Editor’s Note
December 12, 2008
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Deliberation: The Journal of Adjudication. As with many such projects, the idea for a journal about adjudicating competitive academic debates began as a discussion between friends. While working together at a summer debating workshop, Logan Balavijendran and I were talking how frustrating it is that so little remains after a round from which we can learn: the deliberations of the adjudicators are private, no written record of the reasons for a decision emerges from their discussions and video recordings of rounds seldom include the oral adjudication and never include the deliberation itself. We quickly agreed on two things: most of what we knew about debating was learned from adjudicating debates and there exists a need for some forum through which to disseminate the collective knowledge of debating produced weekend after weekend throughout the year.
From that discussion was born this journal. Our intent is to publish critical case studies of debates that present interesting, unusual or compelling circumstances and from which may be drawn useful generalizations about the best practices of debating and adjudication. Like medical journals that publish case studies of challenging illnesses and their treatments, we hope the shared perspectives of adjudicators making decisions in actual rounds, at actual tournaments will provide useful insight into the art and practice of debating and adjudication.
I’m particularly pleased at the quality of the Editorial Board that has agreed to work on this project. Among our editors are the current and immediate past Chairs of Worlds Council, the author of the rules for the World Universities Debating Championships, Chief and Deputy Chief Adjudicators of current and past Championships and, in all, some of the most influential people involved in academic debating today. Their insights into the practice of debating and adjudication are evident in the case studies they’ve written for the inaugural issue and will, no doubt, continue to influence not only this journal’s offerings but the activity of debating well into the future. No doubt, when you review their biographies, you’ll be as impressed as I am.
This inaugural issue, like the notes of an outstanding speech, is but an outline of what we intend the journal to become. In the short run, we’re looking forward to our next issue: the first special edition of Deliberation. In that issue, we’ll invite the adjudication panel of the 2009 World Championship Grand Final to offer their reflections on the round. When combined with a video of the round to be published on our site, we think the adjudicator’s comments about the round will be a valuable contribution to the material available for understanding the complex process of adjudication (in addition to providing a answer to the question that often follows final rounds: “what were they thinking?”).
In the long term, we imagine featuring more video of compelling rounds and adjudications, training material for adjudicators, resources for those interested in emerging questions about adjudication (such as “how do we effectively review an adjudicator’s performance?”) and the like.
Please feel free to make the journal a conversation by adding your comments about the articles you read. If you have suggestions for how we may improve the site, please offer them. But most importantly, consider submitting your own case study for publication in the journal. Not only will you receive a small honorarium for your efforts, you’ll contribute to the advancement of our activity.
Steven Johnson, Editor-in-Chief
Deliberation: The Journal of Adjudication
