Judge’s Comments

Cheryl Pontius, judge • Division 3
Judge’s edited issue: Vol. 38 Issue 6

“Very nicely designed, reader-friendly publication. What a lot of hard work and dedication from a staff of four. I’m sure students and others at school appreciate your work.”

Positive comments:
• Very effective nameplate – great graphic. Nameplate doesn’t overpower, but is visible. Folios tie in nicely with nameplate design.

• Interesting But who’s counting – a type of trivia comment

• Good, clean front page with effective use of color, bold headline. However, I would have kept the D and E in your main story in black – it’s distracting to have the color change there.

• Nice touch adding in the weekend forecast

• Effective headline designs

• Good editorial tie-in to front-page story in two of the three submitted issues (add a reference to editorial in front-page article), nice editorial cartoon, photo poll and letters to the editor. Cute column (but watch use of personal pronouns).

• Effective center spread on the perfect gift, you offer necessary information about stores for fans, intellectuals, musicians, athletes, coffee addicts and pranksters. Then you add in a quote in each area from a student. Nice job. Good artwork.

• Nice headline treatment on wrestling story

• Good infographics – sport shorts

• Good movie review that goes beyond the norm by adding in quotes and not using “I.”

Constructive criticism comments:
• Watch passive voice

• With stories on topics such as stress, try to get at least one expert source

• On cutlines, provide a direction so reader knows who is who. Cutline content is very informative, but I would avoid the quotes in a cutline.

• Page 2 is busy – I would switch Publication awards story with Sidenotes. Sidenotes competes with dominant story. Also I would then box and lightly screen the awards story to avoid the tombstoning effect. A photo would really have helped this page.

• Watch AP style and editing errors

• Be careful to avoid opinion in stories (particularly in sports stories)

• While you use color effectively, I would pick a color and stay with it issue to issue. Changing colors each issue hurts consistency and identity.

• Photo content is good, but work with printer on reproduction quality