Thank you so much for agreeing to judge Cambridge Schools.

This guide is broken up into two parts: one (for complete beginners) should give details of the rules
of BP, the other (for everyone) is a general guide on how to make decisions as a judge.

Please do not feel this is a comprehensive guide – it is only some tips to get you started. Some more
information for the especially curious can be found on the schools website, here
http://cambridgeschools.cus.org/cambridge_schools_bp_debating_guide_2013.pdf

In addition, please feel free to email me (judgeschief.cambridgeschools@gmail.com) with any

questions, and we encourage head judges to answer any questions on the way to rounds.

Section One – The Rules of British Parliamentary Debating

 British Parliamentary is a debate between four teams of two speakers each. Two teams will
propose a motion and two will oppose it.

 The names of the teams are Opening Government (the first proposition team), Opening
Opposition (the first opposition team), Closing Government (the second proposition team)
and Closing Opposition (the second opposition team).

 Speeches are five minutes long at schools level, and alternate between sides. The first
speaker is the first from Opening Government, the second is the first from Opening
Opposition, the third is the second speaker from Opening Government and so on. Each
speaker speaks only once.

 Each team is trying to do essentially the same thing: persuade the judge that they have both
won the debate for their side of the house, and that they have done more to do this than
the other team on their side. In other words, all teams compete against each other (teams
on the same side are not allowed to confer or prep together).

 All speakers can contribute to their team in the same main ways. Firstly, by making
substantive arguments for their sides (that is to say – reasons to support them, with details
as to why those reasons are true and why they are comparatively important in the debate).
Secondly (with the exception of the first speaker of Opening Government), by responding to
other teams’ arguments, showing them to be either untrue or comparatively unimportant.

 However, in order to distinguish between teams, each speaker is also given a specific “role”
within the debate to fulfil. These are listed below.

 The first speaker from OG (PM), as the first to speak, is meant to define the terms of the
debate (ie what the proposition supports), usually by providing details as to what the policy
being enacted is. They then provide arguments to support their case. The second speaker
from OG (DPM) can both respond to arguments and make new ones, as they wish.
 The first and second speakers from OO (LO and DLO) respond to OG’s material and offer
substantive arguments against the motion. It is often helpful, but not necessary, for the LO
to outline what the opposition supports in the debate (eg do they support the continuance
of the status quo – the usual opposition stance).

 The first speaker from each of the Closing teams (MG and MO) is obliged to bring new
material to the debate. This is a helpful way of distinguishing the second teams and working
out which team has contributed more to their side. The new material is known as the
extension. It will usually take the form of separate reasons to support the side in question,
though it is also entirely fair (and indeed often wise) to develop reasons which have
previously been given but remain under-explained. It is important to note that extension
speakers are not allowed to contradict the speakers in their opening half. Any such
contradiction (often known as “knifing”) should result in this speaker being viewed as
inconsistent and thus dramatically less persuasive.

 The second speaker from each of the Closing teams is known as the summary speaker
(occasionally GW and OW). This is slightly misleading as these speakers are not expected to
summarise arguments accurately and fully, they are meant to give an account of the debate
which shows their side, and specifically their team, to be winning. They are not allowed to
introduce new substantive arguments, but may include new examples and new rebuttal.
Summary speakers are usually encouraged to approach the debate thematically, asking what
the most important questions are, and why their team has best resolved them. However
there are no hard-and-fast conventions.
Section Two – How to Judge a Debate
Assessing the persuasiveness of a particular individual is always going to be a tough job. However
this is exactly what you as a judge are aiming to do. The British Parliamentary rules tell us that we
are meant to be assessing the extent to which a particular team was successful in persuading the
“Ordinary Intelligent Voter”. This is vague to the point of total uselessness, but this will hopefully
serve as a useful guide when trying to understand what it means.

So. What is persuasiveness.

Some things to note about what makes a speaker persuasive in BP:

First – we do not prioritise judging on style. You will obviously realise that some speakers in your
room have more confidence or assurance than others. Many will be clearer than others. These are
obviously useful skills to have (and it is often helpful to comment on them in feedback), but debating
is an intellectual exercise before it is a public speaking one. Your overwhelming focus should always
be on the arguments presented. The reason for this is fairly intuitive – different styles appeal to
different judges. Given we’d like to minimise subjectivity in decisions, it makes sense to discount it in
most adjudications.

