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Answer for Barb re How Entries are Judged

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:00 pm
by Deb Porter
Barb, as your question in the "Challenge Judging Criteria" will probably get lost in what was a corrupted thread (back at the start of last year). I thought I'd answer your questions here.
When judges chose the EC writings for the anthology, are the stories and poems generally spiritual in nature?
No, entries do not have to be spiritual at all. They just have to come from a Christian point of view. In other words, the main character can't be a very appealing devil who everyone loves. Or the entry can't appear to be condoning a sinful lifestyle. That sort of thing. Most entries do tend to have a fairly obvious Christian theme, but that isn't taken into consideration at all when judging.
And for the Challenge, are the entries judged as the come in, or do you wait until all are submitted?
They are judged as they are submitted. It would be impossible to do it within the time frame otherwise. The judges on duty for that week have access to a behind-the-scenes area and start judging as soon as the first entry arrives (or as soon as they get the password to the area).

They have until the Sunday morning after entries close to finish all their reading and rating, and then return their rating sheets to me. So all up, they have about ten days to do all their reading and rating. Mind you, the big rush is always in the last day or two, so they do end up with a lot of reading in those final days.

Love, Deb

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:10 pm
by Ms. Barbie
Thank you!

Re: Answer for Barb re How Entries are Judged

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:04 am
by cdawson41
Do the judges have access to the critiques that our fellow writers do on our articles?

Re: Answer for Barb re How Entries are Judged

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:07 pm
by glorybee
The judges read the articles in a special "backstage" area of the site that is only accessible to them. The articles there are anonymous, and the comments are not visible.

Once the articles "go live" on Thursdays, the judges typically still have several to judge, and they have to access those though the area that is available to all readers (because the "backstage" area is already getting the entries for the next week's contest). So they might be able to see the comments at that point, but they typtically don't read them. And even if they did, they have been instructed to disregard those comments, should they accidentally see them--both positive and negative comments. The judges are highly professional, and would not be swayed by other readers' comments.

Re: Answer for Barb re How Entries are Judged

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 5:21 pm
by cdawson41
Thank you for the answer. I was trying to assume that the judges would do anything out of line, I was just curious.