Arrange your time and place and then decide upon the order in which you will speak. A very common procedure is:
| First affirmative | 7 minutes |
| First negative | 7 minutes |
| Second affirmative | 7 minutes |
| Second negative | 7 minutes |
| Third affirmative | 7 minutes |
| Third negative | 7 minutes |
| First negative | 5 minutes in rebuttal |
| First affirmative | 5 minutes in rebuttal. |
No, a seven minutes’ speech is not very long but longer bursts of eloquence are likely to be tiresome. It is much better to have a short snappy debate full of interest and prevented from giving weariness by the constant change of speakers than to have ponderous proceedings. Moreover, in the schedule given above, fifty-two minutes is consumed, and that’s quite a while. Of course the number of contestants may vary and the time allotted each may be varied also.
Who shall preside? Well, if you have a club of your own, your president or in his absence, your vice-president, would naturally preside. If you should desire to pay some person a compliment, someone else may be asked, provided, of course, it was agreeable to the two officers who are by the rules of society work, entitled to that honor. If you have no formal organization, you can select anyone you choose. In doing so, you and your opponents would select someone who is dignified yet kindly, one who will not allow any “rough house” or boisterous conduct but who is respected by and fond of boys and who is, of course, absolutely fair.
Of course you must select your judges, generally three. Do not think, however, that it is an easy task to judge a debate. Choose no one as a judge who may have a personal prejudice for or against one of the speakers. If he is but indifferently or lazily honest, he is likely to favor his friend. If he is conscientious, he may in his very effort to be fair, and not lean toward his friend, lean the other way and really be unfair to him.
Choose as a judge no one who is known to have a prejudice on the question itself. The harassed judge must never forget that he is deciding on the merits of the debate, not on the merits of the question. He must weigh the arguments presented, paying no attention to other arguments, weighty to him, but left behind in the armory by the warring debater.
Because this task is so onerous and, indeed, so valuable in its training, it is an excellent plan to have members of your group—society, class or patrol or whatever it may be—act as judges. The practice in so weighing arguments and evidence will be invaluable to them when their time to debate comes around. In formal contests, however, you will call upon teachers, lawyers, ministers; men who are trained to think clearly and definitely and whose decision will mean something as fairly standing for the judgment of your community. For it is to this community judgment your real debate in life must appeal, and you must learn as soon as possible to aim at no less a tribunal.
So difficult is judging, that to the [Appendix], beginning on page 153, I have added a chapter designed to be helpful.