Section II. 10. Scoring & Judging
Our goal is to create judging panels from a wide variety of professional instructors and competitive dancers who are current and well-respected in the various dance communities. They will be encouraged to set the standards and shape our dance form, earning the ultimate award -- the respect of those they are judging.
Judges will use a “raw score” scoring system created by IDP (a graphic and explanation are shown on the next page), and competitors will know who their judges are and how each judge scored them.
A tie will result in equal placement of both pairs of competitors, and awards, prizes, and titles for the tied category (as well as the adjoining category) will be combined and distributed equally.
All results will be considered final upon award presentation.
The Raw Score Scoring System@ is utilized by IDP to allow judges to give competitors a more accurate reflection of their dance level than can be attained thru a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd placement. Through the use of this scoring concept, a judge is able to score a competitor against what they believe through their experience is the standard for that Division level, vs. only ranking the competitors against each other.
In other words, while a competitor may place 1st against his/her competition, is this competitor dancing at the entry-level of the division, at the advanced-level of the division, or somewhere in between? Should this competitor actually be competing at a lower level? Is this competitor ready to move to the next division?
For example, if a judge scores a Division III competitor as 5.25, this tells the competitor that s/he is dancing at a solid Division III dance level. If, however the judge scores this competitor as 4.05, this tells the competitor that s/he is dancing at the entry range of Division III, with 5.99 indicating that s/he is dancing at the advanced range of Division III.
In addition, a judge is allowed to score midway back into the previous lower division or midway up into the next higher division.
For example, if a judge scores a Division III competitor as 3.25, this tells the competitor that instead of showing an ability to dance at the Division III level s/he entered, s/he is showing an ability to dance at a Division IV level. Conversely, if this Division III competitor receives 6.25, this tells the competitor that s/he is showing an ability to dance at the Division II level.
All of the judges’ raw scores are added together by competitor for each Division by dance style. This “raw score calculation” (or combined score) is then compared to the combined scores of the other competitors for that Division/dance style, resulting in awards placement for the Individual Championship Awards, and ultimately for the Division Dance Championship Award.
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