Judges

Let us introduce ourselves. We are the two Chief Adjudicators for the World Schools Debating Championships in February this year in Qatar.

Chris Erskine helped to establish the World Championships in 1988, and has been judging at the championship since 1993. Simon Quinn debated twice in the championship in 1999 and 2000, being named best speaker in each year. He has judged at the championship several times since 2001, and has also debated and judged at championships in other parts of the world. He is also the author of several debating handbooks for schools.

Assisting us is a small group of senior judges from around the world. They are called the Chief Adjudicators Panel. They are:

Taimur Bandey from Pakistan
Pardip Chopra from Canada
Effie Giannakouri from Greece
Beth James from England
Eva Spoor from The Netherlands

You can find the rules and guidelines at:

http://www.schoolsdebate.com/docs/rules_aug09.pdf
These are the Rules of the Competition. You must have read Annexure 3, which is the detailed Schedule of principles for judging debates.

http://www.schoolsdebate.com/docs/notes.asp
This is a discussion of the rules of the competition prepared by a number of senior judges. You must have read all of this.

http://www.schoolsdebate.com/docs/definitions.asp
This is a discussion of the principles for defining motions, prepared by a distinguished former judge of the championship. You must have read all of this.

In summary:

1. Please send the Chief Adjudicators a short biography of your judging experience in debate.

2. Please read the rules and guidelines listed above before you arrive at the judges briefing, because we will not be going through them at the briefing in detail, and we will be having a test on them.