Why Most Debate Feedback Teaches You Nothing and Wastes Your Time

Ira Ronaki | 5 min read

You walk out of the round. You flowed everything. You extended what mattered. You made strategic decisions. You knew where the win was. And somehow, you still lost.

Then the judge starts speaking.

“This was a close round, but I ended up voting neg because their link story felt a bit stronger.”

That sentence does not mean anything. It sounds technical, but it leaves you with nothing to improve. No clarity. No insight. Just confusion.

Most debate feedback is useless. It does not make you better. It does not point to anything specific you did wrong. It does not even tell you why you actually lost. It just fills the space after a round because judges feel obligated to say something. Feedback has become a ritual, not a tool.

The real issue is that most judges do not say the truth. Sometimes they missed an argument. Sometimes they zoned out. Sometimes they just had a gut feeling about who won and then worked backward to justify it. Instead of admitting that, they grab for vague, technical language that sounds safe. They say things like “the internal link threshold wasn’t high enough” or “the impact calculus didn’t resolve framing” because it makes them sound like they paid attention, even if they did not.

That is not feedback. That is a cover.

Oral RFDs are not explanations. They are justifications. Most judges are not trying to teach you something. They are trying to avoid being called out. They say both teams did a great job. They say the round was super close. Then they vote off a single argument they barely flowed and cannot fully explain. You leave the round with no idea what mattered or why it mattered.

Written ballots are not better. Some judges write one or two vague sentences. Others copy and paste the same block of technical fluff for every team they judge. You know when it happens. You read the ballot and realize it does not describe the round you were in. It feels like a template. It feels like they stopped listening. It feels fake.

And this hits novices the hardest. New debaters do not get real feedback. They get platitudes like “great voice,” “work on weighing,” or “keep practicing.” That helps no one. It does not explain what arguments mattered. It does not help them fix their case. It does not show them how to win. We expect novices to improve without ever being told what improvement looks like.

Real feedback should do three things.

First, it should clearly explain what the judge noticed in the round and what they did not. Second, it should describe how the decision was made, with direct references to the flow. Third, it should give you something you can actually change. Not just “be clearer,” but which argument was unclear and what to do about it.

Most judges do none of this. And the ones who do stand out for a reason. You remember them. You learn from them. You come back better the next weekend. That is what feedback is supposed to do.

But debate has become more about sounding technical than being understandable. Judges are more interested in defending their own decisions than helping debaters improve. And the entire post-round culture rewards that. We are told debate is about education. But if the people judging rounds cannot explain their choices in a way that teaches anything, then it is not education. It is performance.

Ballots are not helping you. Oral RFDs are not making you better. Most feedback is just noise. And until we stop pretending that every comment is constructive, we will keep failing the people who care the most about getting better.

If we want this activity to grow, we need to stop lying about what feedback really is.

It is not working. Everyone knows it. It is time we say it.