Guest post by Nathaniel Lim
As a volunteer judge for your local publications competition, you’ve been looking forward to seeing what your peers consider their best work. When you begin looking through the entries that have streamed into your email box and landed with a thud on your doorstep, you realize that the quality of the entries varies immensely. How do you suggest improvements in an entry that seems near perfect? How do you manage suggestions for an entry that seems, frankly, a mess? And how do you remain positive about the vast number of entries that lie somewhere in between?
Aside from receiving an award, entrants consider the comments from judges to be most valuable in improving their entries and their competence as technical communicators. Judge comments make our competition unique from other communication competitions.
The International Summit Awards (ISA) Competition committee can help you write compassionate, meaningful comments as you evaluate competition entries. ISA judge training manager, Dorothy McDuffie, will:
- discuss how to write positive assessments for your entries
- explain how to manage the assessment process so that each entry receives adequate attention
- give examples to illustrate useful entry assessments
- respond to questions and comments (with other members of the ISA committee)
Do not miss this opportunity to address issues you may have as you prepare to write helpful, worthwhile entry assessments in your local competition.
Dorothy McDuffie is an STC Associate Fellow with over 25 year of experience as a technical communicator. She has judged in the ISA competition, but most of her experience comes from local judging for the New Mexico Kachina and East Tennessee chapters. She has also entered regional and international competitions and is aware of the pitfalls of judging from the viewpoint of the judge and the judged.
Note: This webinar focuses on writing comments regardless of the assessment form used. Thus, questions pertinent to your local competition, such as deadlines, rules, and procedures, should be directed to your competition manager.
Who: All local competition judges, experienced or new
What: Writing Quality Comments for Your Entries Webinar by Dorothy McDuffie
When: Saturday, 5 October
Time: Noon-1:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)
Where: Via Adobe Connect
No registration is required for this webinar. Simply log in at http://stc.adobeconnect.com/wsjudges100513/ on the day of the webinar to participate.