In classroom debates it is a good distribution of responsibility to make all the members not participating in the speaking act as judges and cast votes in rendering a decision. This makes the judges and the audience one. Moreover it changes the mere listener into a discriminating judge. If the instructor cares to carry this matter of responsibility one step farther, he can ask the members of the class to explain and justify their votes.
The audience, when it is also the judge, has the responsibility of careful attention, analysis, and comparison. It is too much to expect usual general audiences to refuse to be moved by unworthy pleas and misrepresentations, to accord approval only to the best speakers and the soundest arguments. But surely in a class of public speakers any such tricks and schemes should be received with stolid frigidity. Nothing is so damaging to appeals to prejudice, spread-eagleism, and fustian bombast as an impassive reception.
The Judges. In any debate the judges are of supreme importance. They decide the merits of the speakers themselves. The judges are of infinitely more importance than the audience. In interscholastic debates men of some prominence are invited to act as judges. In the instructions to them it should be made clear that they are not to decide which side of a proposition they themselves approve. They are to decide which group of speakers does the best work. They should try to be merely the impersonal registers of comparative merit. They should sink their own feelings as every teacher must when he hears a good speech from one of his own students supporting something to which the instructor is opposed. Good judges of debates realize this and frequently award decisions to speakers who support opposite positions to their personal opinions. They must not be like the judges in an interscholastic debate who announced their decision thus, "The judges have decided that China must not be dismembered." That was an interesting fact perhaps, but it had nothing to do with their duty as judges of that debate.
In business, the buyer, the head of the department, the board of directors, constitute the judges who render the decision. In legislative assemblies the audience and judges are practically identical, for after the debate upon a measure is concluded, those who have listened to it render individual verdicts by casting their votes. In such cases we frequently see decisions rendered not upon the merits of the debate, but according to class prejudice, personal opinion, or party lines. This is why so many great argumentative speeches were accounted failures at the time of their delivery. Delivered to secure majority votes they failed to carry conviction to the point of changing immediate action, and so in the small temporary sense they were failures. In legal trials the jury is the real judge, although by our peculiar misapplication of the term a different person entirely is called judge. In court the judge is in reality more often merely the presiding officer. He oversees the observance of all the rules of court practice, keeps lawyers within the regulations, instructs the jury, receives the decision from them, and then applies the law. Every lawyer speaks—not to convince the judge—but to convince the jury to render a decision in his favor.
Scholastic Debating. Choosing the Proposition. In school debating the proposition may be assigned by the instructor or it may be chosen by him from a number submitted by the class. The class itself may choose by vote a proposition for debate. In interscholastic debating the practice now usually followed is for one school to submit the proposition and for the second school to decide which side it prefers to support. In any method the aim should be to give neither side any advantage over the other. The speakers upon the team may be selected before the question of debate is known. It seems better, when possible, to make the subject known first and then secure as speakers upon both sides, students who have actual beliefs upon the topic. Such personal conviction always results in keener rivalry.
Time Limits. Since no debate of this kind must last too long, time restrictions must be agreed upon. In every class, conditions will determine these terms. Three or four speakers upon each side make a good team. If each is allowed six minutes the debate should come well within an hour and still allow some time for voting upon the presentations. It should be distinctly understood that a time limit upon a speaker must be observed by him or be enforced by the presiding officer.
The speakers upon one side will arrange among themselves the order in which they will speak but there should be a clear understanding beforehand as to whether rebuttal speeches are to be allowed.
Rebuttal Speeches. Rebuttal speeches are additional speeches allowed to some or all the speakers of a debating team after the regular argumentative speeches have been delivered. In an extended formal debate all the speakers may thus appear a second time. In less lengthy discussions only some of them may be permitted to appear a second time. As the last speaker has the advantage of making the final impression upon the judges it is usual to offset this by reversing the order of rebuttal. In the first speeches the negative always delivers the last speech. Sometimes the first affirmative speaker is allowed to follow with the single speech in rebuttal. If the team consist of three speakers and all are allowed to appear in rebuttal the entire order is as follows.
| First Part | Rebuttal |
| First affirmative | First negative |
| First negative | First affirmative |
| Second affirmative | Second negative |
| Second negative | Second affirmative |
| Third affirmative | Third negative |
| Third negative | Third affirmative |
If not all the speakers are to speak in rebuttal the team itself decides which of its members shall speak for all.