Stephanie McCraw, VPA’s member services manager, will
provide answers to your questions in this blog.
This blog will be updated frequently as the contest time
draws closer, so check back often.
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Q: Do we include photos with
the story if cutting and pasting clippings onto 8 ½ x 11 paper?
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A: Yes, the rules state “do not
remove or block out photos or other art.”
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Q: Are we required to locate
and include the photos with the story if we are submitting electronic archive
printouts where photos are not included?
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A: No, if you do not have the
photos with the story in the electronic archive you do not have to include
the photos.
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Q: Can I submit an entry in
a portfolio category if another reporter got one quote for my story? His name is not on the byline but I
noted “attributed by” at the end of the story.
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A: Yes.
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Q: Tuesday, February 4 is
listed as a required date for M02 (Editorial pages) for dailies, but February
4 was a Sunday. What date do we use?
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A: You would use Sunday,
February 4 as the required date.
If you are a daily that does not print a Sunday edition use Monday,
February 5 as the required date.
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Q: If we are submitting
electronic archive printouts that have highlighted keywords, can we copy and
paste the stories into Word to neaten them up or do we print off the archives
with the highlighted keywords?
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A: Either way is fine.
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Q: Can front page designs
submitted as part of a Front Page entry also be submitted as part of the
individual Page Design category?
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A: Yes.
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Q: Does multi-day coverage
of one criminal case (like trial coverage) no longer count as one example for
the public safety/government category? The contest rules seem to say that an
example is one story, no more.
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A: Under this year's rules, with those government and public safety
combined, multi-day coverage of a trial would have to go into the general
news writing category. We'll fix that for next year.
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Q: I have a story that was broken up over a two-day period that I'd
like to enter in the Feature Series or Continuing Story category. If I
include these two seperate "examples" in the Feature Writing
Portfolio category, can I also include them in the Sports Writing Portfolio
category as long as the third example in each portfolio category is
different? Or must I use an entirely different three examples in each
portfolio category?
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A: You will have to choose between one portfolio or the other. It can’t be both sports and feature.
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Q: This year, writing entries can be as simple as using full
tearsheets? If you do that with
one entry do you have to take that approach with all, or can it be a mix of
tearsheets, clippings, printouts, et?
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A: Tearsheets with the particular piece marked in grease pencil is fine.
And a mix is fine as well.
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Q: Even though we are submitting our entry forms electronically, we
still have to submit the actual stories in hard-copy form, right? A staff
member thought we could e-mail you PDFs of our archives.
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A: You still have to submit the actual entries in hard-copy form to VPA.
Only the entry forms are submitted electronically.
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Q: Many of the rules for body of work entries say entrants' work--not
entrant's work. The only one that specifies a single writer is feature.
Am I reading correctly that a body of work entry requiring 3 stories could be
the work of 1 or 2 or 3writers?
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A: Unless the category specifically says "No team or group
entries", it could be a single staffer or a team. *Clarification: If it is a team entry then all examples in
the entry must be on the same specific topic.
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Q: Can a writer submit a story separately in the "Feature story
writing" category that was part of a series and is already being submitted
in the "Feature series" category?
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A: No. However, a story could be entered both in feature story and feature
portfolio.
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Q: Can a story that only ran on our Web site be submitted?
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A: No.
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Q: Our paper comes out on Wednesdays. For the presentation and design
contests that require specific dates -- what do we do when it asks for a date
the paper doesn't publish?
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A: You would use the publish date closest to the required date and within
the same week.
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Q: In combo pictures and story in the makeup category,
does an entry have to be published on one day, or would a series run over
several days qualify?
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A: It has to be published on a single day.
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Q: What is the five-character code we are supposed to
write on the outside of the manila file folder?
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A: Your competition group code (division) plus the
category code you are entering.
So, W2W01 for example.
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Q: I am filling out the manual entry form. What is the number I am supposed to
fill in on the top of the entry form?
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A: If you are
filling out manual entry forms then you do not need to fill in the “number”
at the top of the entry form.
VPA will fill that in when your entries are entered into our database.
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Q: It says on page four of the Call for Entries that
the fee for each category is included in the description of the categories
but I don’t see that anywhere.
What are the fees?
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A: That’s correct – the fee for each category is not
included in the category descriptions.
The fee for each entry is $7, except for the public service categories
(VPA award for journalistic integrity and community service and the D. Lathan
Mims award for editorial leadership), which have a $25 entry fee. There is a 50 cents per entry
discount for electronic entries.
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Q: Do I include the whole story with my entry for the
headline writing category?
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A: Yes, include the whole story in the headline writing
category (M05).
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Q: What does it mean in In-depth or investigative
reporting and Series of news stories when it says that “An entry may not be
entered in more than one annual competition?”
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A: Entries in these two categories can span up to twelve
months and may possibly overlap into another year, depending on when the
series begins or ends. If it
began or ended in a previous year and you entered it into a previous VPA contest,
you may not enter it again this year.