Second – arguments are persuasive only insofar as they can be verified in the debate. When
someone lists off a large number of studies or statistics, claiming to “prove” a certain fact or claim,
no one in the room has any way of knowing where those studies came from, what their
methodology was, or even if the speaker invented them during prep time. In that situation it is
clearly unfair to expect another speaker to argue against them effectively. BP debating gets round
this problem by discounting these sorts of claims. Arguments are deemed to be true if the speaker
has made them using facts which are generally accepted as true. Claims should be established by
logical argument and not by appeals to authority. Note that this is a reason to be cautious about
many uses of examples in BP. You don’t know if an example is representative, or even whether or
not it is true (especially in the case of personal anecdotes!!). Be cautious when deciding whether or
not to reward these things. Assess arguments, not asserted facts.

For example, look at the following two claims. The first is that “children from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds tend to perform less well in school. This is partly because their parents are less likely to
have the education necessary to help them with homework, and offer guidance and support. This is
because people who earn less money tend to have had fewer educational opportunities early in life
than those who earn a lot. Thus poorer parents will be in a worse position to help their children.”
The alternative is “a study by the Department of Education showed that parental income correlated
strongly with performance in school across a number of areas”. Both of these arguments are
probably accurate. However only one (the first) is useful in BP Debating. This is a mistake which
many teams in your debate are likely to make – explain it to them in feedback!

This leads nicely onto the third key thing to note in assessing persuasiveness. Arguments can only be
viewed as true if they have been fully explained. This is for the simple reason that it is possible for
teams in debates to claim a lot of entirely contradictory things, and the only way we have of
adjudicating between those claims is deciding which team was more successful in explaining the
details of their arguments. Before a team has proved an argument in a debate, they must have fully
answered the questions of why the claim is true, and why the claim is important. Thus a good tip to
give in feedback is often “you need to keep asking yourself “why?” in order to develop your
arguments”. A litmus test which is crude but effective – it is very rarely possible to fully develop an
argument in under 90 seconds. Teams can and should always do more to make sure the judge fully
understands their point of view – this is done by explanation.

So – in a nutshell – arguments will be persuasive, irrespective of delivery, if a speaker has

successfully explained all the parts of their position to you. It is often possible to judge debates
based purely on the test of “which team developed their arguments to the greatest possible
extent?” Note though that an argument can be very well developed without being relevant – teams
also have a duty to tell you why their arguments are central to the debate, and those that fail to do
this should be reminded of it in feedback.

A common pitfall.

It is very easy to be swayed by an argument simply because you agree with it, or because you find it
interesting. There will always be a subconscious desire to give a team extra credit for this type of
argument, whether by deciding it was persuasive on arbitrary grounds, or by filling in gaps for the
teams because you “know what they are getting at, even if they didn’t explain it fully”. This is a trap
to be avoided. It is clearly unfair to preference one team simply because of your own views. A good
judge will be constantly aware of their own views, and will attempt to separate them out
continuously.

Equally, it is possible to give arguments excessive credit just because they were better delivered.
Closing teams (who are meant to provide new argumentation) often beat opening teams for this
reason, and it is unfair and annoying. Be very very cautious about making this mistake. Style is an
unfair metric for the reasons outlined above. Just because different words were used does not mean
that a closing team delivered a substantively different argument from their opening, and in that
situation the opening team should definitely win.

Some practical advice.

First – write everything that is said down. This sounds trivial but it isn’t – it’s very tempting to stick to
noting down general themes, but you need to be recording the exact details of what is said. Given
decisions will often come down to the exact details of someone’s explanation as opposed to their
general claims, it is vital to have a record of all of this to refer to later. Wherever possible, try and
use their exact words – rephrasing an argument is the first step towards misrepresenting it or
developing it in your own head.

Second – write down your feedback in advance. Just a couple of bullet points will do – but it will
ensure that you stay on point and don’t waffle on – people get bored very quickly!! Good general
pieces of advice are listed above – you will very quickly realise that the same feedback is relevant in
most debates, so think about having a few “general pieces of advice” to give at the beginning of all
sessions.

Third – if in doubt, a useful test can be the extent to which teams fulfilled their role in the debate.
Ask if the closing teams offered extensions, or if they contradicted their openings. For more details
on this – see the first section of this document on BP rules. Note that role fulfilment rarely decides
who wins debates (that is down to the teams’ arguments) but it can be a useful way of eliminating
some teams from the discussion.

Four – remember you are not just there to decide who is good and who is bad! You need to discuss
the teams in comparison to each other, especially in your justification. Don’t just say “this was good”
say “this was better than this” (in a nice, tactful way, obviously).

If you have any further

questions – please get in
touch.

And thanks again for signing

up!!