Competitions, the Hows (Part 6)

Please don't start here, please start HERE: https://sites.google.com/site/kadasresearch/guides-and-tutorials/documentation-and-competitions

Oky doky.

Hopefully, right now, you are holding:

Some reasons you want to enter A&S competitions

Some ideas about what you NEED to judge an entry

Some examples of entries, basic information/documentation, and judging forms

A lot of questions

However, that is not what you came here for, is it? You wanted to know HOW TO ENTER. Now we get to start putting the pieces together for that, eh?

With the tools you've been given so far, start a list of what you need to do in order to fulfill YOUR goals in this competition. List at least 5 things to do, they can be mental or physical, to do with your actual object or with how you will present it, document it, etc.

Take about 5 minutes:

As always, no right or wrong answers. 

Mine change from competition to competition, but here are a few:

1. Make SURE I know why I am doing this/what I want to get out of it (have a GOAL)

2. Do a self-check on my attitude. Going into a major competition feeling confident is GREAT, cocky is not-so-hot, confrontational is bad-news-bears! Being convinced my judges will give me awesome feedback is best, thinking one might wuss out is okay, thinking they are out to get me...would only lead to disappointment on both sides :)

3. Make sure that I can display/show the judges my entry nicely. If it's a garment, they'll need to see how it fits....hmmmm. If it's a pouring jug, I'll need something to pour out of it. If there are images of medieval equivalents/identical items, I should print those out. If I want to talk about how I made it, I should bring the tools I used. I DEFINITELY need multiple copies of my documentation!

4. Make sure my thing is SUPER COOL. Usually this involves asking experts what they think, well in advance of the contest. Then, if they have constructive criticism, I can make changes in time. Poor Countess Inga was once stuck with me sending her photos of drawings of little Icelandic dudes every day until she confirmed they looked okay (possibly just to make me go away, grin).

5. ORGANIZE MY THOUGHTS. This is often done IN your documentation, but if you need to present your work, it is also very important there. I like to use a poster, but I am used to scientific formats. This is related to MAKE A PLAN. Since I know the format, how is that going to work with MY thing? Depending on what I want out of this competition, how am I going to achieve that?

And, of course, the most important:

6. MAKE A WELL RESEARCHED, MEDIEVAL-APPROPRIATE ITEM THAT I AM KNOWABLE IN THE DETAILS OF ITS CONSTRUCTION, USE, AND MEANING IN THE MIDDLE AGES

'cause, let me tell you, if you get that super-cool, absolute rock-star judge....they are totally going to ask you who wore/used/made this in the middle ages....and how you know. And that moment, when you KNOW the answer, and they nod in agreement, will make all the rest of the work worth it! Grin.

FOR ME (and as always, your mileage may vary) the documentation part of this is at least, if not more, than half of the entry. Clearly communicating why I made each choice, and supporting each statement with good evidence IS what I set out to do. Yes, there is a thing, but it is the making and documenting OF THE THING that are important to me. A shiny object is just shiny, a medieval object with good documentation is what leads MY goals to be fulfilled :)

There are, of course, a million more nuts and bolts to the whole thing than this. But, quite frankly, those are details that can be done in MANY ways. Is a poster better than a folder? Meh. Is a paper organized by time or by subject? Meh. How far into the background do you have to do? Meh. Go read examples. Be a student judge. Figure out how it is best for YOU. Read the guides online (http://arts-sciences.westkingdom.org/documenting/how-to.html).

You need to provide information, yes. HOW you do that, is up to you.

Another important note: don't let the rock-star ENTRANT intimidate you! Again, back to our Crown analogy...if you are entering your FIRST EVER CROWN TOURNEY...you are not expected to be at the same level as the Dukes! No...really! If you have never entered an A&S competition before, well, that means you are a beginner, yes? Have beginner expectations of yourself, and exceed them :)

Do not feel you must compare yourself to the Laurel-of-many-years who has been preparing for the last 14 months for 

THIS. ONE. DAY.

Yes, it is true, my documentation for my last A&S entry was 40+ pages. Do you know why? Because that represents 10 years of research, of past entries that I have improved, of synthesis of a BOX of papers. If you haven't been working on your documentation on this ONE subject for 10 years, why are you comparing your research paper to mine?

Okay. So. Do you feel more prepared? Do you feel like you have a starting point, and can visualize both the process and your ideal end point of this process?

If you would like to read about documentation, please visit this link: https://sites.google.com/site/kadasresearch/guides-and-tutorials/documentation-and-competitions/competitions-the-whys/competitions-the-hows/documentation-in-brief