communication department

By Elizabeth Bailey, Fellow, and Manager, STC Newsletter Competition

The 2007-08 STC newsletter competition results are in!

The Newsletter Competition Committee works to offer an all-inclusive recognition and evaluation program for STC community newsletter editors; provide STC newsletter editors with networking and mentoring opportunities through the STC newsletter discussion list; and promote participation at the entrant, judge, and committee-member level. While the number of entrants was smaller this year than last, we had thirteen regional community entrants, four student community entrants, and two SIG community entrants. There were fourteen submitted as online entries and five submitted as paper entries.

Entries in the newsletter competition compete for five awards: Most Improved, Merit, Excellence, Distinguished, and Best of Show. Sixteen entries received awards.

Merit, Excellence, and Distinguished Awards

For the Merit, Excellence, and Distinguished Awards, newsletters do not compete against each other. Each entry is measured against the award criteria specified in the Rules for the STC Newsletter Competition. You can download the rules from the STC Web site.

The basic eligibility requirements are as follows:

• Entrants must follow all submission rules and meet all entry deadlines.

• All submitted entries must be consecutive issues that have been published during the competition year of February 1, 2007 through January 31, 2008.

• Only one newsletter medium-online or paper-is eligible per year per community.

The judging criteria span four areas: fundamental elements, recommended topics, editorial quality, and design and delivery. Fundamental elements and recommended topics are statistical categories; these elements are either present or not. Judges look for the presence of fundamental elements, including required information, publication frequency, Society contact information, newsletter title and community name, STC symbol using the correct logo, Society logotype, publication date, editor's name and contact information, newsletter mailing address (physical or e-mail), publication policies, reprint policies, STC mission statement, copyright statement, and the senior community officer names and contact information. If these are not present, points are deducted from the newsletter's fundamental elements score. Recommended topics range from local information to Society information, and include fourteen topics. Points are deducted for newsletters that do not provide a minimum number of these topics.

The qualitative evaluation scoring for editorial quality and design and delivery is based on usage, style, craftsmanship, originality, overall impression, professional presentation, page design, art quality and appropriateness, typography, and delivery. For this evaluation, at least three different judges review the three submitted issues and rate each item on a scale from poor to excellent, resulting in an averaged score for each newsletter.

From this, the different area scores are calculated, resulting in a final score for each newsletter. Newsletters that accumulate 94.5 percent or more of the total available points receive an award of Distinguished. If the score is between 84.5 to 94.4 percent of the total available points, the newsletter receives an award of Excellence. If the score is between 70 and 84.4 percent of the total available points, the newsletter receives an award of Merit. Those newsletters that receive a score lower than 70 points do not win an award. Winning entries appear in Table 1.

Best of Show

And, finally, the Best of Show award winner is chosen from among the Distinguished award winners. This year, the Best of Show award goes to the Orange County TechniScribe.

Judges and Volunteers

Special thanks to the outstanding volunteers who helped make all of this happen:

Thomas Barnett

Lanette Cornwell

Sharon Garrity

Kathy Hall

Paul Holland

Rachel Houghton

Elaine Jones

Suzanna Laurent

Mark L. Levinson

Jay Maechtlen

John Martin

Michael Opsteegh

Garret Romaine

Julie Tarr

Pat Wade

Bonnie Yelverton

These judges and committee volunteers spent their time judging entries and performing other duties such as recruiting volunteers to judge, maintaining the newsletter editors discussion list, compiling scoring information, and creating commentary summaries for each entrant.

Preparing for 2008-09

All Society newsletter editors are encouraged to join the STC newsletter editors' discussion list to share your experiences as well as your newly published issues. All STC discussion lists will move to a new host this summer. Instructions for joining discussion lists will be included in a future issue of Tieline.

For those of you who missed the opportunity to volunteer as a judge this past year, feel free to complete the judge's application form for the 2008-09 competition, which will be online after the STC Summit. The newsletter competition rules, calendar, and committee lists are also available online. In addition, there is a list of roles and responsibilities in case you are interested in what each of the committee members do. Please contact Elizabeth Bailey, STC Newsletter Competition Manager to volunteer for a committee role.

Congratulate the Winners

Newsletters play an integral role in communicating news and information between STC geographic communities and special interest groups (SIGs) and their members. They also help members and nonmembers develop an interest in STC goals and activities at both the community and Society levels. The STC newsletter competition honors community newsletter producers who strive to achieve these goals and excel in newsletter publication.

By combining creativity, individuality, and dedication, the competition winners have distinguished themselves in service to their communities and SIGs. These award-winning newsletters illustrate the importance of the skill and talents of hard-working, perceptive editors.

The editors, writers, and other contributors to these publications deserve much praise for their time, energy, and perseverance in publishing a quality product. Please offer your congratulations to this year's award winners.

Table 1. Merit, Excellence, and Distinguished Award Winners

*Best of Show winner.