Judge’s Comments

Cheryl Pontius, judge • Division 3
Judge’s edited issue: Vol. 82 Issue 5

"I really enjoyed reading your publication – great mix of stories, very school oriented. Your staff works hard to put out a professional product."

Positive comments:
• Very nice front cover – I would suggest combining all information (date, address) into the nameplate so you don’t have 2 boxes breaking up your front cover since it is a full photo. Also, it might just be me, but the triangle not aligned with the rule under it makes an awkward design. It might not be as jarring if the triangle lay straight against the rule. I would also anchor it to the top-left margins so it doesn’t appear to be floating.

• Nicely designed contents page with photos (might consider putting photos in numeric order as well)

• Cutlines are informative and interesting (please add a direction line so readers know who is who in photo)

• Excellent mix of stories – readers shouldn’t have to try very hard to find articles of interest

• I enjoyed the surveillance story, but wondered why you didn’t talk to any students

• Good editorial tie-in to surveillance story

• You truly make your opinion pages a student forum – editorial with cartoon, photo poll, letters to the editor, guest comic and a column that shows it’s possible to omit the personal pronouns. Good job.

• Inside pages are clean, well designed with consistent margins

• Excellent center spread on cross country state finals

• Features are well written – really liked the Seeing triple story and display (great headline treatment). Entire page was well packaged.

• Very nice package on Leading Lady – great to see your local angle on CN grad Pam Robillard-Mackey who is defending Kobe Bryant in court. Excellent lead.

• Cute feature on the best watering holes at school with nice map showing where each is

• Good action photos, but reproduction quality suffers

Constructive criticism comments:
• Watch use of passive voice – try to rewrite each sentence with an active verb

• On Speak Up, the cutouts tend to make faces very small. I would suggest just using a headshot where you can see more of the face.

• I would run your editorial policy across the bottom of the page – it is a standard, issue-to-issue item that needs to be visible yet less conspicuous. This usually runs with the staff listing.

• On the feature, Voices behind the box,” the photos are too much alike. A better photo might be one of both of them working in the studio with a combined story.

• Keep headshot (face) size consistent – see Page 13. While still a tad small, the best size head shot is Shirley Lyster.

• On the skateboarding story, I wasn’t sure how the Twisted terms fit in – the story was about prohibiting skateboarding on school property and was serious in tone