Art:AADM/Second round

Judging Guidelines for the Second Round

The rubric

As a quick reminder, here's the rubric for the second round of play, as well as some questions that should help you assess the categories:

• Up to 25 points for authorship
  • Is it a good story? Does it flow well, or is it jerky and off-balance?
  • How well did the author incorporate the Short entry? Did they build on it, ignore it altogether, or just include it as a second thought?
  • Would you want to read more work by this author?
• Up to 10 points for nitpicking
  • Start at 10 points, then deduct a point or two (or three... or ten!) for particularly glaring errors, omissions, or missed potential, depending on how severe you find the infraction to be. Leaps of logic, confusing descriptions, jarring changes in tone, that sort of thing.
• Up to 10 points for creativity
  • Based on the short... did you see that coming?
  • Consider the plot and characters in a vacuum, irrespective of tone or technical elements. Is the story original, unique, and appealing unto itself?
  • Is there a deeper meaning to this story?
• Up to 5 points for technical elements
  • General spelling, grammar, phrasing, sentence structure, and the like.

How hard is too hard?

Provided you use the same set of standards for each entry, there is no such thing as 'too hard' or 'too easy'. When in doubt, trust in Dr. Spock (the pediatrician, not the vulcan): "You know more than you think you do." I'd much rather you trusted your own judgement here than second-guessed yourself to appease me or the entrants. As long as your standards don't vary from entry to entry, your judging is at the level it ought to be, and I'd suggest not even questioning yourself beyond that.

General guidance on standards

However, I can still provide some general advice on standards. :)

There are three basic standards you might want to apply. They are:

• "Superhero" standard. An "average" entry would score 30%, an "excellent" entry might break 60%, and it'd take something awful special to score 80% or 90%.
  • Pros: Provides a great deal of distinction in score between high-scoring entries. This is ideal for a situation such as this, where we can be sure most (if not all) of the entrants will be performing at a high level.
  • Cons: "Mushes" lower-scoring and average-scoring entries together in a big blob of similar scores. Is extremely counter-intuitive. Results in lower scores on average, and is particularly nasty on the low and average-scoring entries.
• "School" standard. An "average" entry would score 75%, an "excellent" entry would see 90%, and it's difficult to score less than 50%.
  • Pros: Easy to understand and grasp, and it provides a great deal of distinction in score between low and average-scoring entries. This would have been a good route to take in the first round, but might not work so well in the second.
  • Cons: Inflates the scores, but this isn't problematic as all the scores are equally inflated.
• "Common sense" standard. An "average" entry would score 50%, an "excellent" entry would get 75%, and poor entries might be down around 25%
  • Pros: A nice mix between Superhero and School, providing decent distribution of scores at all levels of performance. Common-sense and easy to grasp. Neither inflates nor deflates scores.
  • Cons: Loses the potential advantages of the other two standards, but also the downsides.

I, personally, would prefer you used the Superhero standard, however, again, I'd rather you were comfortable with the standard you're using instead of simply doing it to appease me. :)

Where can I read the entries?

All of the entries are linked off of this page. You can return to that page by clicking the words "Author's Author Deathmatch" at the bottom of any individual entry.

How should I read the entries?

I would suggest trying to assess each entry under near-identical circumstances. This doesn't mean you need to get through all the entries in one sitting! Read them at whatever pace and in whatever circumstances you find most convenient. However, when you assess the entries, try and do so in as similar an environment as possible. (By "assess", I mean "skim through the story one last time and contemplate final scores")

If I was a judge, I'd make a point of reading the stories in random order. This is inconvenient and difficult to track, though, so use whichever system you're most comfortable with. (And, honestly... if one or two of you read the stories A-Z, that's probably not such a bad thing, as I guarantee someone'll do it Z-A.)

How do I submit my scores?

Send an e-mail to thatponytailguy@gmail.com, and put the acronym AADM at the start your subject line. Attach your scores to this e-mail as a .txt, .doc, .rtf or .odf file. Please format your scores like this:

===> Entry Title (Authorship, Nitpicking, Creativity, Technical, Total)
[Any notes you might have on the entry]

For example:

===> Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (23, 5, 10, 5, 43)
I found the scene with the troll to be a bit disturbing [-1], and didn't 
much care for the leaps of logic required to create the magical world [-4], 
but it's a solid piece of writing regardless.

Please be complete in your notes... in particular, let me know which bits you nitpicked, and how much you deducated for each. (In the example, I indicated this by putting the number deducted in square brackets when I was referring to it.) The example notes are just off the top of my head; please be more detailed in yours. :)

I will be culling general feedback off these comments to deliver to the entrants, but the comments themselves will not be passed along verbatim. As such, feel free to indulge the snark if it helps keep you sane.