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RE: [GWL]: GWAA awards again

Nan
I think it  is impossible to have any kind of rigid measurable standards in
garden writing.  There is too much variation in our product.  Does a serious
text such as many of books published by Timber Press get the same set of
standards as Chicken Soup for Gardeners or Jeff Ball's Sixty Minute Garden?
Does a soft cover how to book get the same standards as a treatise on bulbs
taking ten years to write?  Is a newspaper column the same as a newspaper
article?  Is a newspaper article the same as a magazine article? Is a photo
in a magazine the same as a photo in a newspaper or a photo on the Internet?
Is a ten minute TV segment the same as a 4 minute segment?  Is a TV segment
interviewing guests the same as one featuring a single talent?
It's hard to set rigid standards that would be reasonable.  I suspect the
judgments made to award Pulitzer prizes to journalists are just as
subjective.  They don't measure the readership of a newspaper to determine
the quality of the work.
In Garden Writers there are principles.  Most good writers know good writing
when they see it.  Most good photographers know good photography when they
see it.  I think it is fair to say that at least the GWAA awards are in no
way political as is the case in some other professions, especially in
entertainment.  Right or wrong in your judgment, I truly believe the judges
are trying to find what they truly believe to be the best in their
professional opinion.  In 21 years I have not seen too many awards given to
products I did not think deserved special note.  I may have disagreed on
degree, but there are very few stinkers that have gotten through.  I am also
sure that there are any number of applications that did not get an award
that having been judged by a different set of judges might well have won.
The process is imprecise.  But I think the process is honest.  Perhaps it
can become a bit more rigorous in terms of the professional qualifications
of judges; I don't know for sure.
One other complication that just occurs to me remembering back to my own
Judging experience.  When you evaluate a book submitted by an author, you
really should not be evaluating the book design, the photos, the cover and
the back.  You should just evaluate the writing.  It is hard to do that kind
of focused evaluation without the other stuff affecting your thinking; very
hard.  Some newspaper columnists worry that their column with never a photo
or graphic is not as sexy as those columns that  always have a wonderful
color picture included in the column.  The photo should not be a factor, but
there is always that worry.
Anyway, I think establishing rigid measurable standards would be very, very
difficult if not impossible; at least in our business. But that is just one
opinion among many (grin).
Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Nan Sterman [n*@plantsoup.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 11:35 AM
To: Gardenwriters@topica.com
Subject: RE: [GWL]: GWAA awards again

I gotta admit that I am a bit taken aback to read that the awards are
so subjective.  A professional award given by a professional
organization needs to have well established and documented criteria,
a host of judges who are trained to judge (even if training takes
only 15 minutes) and well established inter-rater reliability (in
other words, the judges are all using the rules the same way).

please, someone tell me that GWAA is using these professional standards...

Nan
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Nan Sterman                     PlantSoup

205 Cole Ranch Road
Olivenhain, CA 92024            760.634.2902 (voice)
NSterman@PlantSoup.Com          760.634.2957 (fax)

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