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by the Competition Committee
The Lone Star Community (LSC) year starts off with its annual competition. For STC members and non-members, this is the time when you can submit your prized corporate possessions, known as documents, publications, or simply my work, for judging by a peer group of STC members.
You can enter your work in these categories:
The deadline for entry submission is:
Friday, September 22, 2006
Anyone who submits an entry by September 8th can do so at a reduced entry fee of $60. Otherwise, the entry fee for STC members and non-members is $75. The fee for students is $25.
You can bring your entries and your entry fee to the September 14th LSC meeting. This helps you avoid mailing your entries. You save postage, and you have the assurance that your entry is safely delivered. We'll even give you a receipt.
LSC traditionally exchanges its competition entries with another STC community. We do this to provide you with a true, unbiased opportunity to receive valuable comments from judges who are unfamiliar with you and your work. For the 2006 competition, LSC entries for the online communications and technical publications categories will be judged by a sister Texas community, the Houston STC Chapter.
Any technical art or student entries that we receive will remain within our community for judging by our own members.
All online communications and technical publications judges will be judging the entries we receive from the Houston STC Chapter. You can take this opportunity to see what other technical communicators produce and offer your observations on the merit of their submissions.
Why judge? At some point, we have all had to complete an evaluation form of some sort. How many of us have never entered our opinions in a comments box? We simply go through the motion of checking the boxes or circling the Likert scale rankings without much enthusiasm, because we know that our opinions will really not make much of a difference.
The LSC Competition is different!
Our judges play a critical role in the success of the competitions. Entrants are not only hoping for an award, but also for constructive feedback on how they can improve their entries. As a judge, your opinions and feedback are important. You can really help your fellow technical communicators by providing professional, objective, honest, and constructive feedback.
Judging is also a great way to improve your own work, since you examine and evaluate best-in-class examples of technical communications from another STC community.
We welcome all of you to sign up to help judge. Complete the judge application, which you can find at http://www.stc-dfw.org/pages/comp_judge.htm.
Judges are required to attend a mandatory one-hour training period in mid-October. We'll announce details at the September and October LSC meetings and in next month's newsletter.
You can find all the information about the LSC competition, including entry forms, by visiting www.stc-dfw.org/pages/comp_main.htm or by sending an email to the competition managers:
You will also find us manning a table at the September and October LSC meetings where you can gather more information about entering or even signing up to judge.