Touchstone 2011-12 Call for Entries

This year's Touchstone technical communication competition is almost upon us.  The deadline for entries is Saturday, October 1, 2011.  Entry forms and detailed entry instructions are at www.stc-touchstone.org/Submit.html. 

If you have work you're especially proud of, enter it so your fellow communicators can admire and recognize it.  If you have work that you're not quite happy with, enter it to receive the advice and counsel of our experienced judges.

This competition is sponsored by the six Northern California chapters of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).  We send the top winners to the STC 2012 Summit Awards competition. Winners of that competition will beannounced at the STC Summit in Chicago, May 20-23, 2012. 

The proceeds from Touchstone support the Kenneth Gordon Scholarship and other local STC activities.  

Touchstone 2011-12 Call for Judges

This year's Touchstone technical communication competition needs experienced technical communicators to serve as judges.  Details and application forms are at www.stc-touchstone.org/Volunteer2Judge.html.  

The judging for this year's competition begins on Sunday, October 9, 2011.  As usual, we finish before Thanksgiving.

If the balance between judges and entries is as in prior years, you will volunteer approximately forty hours of work over a six-week period, working with one or two judging partners to evaluate six to eight entries.

Judging entails both collaboration and individual effort.  Your team generates consensus award recommendations, but each judge provides a separate written evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each entry.

Judging is good for your career.  You work with other experienced technical communicators on a worthy project, and you have a chance to study some of the best work in your field. It's also fun.

Judges receive free admission to the awards event in January, and one judge, in a random drawing, will win up to $250 toward a 2012 STC membership.