As was brought up by Dookie in the other thread, how many of you would be interested in doing an essay contest? Obviously there are many different types of essays, Compare and Contrast + Persuasive being the most known (I'd just assume), as those are usually what people do in school (I'd assume).

So, first question, how many of you would be interested in this? Second, what would be the guidelines? If we (or should I say..."I") get enough people, would this...

1. One month to write an essay (or maybe two...not sure)

2. Five thousand word minimum (well...this can be negotiated, I think XD.).

3. Specific essay format (not a research paper where you need sources, but instead this is where the C/C or Persuasive essay comes in...as in, should we switch off every month, or pick one type? That wouldn't be as fun, as you'd do the same thing over again, but I want to know what you guys think).

4. Everybody writes about the same thing (but the stances obviously can be different: this is you writing).

5. Winner of last contest picks subject and type of next essay

...work?

Voting: Same as poetry contest. Vote for who you think had the best three (and depending on who joins this...maybe the only three.). And, so that no one knows who wrote which, the submissions would be PMed to me (unless someone else wanted to "man handle" this one). Then people read and whichever one they think was best written/liked best, they'd vote for (and then the second favorite, and the third favorite. Or if only one favorite, they'd just put that one. But try and fill all three slots...It'd be a little...erm...rude otherwise >.o).

Now, since these are essays, critiquing is a bit different from poetry...obviously. You need to use correct grammar/spelling (though if you're not a native English speaker, there aren't going to be axe men behind you). I dunno. Everyone knows what essays are, right? They have at least five paragraphs: Introduction (with a thesis as the last sentence), 3 paragraphs for the body that are full of examples, etc., and then the Conclusion. However, since we have a word limit, I'm sure these will all be longer than five paragraphs.

But the point isn't torture. Some of us hate writing essays (I myself am not very good, so this would be welcome practice), so that's why we make these fun. They don't have to be serious. They have to follow the guidelines, but if you want to make a humorous essay instead of just listing the facts (in a very presentable and persuasive manner depending on the subject), that's fine. Both ways, serious or comical, are fine. The point is to just have fun.

So yeah. Anybody interested in this? What I stated previously are just suggestions. I'd like to hear your guys' feedback as to whether we should go ahead with this, and what you guys think should be done with the rules, etc.

Discuss! One thing that could be a concern, is that since people are in the poetry contest, and perhaps SotM, that no one will want to add on another competition...But there'd be enough time to get this one done, I think. Maybe if it was extended to two months or something. I dunno. Yeah, I need feedback, haha...

Lol, DB, I don't think you can fit 5k words into 5 paragraphs which is, 1000 per paragraph Lol.

xD

Perhaps let the writer had the amount of paragraphs they want and lol.

5k is sort of half of nanowrimo. which not much people even finished lol.

so yeah, maybe a 3k Minimum should be enough, 10k maximum (we don't want anybody to over write =p)

and why not

we give 5 different questions for writers to choose like our school essays:

1 one word theme

1 argumentative

1 description

1 start the essay with line given

1 end the essay with line given



the writers could choose 5 out of one =p as for grading, we vote using stars from voters

5 stars maximum for each essay, for example.

Dookie - ***
DB - ****
gelmar - ****

etc etc.

The person with the most stars wins =]


Just a suggestion though lol.


Lance.

XD. I know you can't fit 5k in five paragraphs, I said that too =p. I like your idea though. 3k minimum, with 10k maximum (dunno who'd write that much, but we'll see.). Having people choose from five different choices would probably be good too. That way if they really don't like the idea given originally, they have four more options to choose from. And, rating with stars would work best as well, haha. That's actually a really good idea. It'd be easier, as well.

Once again, thank you for the interest, Dookie! Anybody else want to join us in this madness?

(sorry for the bump)

There hasn’t been a response in three days (well, considering in the writing forum you don’t get one till a month later, I shouldn’t be so hasty here). I’m going to assume this hasn’t tickled many people’s fancy. If people are interested in doing this (and not just saying they are for the sake of moving this forward and shutting me up =p.), just post in here. If no one does within a week, I’m going to drop the idea of an essay contest and just stick with the poetry one. Sound good? Great! Which means I’m hoping for the majority of Writing/Literature forum people to be partaking of the poetry contest at the least (as the majority of people in said forum do write poetry. Such an odd coincidence, yes?).


Edit: Actually, considering the views this topic has received, I think it was doomed from the start. Maybe a short story writing contest is in order? Would people like those? Maybe not.

I don't know. I actually liked the idea a lot lol. But thats just me since I suggested it. Lol.

Maybe you could ask others personally or in LC. Not sure though.

But it'll be fun definitely.

Lets just wait for a little while more for response then. =]

Lance.

NaNoWriMo was 50k words.

Essay is not that great an idea, especially one as long as 3000 words, a short story contest would be better.

Yeah. I’ll try starting up the short story contest then. Would you still be interested in that, Dookie? I admit a short story contest rings with me better than an essay, but that’s just because essays require more...research, I suppose. They have to be formal, haha. With short stories (or novels), if you want to make up a bunch of garbage and pretend it’s plausible, nobody cares as long as it’s interesting.

Anyway, I’ll keep this topic open in case anybody else jumps up for it to happen. I’ll open a new one to see how many people will want to participate in the short story contest.