~Saturday~ I’ve mentioned that Robert and I have been playing Scrabble remotely through a Facebook app, and that one of the most fun elements of it is in naming the games.
I want to capture the last few: SHE’S GOT ISSYOUS, SHOSHESHAYS, U EAT WITH THAT MOUTH 2?, and HARD ON THE TOWN. These are all inside jokes between us. What fun.
The focus of my day today was judging technical communication competition entries for the Society for Technical Communication. I’m on a team of four, and we have four entries in the competition that we have to judge—three in the “Promotional” material category (although one of those was mis-categorized as training material), and one in the “Reference” material category.
For each entry, we have to rate several qualities under each four major areas:
- Does the entry fulfill its purpose? (Qualities: audience definition, goals or purpose)
- Is the content of high quality and is it communicated effectively? (Qualities: writing, content design, overall quality)
- Is the content well-integrated and well-organized? (Qualities: organization/integration, table of contents, index, navigation, usability)
- Are the communication media used effectively and appropriately? (Qualities: platform conventions/features, speed, interactivity, screen design and accessibility, graphics, and media)
In addition to that, we have to access each entry with an “award level”:
| Award Level | Description |
|---|---|
| Distinguished | Clearly superior in all areas. The entry contains no major flaws and few, if any, minor flaws. It applies the principles of technical communication in an outstanding way, particularly in the way that it anticipates and fulfills the needs of its audience. |
| Excellence | Consistently meets high standards in all areas. The entry might contain a single major flaw or a few minor flaws. The entry clearly (if slightly imperfectly) demonstrates an exceptional understanding of technical communication principles. |
| Merit | Consistently meets high standards in most areas. The entry might contain a small number of major or minor flaws, but still applies technical communication principles in a highly proficient manner. |
| No Award | Contains work that is of average or less-than-average professional quality. The entry generally has many major and minor flaws. It shows a lack of understanding of technical communication principles, is poorly executed, is hard to use, or fails to meet the needs of its audience. |
As these things often do, it took me much longer to do than I’d both hoped and set time aside for, and since I’m meeting with the other judges tomorrow to “come to consensus” on our assessments, I had to change my RSVP from yes to no to my friend @abbyladybug‘s birthday party. The only saving grace to that is that Abby has a ton of friends and my absence in no way affected the party.
I did finish up at about 10:30, and after copying my assessment files to a flash drive, I met Joe out at Flex, where it was 70s night or some such nonsense, and where I was caught in the wake of a cologne fest on the guy descending the stairs ahead of me, and once inside greeted with incense stinking up the place. Cranky.
At just before midnight, I’d had about as much as I could stand of the place, and I said goodbye to Joe who was playing pool with someone he’d just met.
I stopped by work, booted up my computer, and inserted my flash drive only to find that my computer wouldn’t read it. So much for printing my assessments for tomorrow’s meeting.