner, the speaker points for all four debaters, your reason for decision, and the feedback for each team.

Full guide: Generating Feedback.

Submitting Ballot

12. Copy to Tabroom

Open Tabroom in another tab and find your ballot. In DebateFlow, click Copy entire ballot for the whole thing, or the Copy button beside your reason for decision and beside each team's feedback. The winner and the speaker points you read off the screen and enter in Tabroom.

Full guide: Tabroom Integration.

13. Final review and submit

In Tabroom, check everything pasted correctly, read your reason for decision once more, then submit the ballot there.

Done. The teams get your feedback.

Tips for Success

Before the round:

• Connect Tabroom early, not when you are rushing
• Test your microphone at the start of the tournament, not during a round

During the round:

• Do not try to write everything down. Each speech is transcribed for you
• Your end-of-round impression is shown back to you after you decide, so you can see where the round changed your mind
• Take crossfire seriously. It is not recorded, so your notes matter
• Use reactions to bookmark moments, not to document everything

After the round:

• Score what the arguments did, not how anyone sounded. That is what the suggestion is built from
• An AI draft is a starting point. Edit it until it sounds like you
• Copy to Tabroom soon after the round, not at the end of the day

Overall:

• The first round feels like a lot of clicking. By round 2-3 it becomes natural
• You are the judge. The app never picks the winner
• Good feedback helps students improve. Take the extra two minutes to make it specific

What's Next?

Now that you know the shape of a round, here are the pages behind each step:

• Recording Your Round - The recording screen, in full
• Understanding AI Analysis - What the app works out about the round, and when
• After the Round - What runs between Complete Round and the decision wizard
• Making your decision - Deciding each voting issue and assigning points
• Generating Feedback - The 3 C's, and the drafts you can edit
• Tabroom Integration - Pulling in your assignments, and getting the ballot across