Judging guidelines

All work submitted to this Web site for consideration for outside publication -- Newspaper Series, "My Life" Vermont Public Radio series, Winter Tales prompt with Vermont Stage Company -- is judged by student judges online under the guidance of Lee McIsaac, YWP's Newspaper Series coordinator. In evaluating submissions, judges look for pieces that stand out, have strong voice, fresh content and power. After the judges make their selections, Young Writers Project editors take the finalists into classrooms where final selections are made by other students.

If you would like the Young Writers Project to visit your classroom, click here.

All judges are students in grades 5 – 12. The Young Writers Project appreciates all the work they do. If you would like to apply to be a judge, click here.

Here are the specific guidelines we send to judges:

• Judges should do all judging on their own. They should not receive help with making selections from anyone else.

• Judges should not judge their own work or the work of anyone they know and they should notify the Young Writers Project anytime they do not judge a submission because they know the author.

• Judging and voting should be done on a positive model: Judges should look for the pieces that really stand out and compare the others to that piece.

• Judges are not expected to directly compare the work of younger writers to older ones. YWP expects that judges will inherently understand that students of different ages write at different levels and modify their expectations and selections accordingly.