Call for Entries: 2007-08 Northern California
Technical Communication Competition
Patrick Lufkin is a longtime member of STC. He is currently Membership Manager of the Management SIG and Chair of the Kenneth M. Gordon Memorial Scholarship.
Background
The Berkeley, East Bay, North Bay, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley chapters are co-sponsoring a technical communication competition. A substantial portion of the proceeds will benefit the STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship. The Gordon Scholarship committee is managing the competition.
The competition serves Northern California, but we accept entries from elsewhere. If you have a local competition, we hope you will support it by sending your entries there. If you are in our area, we hope you will support our competition by sending your entries here.
We send Distinguished award winners to the Society level competitions for technical publications, online communication, and technical art. Last year, all of the entries we sent to the Society level won Distinguished there, and one won Best of Show. We are proud of the quality of entries we receive and the quality of our judging process.
Deadline for submitting entries
We must receive the entry by noon, Saturday, September 21, 2007.
Where to send entries
STC Competition
c/o Herr
5292 Kathy Way
Livermore, CA 94550
(925) 443-4514 (fixed) (925) 989-3723 (mobile)
Rights and confidentiality
In submitting an entry, you certify that the copyright holder gives non-exclusive rights to STC to make and distribute copies of the entry among its volunteers and to exhibit the entry as it sees fit.
Under no circumstances can we accept confidential material.
Submitting to the competition is a form of publication. If the material
cannot be made public, please do not send it.
Checklist for Submitting Entries:
What to submit
• A work
of technical communication,
• First published or put into
use on or after January 1, 2006,
• That differs substantially
from any work that you have submitted to any STC competition, either previously
or concurrently.
If we do not judge your entry, we will return your entry fee. We do not return submitted materials under any circumstances.
Rights statement
Submit a signed statement certifying that you have the permission of the copyright holder to submit the entry under the conditions described under Rights and confidentiality.
Entry number
Choose a six-digit number at random to identify your entry (for example, 127639). If we receive two entries with the same number, we will assign a different number to one of them. Otherwise we will use the number you.
Copies of the entry
Submit four copies of each entry. Mark each inconspicuously (for example, in pencil on the inside back cover of a manual) with the entry number. For electronically viewable entries, submit each copy on a separate CD, or provide the URL at which judges can view them. Include hardware requirements or special instructions for viewing the entry.
Documentation
Submit five copies of the following documentation with your entry. One copy will accompany each copy of your entry through the judging process. The fifth will accompany your entry fee.
Submit a sixth copy electronically to xrm@pacbell.net, with the subject line "STC Competition Entry xxxxxx," where xxxxxx is the entry number. You can use the Society level form at http://www.stc.org/comp/forms/EntryForm.doc to submit the required documentation. Otherwise you can create a document for the purpose or include the information in an email message. The Society level form does not request the same information as requested here, so be sure to add the extra information requested here if you use the Society form.
Entry number
Use the six-digit number you create.
Entry title
Provide a stand-alone title. For example, this may entail changing “Instruction Manual” to “IBM 650 Instruction Manual”
Entry category (optional)
You can say which of the Society level competitions and categories your entry fits best into. This will help us decide how to submit your entry to the Society level if we judge it Distinguished.
Entry purpose
Provide information about the audience and general intent of your entry. Mention constraints, special circumstances, or specific business goals. Say anything else you’d like the judges to know as they evaluate your entry.
Entrant information
On a separate sheet from the entry information (no need to try to achieve this division in an email message), list one to three entrants. Entrants are individual contributors, not companies or departments. Please submit reasonably complete contact information (at least one email address, US Mail address, and phone number) for each entrant.
You can also designate a contact person to be responsible for answering questions or providing additional information if needed. The contact person need not be one of the entrants, but do not omit contact information for the entrants.
If you wish to pay the STC member entry fee, please indicate which entrants are STC members.
Be sure to include the entry number on this sheet, so we can find the corresponding entry if this sheet becomes separated from the entry information.
Entry fee
Include a check payable to STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship in the amount of $125.00 if at least one entrant is an STC member. If no entrant is an STC member, the entry fee is $200.00.
If you are retired, unemployed, or seriously underemployed, AND the entry fee represents a serious hardship, you may submit an entry fee of $75.00.
If we do not judge the entry in this competition, we will return the fee.
For more information
If you have questions that this document does not answer,
please send email to xrm@pacbell.net.
Make the subject of the email "STC Competition Query."