Heather Curtis, our Marketing Manager at TheeDigital, will be serving as a judge for the Society for Technical Communication (STC) Carolina Chapter’s 2011/2012 Competition. The judging will be held at the SAS campus in Cary, NC tomorrow on Saturday November 12, 2011.
Heather has an extensive background in technical and marketing communications. She became involved in the STC through a Technical Communications graduate program at Duke University. This will be her second year serving as a competition judge.
STC judges are recruited based on their experience in writing, editing, developing documentation, and/or artistic design of technical illustrations. Judging allows professionals to gain new insight and discuss writing, editing, and design issues with communicators regionally and internationally.
Judges examine the content, structure, and design of each entry, and decide on an award based on the individual entry’s strengths and weaknesses and how well it fulfills its purpose. Evaluation criteria depend on the type of entry. For entries such as reference guides, judges examine how well an entry provides information appropriate to the task. For users’ guides, does the publication explain topics or concepts thoroughly and concisely, and how well does it help the user complete a task. For marketing materials, they decide whether the publication motivates people to buy or use a product. Training materials should assist in the process of teaching.
Three levels of recognition are awarded in each competition category:
- Distinguished
- Excellence
- Merit
These awards do not necessarily represent first, second, or third places, but instead are levels of accomplishment with reference to a standard. Each entry is evaluated on its own qualities against the standard. Winners of the highest award, Distinguished, advance to the STC International Summit Awards held in the Spring.
About STC
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Every year regional level STC chapters host competitions for Online Communication, Technical Art, and Technical Publications.
Its 20,000+ members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, and web designers and developers.
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