Challenge Overview
SRM #500 is coming up on 3/19/11 and as part of the promotion to highlight the milestone TopCoder is running a new editorial contest during the month of February. The contest will be to produce a well written feature story that recaps the history, notable moments and people who have competed in TopCoder SRMs over the years.
Approach the story in a style that shows your knowledge and insight of SRMs. If your story does not make you excited, curious or teach you something new, chances are our readers won’t care that much either.
We seek a story that is up-to-the-minute in information and accuracy. We expect the writer to interview all sources who are essential to the story, as well as other experts who can provide analysis and perspective.
Final Submission Guidelines
We expect submissions to be, above all else, well written: that is, distinguished by good story-telling, human interest, anecdotes, analogies, and humor, among other traits of good writing. Stories should be free of non TopCoder-specific jargon, vague statements, and unconfirmed facts and figures. Only the most tightly focused story will be successful.
The story will be 1,200 to 1,500 words in length, with text for components such as sidebars or how-to boxes. The writer is responsible for the factual content of the story and is expected to have made a systematic checking of facts. Creative use of graphics and statistical data will be considered in scoring as well as overall quality of writing.
If the story requires illustrations, photographs, and diagrams we expect the writer to deliver a complete package including web-ready artwork. We accept the following digital formats: digital files (tiff or eps).
The story should also come with a suggested headline and captions for photos. The complete package will include background material and documentation used by the author.
At the end of the contest an internal editorial panel will award first and second place prizes. The review will mainly be subjective.
This contest will have a single submission phase with one milestone deliverable. The milestone deliverable should clearly demonstrate the structure and content of your final product, although content can be limited to a detailed outline for the milestone.
See the forum for more details.