In other words, it can only be entered into the VPA contest one year.
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Q: This year’s rules say that we should not block out
photos and other art in the writing categories. What if we already did? Do we have to redo our entries?
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A: That’s okay – you do not have to redo your
entries.
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Q: Can the same story be entered in one of the body of
work categories, like education writing, and also in spot news?
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A: No – it does not work for spot news and education
writing. The only place where
this works is with spot news stories (W15) and the general news writing
category (W08). See these
category descriptions for more information.
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Q: In editorial writing (W04) can I submit an entry
that consists of two related editorials and one unrelated editorial?
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A: Yes.
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Q: In headline writing (M05) what is an abstract?
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A: An abstract could be considered a pull out, a lift out
or a blurb – anything but quotes.
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Q: Where do I find my PUB code?
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A: Your PUB code can be found on the “competition groups”
list on the VPA contest home page.
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Q: My publication is a specialty publication. Some of
my contracted employees don’t make enough money to get a 1099 form. Is their work still eligible in the
contest?
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A: Yes.
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Q: Can there be duplication between categories M12, M14
and M16 for specialty publications?
In other words, if I have a front page that I want to enter into M14
and also in M16 is that allowed?
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A: Yes, usually duplication in the design categories is
allowed.
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Q: I ran two photos side-by-side on the front page and
surrounded them by one border.
Can I enter them together in the feature photo (G04) category?
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A: No. All photo categories, except Picture story or essay
(G07), consist of one photo per entry.
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Q: I clipped my story from the paper and glued it to
the back of the entry form. Is
that okay?
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A: Yes.
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Q: The rules for feature portfolio indicate that
stories in the portfolio can also be entered in appropriate other categories.
Is the same true for sports portfolio?
A sports writer has two stories that will be entered as
part of a larger in-depth entry. Can he include those two stories in his
sports portfolio?
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A: Yes, that’s okay.
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Q: I have a “Year in Photos” special section. There is no writing included. Is there a place for this?
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A: Yes, you can enter it under the special sections or
special editions category (M08).
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Q: How many different graphic artists can enter info
graphics (G03) for a D2 newspaper? It says there are 3 entries per
artist per publication but not how many artists can enter from the same
paper.
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A: There is no limit to the number of artists that can
enter per publication. Same goes
for photography portion of the contest – there is no limit to the
number of photographers per publication that can enter the contest.
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Q: Can two people collaborate on a graphic and enter it
under both their names, sort of like a staff entry on design?
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A: Yes, unless it states otherwise in the category
description, it can be entered under both names.
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Q: I’m having trouble opening the Mac OSX entry kit
once I download it – what do I do?
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A: If you’ve downloaded the Mac OSX entry kit from our
website, there’s one more piece of free software you need to download
in order to expand the file.
Click here to download the StuffIt Expander: http://www.stuffitsoftware.com/stuffit-mac.html?aUS045.
The free download can be found near the bottom of the page.
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Q: On one of the mandatory dates for the Business
pages, the lead business story went to A1 to be the front-page centerpiece.
And another biz story that day went to A1. Can we add those to the business
pages entry for that day, since what’s being judged is the “comprehensive
coverage of business and financial news”?
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A: No. The
category (M01) judges those pages specifically – not the front page.
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Q: Does each entry go into a manila file folder or do
we group entries together to put in the file folders?
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A: Each entry goes into a separate file folder.
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Q: I’d like to enter a story into Headline writing
(M05) and Feature story (W06).
Is that okay?
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A: Yes, that’s fine. Generally, entering a story into a
writing category and a presentation/design category is okay. See category
descriptions for more details.
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Q: In Headline Writing can we enter five headlines in
one entry where there were two authors? Two were written by one writer, three
by the other.
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A: In Headline Writing an entry may be submitted in
the name of one or two people, but if there's more than one person, they must
have collaborated on all of the headlines in the entry.
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Q: This question applies for us in the Business writing
and Government and Public Safety writing. Is it legal to have an entry in
these categories with three "examples" all by different writers? I
thought the fact that the instructions said entrants' meant it could be mixed
up like that. Or do all the examples in each entry need to be by the same
author?
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A:
The only way this works is if all three pieces are on the same specific
topic. Otherwise, they would
need to be by the same person.
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Q: On one of the mandatory dates for the Business
pages, the lead business story went to A1 to be the front-page centerpiece. And
another biz story that day went to A1. Can we add those to the business pages
entry for that day, since what’s being judged is the “comprehensive coverage
of business and financial news”?
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A: No. The category judges those pages specifically
- not the front page.
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Q: What about if we have staff photos that were run as
cut-outs - with cutlines - rather than traditional boxed in photos? Do we
submit the whole page and circle the photos - or do we attempt to cut out the
cut-out image?
And can those pages with images submitted
for photo contests also be entered in the page-design competition?
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A: You can submit the whole page and mark the photos to be
judged. Yes, you can submit those pages in page design as well.
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