Simundson,+Jordan

Debate experience: I did policy for four years at Sioux Falls Washington. I mostly stayed in South Dakota, but went to a few out of state tournaments my senior year (including NFLs and NCFLs). I took fourth at NFLs my senior year and won state.

Paradigm: I consider myself to be a policymaker. That being said, I’m open minded. I’ll vote on anything, as long as I’m given a reason to vote for it. I’m a huge fan of impact calc, and it is an absolute must in close rounds.

Speed: As long as I can flow what’s being said, I don’t really care. Just make sure that it is clear.

Topicality: I’m not a huge fan of topicality, but I’ll vote on it. I default to competing interpretations to evaluate T debate. If I’m going to vote on T, the negative needs to do a good job of making sure that the standards debate has clash. That being said, if you think a case is blatantly untopical, by all means, run topicality.

DAs: Being from South Dakota, I’m accustomed to a lot of DA debate. It doesn’t bother me if it’s a generic DA, although the link should be case specific. The better the link scenario, the more likely I am to vote on it. I think it’s important to have a good impact scenario that actually has some warrants.

CPs: In general, I like to see a CP in the round. Generic ones drive me crazy—they are absolutely terrible (the solvency for them is basically non-existent). That being said, pretty much any counterplan that has decent solvency is a legitimate argument. I’m not a huge fan of PICs, but I’ll vote on them.

Kritiks: I enjoy good K debate. I wasn’t a K debater in high school, so if you want to run one in front of me, keep that in mind. Don’t assume I know your authors forewards and backwards, and don’t assume I have prior knowledge of the literature. There is a chance that I do—but don’t bank on it. Other than that, don’t expect me to vote for an alt that is “reject the aff” and that is never articulated beyond that. Long story short, you need to do more work on the alt if it’s “reject the aff”.

Theory: I also wasn’t a theory debater in high school. Feel free to run theory in front of me-but if you’re closing for it, be sure to put plenty of time into it. I think theory debates don’t have much clash typically, so to win it, there definitely needs to be more than just reading competing frontlines that someone else wrote out.

Performance debate: I like performance debate when it’s done well. Again, much like kritiks, don’t have much in the way of expectations of my prior knowledge. One thing that really bothers me about performance is when teams get sidetracked. If you’re running a performance aff that isn’t really topical, don’t try to tell me it’s topical.