Sabrina,+Callahan

 I am currently a freshman at Emory University. I debated throughout high school, competing in both PF and LD, and throughout college I’ll be doing policy. If there are any parts of this that need further clarification, feel free to email me before round (sabrina.catherine.callahan@emory.edu) or ask me in person before the round starts. Enjoy!  General: - Do not be blatantly offensive in round. Racism, sexism, ableism, etc. are unacceptable and are a bad norm for debate and life in general. This can cost you speaks or the round in general. - Go with the style of debate that makes you most comfortable. At the end of the day, the debate round is yours and it is not within my jurisdiction to impose a certain style on anybody for the sake of one round. Regardless of what you choose to read, just focus on the flow because that’s what I’ll be doing as a judge. I’ll flow whatever you choose to read as long as I can understand what you’re saying. With that being said, make sure to slow down for tag lines and keep your spreading intelligible. - Trigger warnings do matter. - Doing a lot of weighing between arguments is always a plus. - Don’t try to get me to disclose my decision at the end of the round. I’m down to talk to you and give you a full analysis of the round and flow after I have turned in my ballot, but before that point I won’t do anything more than give general feedback. - I haven’t read lit on this topic, so keep this in mind and don’t assume I’ll know what a specific card is or what certain topic related lingo means. - While I recognize that debate is a game, make sure to keep this an educational space where positive norms prevail. This seems pretty obvious, but just be aware of the importance of being a decent person in (and out) round. For instance, if you’re a varsity going against a novice debating for the first time, don’t absolutely destroy them for your own pleasure. - I’m trying to work on this, but I tend to not flow during CX, so if there’s anything super important that you want me to write down, emphasize this. - Quality over quantity of arguments.  Frameworks: - I used to not be a huge fan of framework debate, but increasingly this has changed and I tend to really pay attention to this element of the flow when making my decision, so make sure to keep the framework debate as clean as possible or else it makes it more ambiguous on my end to evaluate the round since it forces me to do some judge intervention in the sense that I then have to decide what mechanism to evaluate the round. I like to see framework clash from the beginning of the round, rather than just being thrown into the last 30 seconds of a rebuttal. Whether this applies to lay rounds or more technical rounds, establishing your framework from the beginning makes me more likely to vote for you.  Lay debate: - People often shame lay debate, but I think it’s cool and is probably the type of debate that translates best into the real world. Don’t feel that you have to read anything besides this if you aren’t comfortable with it for the sake of impressing anybody in round. I’ll still flow the round as I would any other round, so things such as weighing, analytics, line by line, etcetera do matter. Also, no matter what you do, please don’t go new in the 2NR/2AR (please). I’ll just sit there awkwardly because I can’t evaluate anything.  K’s: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I’m a huge fan of these so I’m always down for these kinds of rounds. However, just saying that “capitalism, the patriarchy, etc” are bad is not enough to win the round. Have strong and specific links or else the K means nothing to me. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Concrete alts have more value than ones that just advocate for a pure rejection of said issue, even though I recognize that some Ks make arguments as to why this is uniquely bad and I am open to them. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Don’t just respond to a K by saying “perm” with no cards or analytics to support it. This does little for all parties involved in the round. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Don’t assume that either myself or your opponent have read the literature you used. Explaining your arguments will always be a safer option than not. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Have an ROB/ROJ that is as clear as you can possibly make it. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Most important of all- be familiar with what you’re reading. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> Theory/ Tricks: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- On the K vs theory debate, make sure your shells are calling out legitimate abuse and explain why this abuse impedes the pedagogical benefits of the K. A fair amount of weighing must be done here, or else the round just gets super messy on both ends. I don’t assume that one is higher than the other, but if theory is read specifically against a K, I will evaluate theory as an indict to the K if no weighing arguments are made. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- If you read a shell, make sure you have all parts of the shell and don’t assume that certain things are implied (ie. that education and fairness are voters) or else it’ll be highly likely that you’ll lose on it. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Condo is a good norm <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Not a huge fan of reasonability, so it’ll take good justifications to get me to buy this argument. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I’m more inclined to drop the arg than to drop the debater, though this is subject to change depending on the circumstance. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Have specific interps (ex: “they must do x” instead of “they didn’t do x”) or else you don’t give your opponent a legitimate way to engage with the shell and you force them to spend time trying to dodge abuse, rather than just making it very clear what you interpret to be a good norm for debate. In the case that your opponent has a super blippy interp, I think it’s totally valid to call this out as abusive. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I don’t read them myself, but I think tricks are cool so have at it if this is your thing. If you make me smile with your creativity, I’ll award you with higher speaks. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> Topicality: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I’m also a huge fan of this kind of debate, so feel free to go for this. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Absent sources it makes it impossible for what you’re reading to have any validity. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- Assume I’ll evaluate the round through competing interps <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> Disclosure: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I’m not the biggest fan of it, but I also don’t really care enough to be repulsed by it. However, I do think that debaters from big schools are the primary beneficiaries from this and will be more inclined to support arguments against it. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> Speaks: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I don’t have a formulaic way of assessing how many speaks I’ll give you, but unless you’re super rude in round or make a fatal mistake, I’m generous with speaks (average range of 28-29.5). <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> PF Paradigm: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- I spent most of high school doing PF, so I guess technically speaking this is the category I’m most familiar with, even though I haven’t sat through a PF round in a while. I’ll flow the round as I would any other round, except I’ll focus more on evidence since it’s a bigger component of PF than it is in other categories. However, I don’t want to sit through an hour of just four people screaming at each other about which card is more important. Focus on the strength of arguments and the warrants behind them. <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;"> Policy paradigm: <span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: middle;">- To be completely honest, I’m new to policy and am not too familiar with all of the nuances of it. I’ll flow the round to the best of my abilities, but don’t assume that I will know all of your jargon, even though I think LD has somewhat exposed me to a lot of concepts in policy. Be organized and tell me how to evaluate the round. I’ll apply most of the ways from how I evaluate other rounds into policy, so if you have any specific questions don’t be afraid to ask before the round starts to avoid any confusion.