More than Tremendous Stories That Captivate Audiences: Applying Dynamic Criteria Mapping to Athlete Profiles
Major
English – Literature
Second Major
Educational Studies
Submission Type
Oral Presentation
Area of Study or Work
English-Literature
Faculty Advisor
Michael Theune
Location
CNS E101
Start Date
4-13-2024 8:30 AM
End Date
4-13-2024 9:45 AM
Abstract
What makes a great athlete profile? According to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest, it’s “tremendous stories that captivates our audiences.” Additionally, CSC states that “[e]ntries will be judged on overall writing style, creativity, flow and organization, inventiveness, grammar, punctuation, opening and closing paragraphs, and the ease with which the reader acquires the information.” However, these vague statements clearly do not–cannot–capture all the crucial criteria. In my paper, I work to seek out the actual criteria. I apply the methodology of Dynamic Criteria Mapping (DCM)–a way, first developed by writing studies expert Bob Broad in his What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing to study first-year college composition essays and later used to investigate the hidden criteria in assessments of poetry–to this effort. Repurposing DCM, I apply it to this task to try to retrospectively sort out what the Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest judges were actually valuing in what they read, investigating 23 athlete profiles from 2003 to the present day that received runner-up and national winner honors. My endeavor is to more closely consider how one “captivate[s] an audience”? Can we better describe this? I think it’s possible, and I, in fact, devise a new set of criteria for the contest as a whole to help future writers who submit to the contest put forth their best work and ultimately appeal more completely to the audience–that is, the contest judges. So far, little information has been published on the criteria for successful sports journalism, and specifically athlete profiles, a unique genre that is theoretically under-researched. My work helps to fill this gap.
More than Tremendous Stories That Captivate Audiences: Applying Dynamic Criteria Mapping to Athlete Profiles
CNS E101
What makes a great athlete profile? According to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest, it’s “tremendous stories that captivates our audiences.” Additionally, CSC states that “[e]ntries will be judged on overall writing style, creativity, flow and organization, inventiveness, grammar, punctuation, opening and closing paragraphs, and the ease with which the reader acquires the information.” However, these vague statements clearly do not–cannot–capture all the crucial criteria. In my paper, I work to seek out the actual criteria. I apply the methodology of Dynamic Criteria Mapping (DCM)–a way, first developed by writing studies expert Bob Broad in his What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing to study first-year college composition essays and later used to investigate the hidden criteria in assessments of poetry–to this effort. Repurposing DCM, I apply it to this task to try to retrospectively sort out what the Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest judges were actually valuing in what they read, investigating 23 athlete profiles from 2003 to the present day that received runner-up and national winner honors. My endeavor is to more closely consider how one “captivate[s] an audience”? Can we better describe this? I think it’s possible, and I, in fact, devise a new set of criteria for the contest as a whole to help future writers who submit to the contest put forth their best work and ultimately appeal more completely to the audience–that is, the contest judges. So far, little information has been published on the criteria for successful sports journalism, and specifically athlete profiles, a unique genre that is theoretically under-researched. My work helps to fill this gap.