Chairman Problem

[cilginbilgin]

Manuel tells about an essay for 10,000 characters but on the other hand they have some more topics to write an essay for. We couldnt understand. Is 10,000 characters the sum of other topics' limit?? Help us

[Pjohn1959]

I believe its 10,000 characters, not words. The judges ain't got no time to read no novel...

I'm not sure what you mean by other topics.

The essay should cover what your team has done to meet the RCA criteria.

[cilginbilgin]

I'm sorry you are right but is it something different than other topics?

[dcarr]

The Essay is 10,000 characters (with spaces).

Each Executive Summary question is 500 characters (with spaces).

[Jimmy Nichols]

There is a 10,000 character essay. Then there are other team topic questions, once you log in to submit your essay. There should be a text box for the essay and multiple text boxes for these other topics, with there own character limits. I'm not on the awards team and haven't seen the topics myself or I would let you know what these are.

[cilginbilgin]

Thank you so much Your replies helped us a lot and as I understood essay should be about 6.4.3.1 questions right???

[dcarr]

The essay can have some overlap with the questions, sure, but try to make use of all the space you're given to present your team in the best way.

[cilginbilgin]

So essay content is similar to summaries' content?

[Dancin103]

Yes, the summary content should be short and lead the judges to want to read more into that. The summary is short, the essay is long and more detailed...

[cilginbilgin]

It is a little bit funny why do we write it again? And isn't it these contents same?
• Describe the impact of the FIRST program on your team and community with special emphasis on the 2012/2013 year and the preceding two years (500 characters allowed, including spaces and punctuation)

• Briefly describe the impact of the FIRST program on team participants with special emphasis on the 2012/2013 year and the preceding two years (500 characters allowed, including spaces and punctuation)

[Kims Robot]

It might be a bit lost in translation, but the difference between the two is subtle. Think of it this way:

• Describe the impact of the FIRST program on your team and community with special emphasis on the 2012/2013 year and the preceding two years (500 characters allowed, including spaces and punctuation)

Talk about your team's involvement with the community - think Demonstrations, Volunteer Work, Community Businesses, etc.

• Briefly describe the impact of the FIRST program on team participants with special emphasis on the 2012/2013 year and the preceding two years (500 characters allowed, including spaces and punctuation)

Talk about your team members - how have the students & mentors grown, bonded, etc.

Hope that helps!

And yes, the Executive Summary is a bit repetitive of what goes in the essay, but that is really the point of the summary.

Good luck!

[cilginbilgin]

Thank you it helped a lot

[DonRotolo]

As you are finding, writing a short essay is much more difficult that writing a long essay. The key is to use the language as expertly and carefully as you can, making every single word count a lot towards your goal.

[Carol]

Look at the examples in the media section here (or others, if you have them). Particularly the winning essays!

You can search the papers for the essays. As a start (and not to say ours was any better than the others) here is the link to MOE's:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/1983

If I am remembering it correctly, we used the sections outlined in the Executive Summary to organize and write the essay, then wrote the Executive Summary based on the essay. Other teams might do it the other way around.