Essay writing is not just an activity but an art. It could be a hobby, habit, passion or even profession. Earlier, students considered essay writing a tedious thing to do but during the lockdown, when everything was shut down, many people especially students adapted the habit of reading and writing. To Express their hidden feelings and thoughts regarding topics, they wrote poems, articles, short stories and mostly essays. To encourage them, different organizations organized fun online essay writing competitions. Newspaper and magazine agencies left space for children’s write ups. Many students actively participated. But now, when the world has finally escaped from covid’s clutches, and everything has come back to normal, offline essay writing competitions should be held. but It’s not just the governments or different organizations’ duty to organize essay writing competitions, but everyone amongst us, who wish to encourage young talents, could step ahead, and organize essay writing competitions for children and youngsters.
Has this idea of organizing an essay writing competition ever come to your mind? If yes and you earnestly wish to organize an essay writing contest, then here are some tips that may help you in planning a successful, idiosyncratic, and unique essay writing contest. They are as follows:
• decide your budget as in how much you can spend on the set-up
• ask your friends for suggestions and ideas
• choose a place where you wish to organize the contest. Try to select an open place like a garden as it will attract more participants
• give choice between topics. Choose topics which are relevant to the current youngsters/students
• name your organization
• choose a day and time which most probably could be suitable and convenient for all the students
• circulate the information of the contest a week ago to give participants enough time to prepare themselves
• create your own website to be able to resolve everyone’s queries or doubts
• think of unique ways to give students a break from the monotonous way essay writing competitions is usually organized in
• surf the websites of various recognized and famous essay writing competitions organizing organizations to get some ideas and knowledge regarding the field
• use Google to find some spectacular ideas
• talk to someone who has organized an essay writing contest before
• decide the word limit
• decide the time limit
• make two categories: senior category (13-17) and junior category (6-12)
• give the freedom of language as in, provide the participants freedom to write their essays in any language they are comfortable in
• design an online pamphlet and circulate it on WhatsApp groups, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites to bring it to more people’s knowledge
• keep pre-registration
• give an advertisement in the newspaper to promote your competition
• keep an affordable and reasonable entry fee as it would sponsor the prizes
• keep exciting and amazing prizes and not just cash prizes to attract more participants
• allow the participants to write the essays on laptops or mobile phones to make it easy for them to write and ask them to email you the same. It will make it easy for you as well to check the essays
• set a limit to the entry of the participants as you are a beginner and may not be able to handle a big group of children
After the competition is over, give the participants the chance to select the winners. Upload all the received essays on your website and enable voting option. Allow each participant to vote for 2 essays: one of their own and one of someone else. Your vote would have 5 points. Those who would receive the maximum numbers of votes, would be declared as the winners. This way, participants will consider the decision non-biased.
• play soothing and relaxing music in the background while the participants are writing
• keep 3 ranks and 5 runner ups
• keep trophies, badges and medals for the winners and runner-ups. Decide a personalized gift for the 1st rank holder
• give each participant a participation certificate to boost their confidence
• after the competition is done, do inform all the participants regarding how they can improve and try to change their perspective regarding the topic
These tips might help planners to organize successful and excellent essay writing competitions. Though, the planners won’t earn much money, but they might help the planners to earn recognition and their organization to gain promotion. New planners should remember that it’s one’s compassion, interest, dedication, and stubbornness that makes a planning or set up successful. So, don’t give up your stubbornness and compassion. They are your most powerful weapons. They are the greatest tips that may lead to excellent, successful, and praise-worthy competitions. Enjoy the pleasure of planning essay writing competitions. Good luck!
