Judging Entries in a Technical-Communication Competition

Background

The English Department at Bonita Vista High School is sponsoring a technical-communication competition open to all students. The teachers expect the competition to help promote student awareness of the technical-communication profession and to encourage students to develop and showcase their technical-communication skills. The teachers have encouraged students to submit original essays, reports, instructions, presentation slides, illustrations, websites, and the like on a technical subject of their choice. Students also have been asked to include a brief description of the assignment that led to the creation of the document.

You are one of three judges selected from the community to evaluate entries. The other two judges are Cheryl Burnett and Pat Jones. Cheryl has a bachelor of science degree in forest management and works as a natural-resource specialist for the state’s Department of Forestry. Pat works as a freelance animator and has 3D modeling/animation skills. Both have experience creating technical documents or illustrations. You were asked to join the judging panel because you are taking a technical-communication course in college. The panel’s task is to evaluate the quality of each submission and to reach a consensus on first-, second-, and third-place winners. A new English teacher, Mr. Insko, is coordinating the competition. He has left the details of how to judge the entries up to the panel.

At your first meeting, Cheryl confesses, “I’m not sure where to begin. The entries are all so different. How are we going to evaluate each entry on its own merits?” She points to three entries spread out on the table (see Documents 1.1–1.3).

Pat admits that she has never served as a judge of a competition. “Look at this entry,” she says, pointing to Document 1.1. “The student has a spelling mistake in the first line. Should this entry win an award?”

“Maybe,” Cheryl responds. “This entry demonstrates that the student understands the concept of chunking.”

“What do you mean by ‘chunking’?” Pat asks.

You realize that you all seem to have different ideas of how to define a good technical document. You propose that the panel start by agreeing on some type of scoring or rating sheet with several criteria by which you could judge each entry.

“I agree,” Cheryl says. “Each criterion could be worth up to a certain number of points. By totaling the points for each entry, we could determine the awards.”

“I like this approach,” Pat says. “However, in art school I learned the most from people’s comments, not some numeric score. I think it’s important that we comment on all the entries. Let’s make this a learning experience for the students and not just a ‘Who’s the Best’ contest.”

You volunteer to put together a scoring guide that incorporates all of these elements. You explain that you will email your sample scoring guide and a brief explanation of your approach to Cheryl and Pat. You also suggest that the three of you use your scoring guide to judge just these three entries. Based on how well that goes, you’ll revise the guide, if necessary, before the panel tackles the two boxes of entries sitting on Mr. Insko’s desk.

Your Assignment

Document 1.1 Entry 001

Student’s statement: “For health class, Ms. Ransberg gave us an assignment to create a flyer on a health issue of interest to students. My flyer is on high blood pressure and teenagers.”

Document 1.2 Entry 002

Student’s statement: “This assignment was to write a program to calculate the power of a number. We had to have the number and power entered from the keyboard and then have the program do the math.”

Document 1.3 Entry 003

Student’s statement: “The assignment was to explain how to use a feature of Microsoft Word that many students wouldn’t already know how to use but would like to. We had to include at least one graphic.”

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