West,+Tim

I was a policy debater in HS. I was a parli debater at Texas Tech (03-07). I coached at Tech in 08, and coached at Cal State Long Beach 09-10. I am currently in law school, and am an assistant coach of HS policy and ld debate at Cypress Bay, FL.

I think that debate is an organic game that should be controlled by the debaters. As such, framework debates tend to shape my judging assumptions. While I enjoy kritikal and performance debate, I am willing to vote on any type of argument in any given round (K=DA=CP=procedural, etc.). I have no judging preferences on the performative or stylistic aspects of debate, so feel free to go as fast or slow as you would like.

I have attached a judging philosophy from NPTE (parli) that gives you a more in-depth view of my philosophy:

2010 NPTE Judge Philosophy Form

__Section 1: General Information__ Please begin by explaining what you think is the relevant information about your approach to judging that will best assist the debaters you are judge debate in front of you. Please be specific and clear. Judges who write philosophies that are not clear will be asked to rewrite them. Judges who do not rewrite them may be fined or not allowed to judge/cover teams at the NPTE.

I see debate as a discursive activity that should be interpreted by debaters not judges. In compliance with my view of debate, I try to avoid any normative imposition of my personal views of debate in rounds that I am judging. It is also important to note that I do protect teams from new arguments in rebuttals; but even though I do this, debaters do not have to sacrifice the strategic utility of points of order.

__Section 2: Specific Inquiries__ Please describe your approach to the following:

? Speaker points (what is your typical speaker point range or average speaker points given).

I believe that speaker points are arbitrary constructs that attempt to normalize people and often result in competitors being unjustly excluded from out rounds. At tournaments that do not force me to vary speaker points, I will give all competitors 30s. If you do not want a 30, you can tell me what speaker points you want and I will give them to you. At tournaments that threaten to punish me or my team for my decision, I will give 30, 29.5, 29, 28.5 in a completely random order

? How do you approach critically framed arguments? Can affirmatives run critical arguments? Can critical arguments be “contradictory” with other negative positions?

Critically framed arguments are my favorite arguments in debate. I will approach Ks, as I approach any other kind of argument; I will vote on a K if it wins my flow. In my opinion, good Ks usually include competitive frameworks with alternatives that are clear and solve. I also believe that if a K can exist in one speech, they should be accessible by all speeches, which means Affs can definitely run Ks.

? Performance based arguments…

I like performance and am on board with participating in fresh types of debate. Isn't all debate performance on some level?

? Topicality. What do you require to vote on topicality? Is in-round abuse necessary? Do you require competing interpretations?

I do not require any specific thing in order to vote on any position if a given team can win that their lack of certain normalized arguments do not need to exist. With that being said, I usually vote on topicality/procedural arguments that have violations and impacts (which should be explained in your standards and voters). I do not believe that a judge should specify that abuse must be proven or that competing interpretations must exist, because those strategic decisions should be left to the debaters. I have and will vote on any style of topicality/procedural argument.

? Counterplans -- PICs good or bad? Should opp identify the status of the counterplan? Perms -- textual competition ok? functional competition?

I do not have a set opinion on PICs or the status of counterplans. Like the rest of my philosophy states, I am willing to vote on anything-including PICs bad and status args. I think that competition is/can be proven on both textual and functional levels. I am open to people challenging this with permutations and if the perm debate is won, I will vote that textual competition or functional competition is bad.

? Is it acceptable for teams to share their flowed arguments with each other during the round (not just their plans)

This is absolutely acceptable, and I believe that it increases the quality of debate.

? In the absence of debaters' clearly won arguments to the contrary, what is the order of evaluation that you will use in coming to a decision (e.g. do procedural issues like topicality precede kritiks which in turn precede cost-benefit analysis of advantages/disadvantages, or do you use some other ordering?)?

I evaluate arguments in the order that the debaters tell me to. In the absence of an evaluation order I will look for the easiest way out according to the flow. I do not believe that procedurals “must” come first.

? How do you weight arguments when they are not explicitly weighed by the debaters or when weighting claims are diametrically opposed? How do you compare abstract impacts (i.e. "dehumanization") against concrete impacts (i.e. "one million deaths")?

In this case I would default to my flow, so that I could determine how the debaters would like me to weigh arguments. However, to be honest, if you are a debater and you do not weigh impacts, you probably shouldn't be at NPTE.