That’s right, people: one hundred and twenty-four pages of responses for the iPod Giveaway. After reading them all, I have a newfound respect for you all. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought very highly of the OT and NA crowd. Shows like this breed an exceptional following, but some of this stuff is just too good. I mean really, really good. My only regret is that we can’t hand out iPods to the lot of you, though we may have something up our sleeves yet…
Tanster and I will be convening at some point over the long weekend to make our final, extraordinarily difficult decision. Till then, have a wonderful and relaxing break.
>may have something up our sleeves yet…
ooh...surprises...
Thanks again for the contest, James & Jennie. It's been a hoot, and more fun with each new topic.
We have something up our sleeves?
Hmmm, what could it be ...
Yeah, you could use a rubric. Just assign a certain number of points for certain criteria (not going over word limit, originality, etc.) and giving out points in each category, then total them up. They don't call it OfficeTally for nothing, right? ;-)
No, really, I don't envy you. I used to hate grading stuff, and no system makes it easy. It still takes time, and no matter how objective your system is, you're still judging writing, which is subjective, so...lose (time-consuming), lose (wondering if you're doing it right), lose (no matter how you do it, someone somewhere is bound to think you're being "unfair." Maybe you'll even have an irate parent call you on the phone and ask you to justify the winner and explain your system ;-). Good luck with your task!
LT has clearly spent some time in the classroom. That was like my wife's advice, verbatim. LOL.
Holy. Buckets.
That is a LOT of pages.
Good luck Jennie and James. I've made my own "live strong" braclet to show my support. I just hope the results aren't negative (it'd be chaos.)
(Too many paraphrased quotes in that post. Sorry.)
;)
Wow, 124 pages!? Take your time choosing a winner...we'll all still be here. You should be able to relax and enjoy your holiday weekend like everyone else.
Anyway, thank you for the great contest. It was a blast and helped us to pass the long summer months as we've awaited Season 3's arrival. Only 19 more days. Woooo!
Thanks, everyone. LT, I attempted the rubric route, but I was nowhere near disciplined enough to pull it off. In the end, I just did a whole lot of reading and re-rereading.
Wow, Lori, you're right: 19 days doesn't sound so bad.
Definitely had a lot of fun responding to the great topics! Thanks so much for this contest!
Wow, i am so glad i'm not the one choosing! There were so many great responses out there! Good luck choosing, and thanks for an awesome contest! I had a lot of fun w/ it :-)
It was fun responding to all the posts. It helped stretch my imagination a bit!
Yikes, that's a lot of reading. There were SO many good entries, I don't know how on earth you can decide. Good luck! The suspense is killing me!
If it makes anyone feel any better: after eliminating names from a master list I compiled in Excel (too much freetime...) there are only about 50 (49) people who contributed each and every week. So based on that, there are only really 400-ish submissions to read....
and at say, 4 submissions per page (to make numbers easier to work with) that only leaves 100 pages to read and critique....
As you can tell I can't wait to see who won either...This was so much of a blast being creative and reading everyone else's creativity. THanks to both of you for doing this. And GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!!
Wow! James, you should hire Joseph as Assistant (to the) Contest Manager.
streakiness idgah fleadock pickthankly cadmic criterional stenar unhardened
X-excess.com
http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/xe.html
Wow. 124 pages.
My wife's a school teacher and when I told her about what you guys were up against in judging this contest, she said she'd use the same system that she uses to grade term paper assignments and other long-term projects. It was really elaborate and kind of confusing but it's supposed to make it so there's very little judging/grading to do at the end. She wanted me to pass it along, but that would have required me to actually understand it.
There's a reason why they call teaching a calling.
Good luck!