The Bi-etter Me | 06

Hi! I know it has been a while since I last posted here. This post is completely unrelated to travel; it's more of a rant. I just want to vent my frustration about a recent school event.

I know what I did might have been out of line. I asked one of the coordinators if I could see my writers' outputs as well as the other entries so I could learn how to improve for next year, especially since we didn't place in this category.

To my surprise, the winners made major mistakes in their articles. For one, it has always been a big NO to use the exact same words in your headline and lead, or to put quotation marks around the entire headline, like "Headline".

I understand that my writer made a major mistake in the headline because of a misspelled word. From what I remember during the orientation at the last division level, one of the judges wanted the writers to focus on finding a good angle for the story. If they wanted to be technical about it, then they should have been very critical with every entry. I may not have been in the journalism field for a long time, but I don't think fundamental news writing rules have changed that much.

When we competed at the district level previously, I completely understood why my writer placed third and sixth - their penmanship needed improvement. But this time, I was caught completely off guard. My writers had good penmanship, and I was even impressed that they took a unique angle on the story.

It might sound like I am just defending my writers because I am their coach, but I would gracefully accept this defeat if I could actually understand the reasoning behind it.

Or maybe I just haven't asked enough about the other entries. It's just frustrating.

I still wish the winners well at the division level. I hope their coaches take the time to refine their writing style, because if they don't, their articles will likely be set aside by the judges without even being read in full.