Zou Weijun doesn’t care much whether “Spark” can outperform “Sprout”.
The original intention of establishing "Spark" was not to compare with "Sprout"!
However, now that "Mengya" has launched a new concept competition, "Xinghuo" also needs to rely on the essay competition to rise. Even if Zou Weijun himself does not compare, outsiders will use "Xinghuo" to benchmark "Mengya".
Zou Weijun ran his hand over a storage basket filled with manuscripts, feeling a surge of emotion. After a moment, his boiling emotions settled into a state of rationality.
"Little Salamander has been following this from the beginning to the end. Let Little Salamander introduce the situation to us all."
Xiao Niu's face was also filled with excitement. "What we are seeing now are all the entries for the first round. There are a total of , excluding those that do not comply with the competition rules, there are valid manuscripts. In fact, not only did the short story group receive so many manuscripts, but even the long story group, which does not have a preliminary round, received more than a dozen long story manuscripts."
It is impossible to complete a novel in such a short time. These works should have been written long ago, but there was no time to publish them. The author was moved by the rewards of the Spark Cup and sent his unpublished works to participate in the competition.
These are not only entries, but also the authors’ trust in the organizers!
As for why there are non-compliant manuscripts, some contestants either don’t understand the rules, or think they are incredibly talented and want to challenge the organizers’ rules. Either the number of words is too few, or too many. Some even send in poems, essays and other genres... These self-righteous contestants who want to go against the rules of the competition will be eliminated in the first round.
Wen Ying randomly picked up a long manuscript and found that it was a handwritten manuscript rather than a typed manuscript. The font was neatly copied, and occasional additions and deletions did not affect the reading experience, which showed the author's intentions.
"If you are not selected, all entries in the long-form category will be returned by mail."
Xiao Niu took note of Wen Ying's suggestion.
"Of course I have to return it. There are two manuscripts that appear to be first-hand originals. I don't know if the author has kept a copy."
Xiao Niu felt that these authors were very careless and sent the manuscripts directly. If they did not keep a copy, it would be very unfortunate if the manuscripts were lost.
Xiao Niu looked at the manuscripts piled up in the office, feeling both happy and relieved. "Fortunately, we listened to Wen Ying's advice and started reviewing the manuscripts from the moment we received the first entry. If we had left all the work to now, the workload would have been too overwhelming. What you see now is the manuscripts that have already passed the first round of screening and classification."
Yes, the manuscript review work had actually already started when the outside world still didn't know who the judges of the competition were.
It is said that when marking college entrance examination papers, the average time spent on reading each essay is only a few tens of seconds.
In less than a minute, the 600-800 word essay will be classified by the examiner, labeled as Category One, Category Two, and Category Three, and scored according to the corresponding category. The only thing that can slow down the examiner's reading pace is the full-mark essay - the full-mark essay requires repeated consideration, and the vast majority of candidates' essays are mediocre.
In just a few tens of seconds, the examiner will first look at the number of words in an essay. An essay that is too short will obviously not be accepted. It is best to write as long as possible within the prescribed number of words. Otherwise, it will be considered as having nothing to say and weak expression skills.
The second thing is to look at the title. For the assigned composition, it goes without saying. If you can write your own title and it is in line with the topic, and is novel and unique, then of course it will get extra points.
The third thing to look at is the topic. The beginning of the composition should be concise and attractive, just like the topic!
Fourth, look at the ending. The ending should echo the beginning and elevate the idea.
Fifth, look at the segmentation. Clear segmentation will get extra points!
The main text is actually the last thing to be read. When an essay meets the first five points, as long as the main text is not too bad, the score for this essay is secure.
The college entrance examination essay tests basic expressive ability, so this marking rule is certainly not suitable for essay competitions.
In just a few seconds, you can finish reading an 800-word essay, but you can't finish reading a 5,000-word entry.
The contestants have put in a lot of effort and come to the competition with great excitement. It is too frivolous to judge the quality of their works in just a few tens of seconds!
You should set aside at least 3-5 minutes for each manuscript.
3-5 minutes is not enough to carefully appreciate the exquisiteness of an entry, but it is enough to make a preliminary judgment. Even if a good story is hidden among tens of thousands of entries, it can be discovered within these 3-5 minutes.
Song Foxiang laughed.
More than 10,000 manuscripts were left for Wen Ying and Zhang Guangzhen to read. Even if they went blind, they still couldn't finish reading them.
In fact, the first round of manuscript screening was done by a dozen editors from Xinghuo and Literature and Art Publishing House, and Song Foxiang was one of those who contributed silently.
It was a pity that he worked so hard but his name was not mentioned, so Song Foxiang was naturally a little depressed.
The little salamander kept his eyes and ears open, and wanted to whip the old salted fish into working, so he couldn't give him no benefits at all. So he specifically mentioned Song Foxiang's contribution:
"Including Editor Song, every editor at the magazine and publishing house has been working overtime to review the manuscripts. Our judgment certainly cannot be used as the basis for selection for the semi-finals. However, after preliminary screening by all editors, we have divided the manuscripts into several levels and are waiting for Wen Ying and Teacher Zhang to review them carefully."
After being praised by Xiao Niu, everyone looked at Song Foxiang.
Song Xianyu didn't feel embarrassed at all.
When Song Xianyu noticed the gaze of goddess Zou Weijun, he felt a little nervous.
This little episode passed by quickly and everyone's attention quickly returned to the main business.
Those who scored too low all had clichéd and crude stories and poor writing. These contestants are just here to be runners-up.
Even when writing a short story of several thousand words, several typos can be found. These contestants have a bad attitude.
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