Of all the writing competitions, the Scholastic Arts Essay Contest is one of the most prestigious writing contests. Since its founding in 1923, this challenging contest has given students in grades 7 to 12 the possibility to demonstrate their technical skills, critical thinking, and creative expression through original writing and art initiatives. This contest allows students to demonstrate the power of their written words, depth of creativity and strength of analysis.
Only the best ones are awarded the first prize in this contest. This is the effort of these college students who have a unique voice that resonates with the judges. One high-quality literary contest that takes area each year is the Scholastic Art Essay Competition. It lets younger minds demonstrate the strength of their thinking capability in writing.
Many college students take part in this competition and search for advice from The Academic Papers UK. If you are also collaborating in this contest, then you have come to the proper location. Let us give you tips to make your essay exceptional and win this competition with distinction. 8 tips and tricks on writing a Scholastic Arts essay contest are the following:
8 Tips to Win a Scholastic Arts Essay Contest
To win the prestigious first prize in the Scholastic Arts Essay Contest, one wishes to write down a fascinating essay. This essay has to reveal the writer’s notable writing abilities, ingenuity, and depth of knowledge.
After analysing the writings of the scholastic arts essay contest winners in 2023, we’ve compiled this guide to help you obtain the prize. Here, we can write some beneficial guidelines so that you can craft a prize-achieving essay.
The following are some of the key lessons of this article:
- Choosing the Right Category
- Comprehend the Theme
- Develop a Compelling Narrative
● Show, Don’t Tell Technique
- Develop Your Unique Voice
- Edit and Revise Your Work
- Adhere to the Contest Guidelines
● Practice, Practice and Practice
Now, let’s explore these tips in detail and get to know how to utilise them while writing an impressive essay.
1. Choosing the Right Category
Selecting the best category for participating in the Scholastic Arts Essay Contests is a challenging task. But if you figure it out, your chances of winning will significantly increase. Each category of the Scholastic Writing Awards allows young writers to explore a wide range of literary expressions.
So, select the genre as a way to fit your awesome voice and the style in which you want to lead your stories: it may be something like Science Fiction, Fantasy or Memoirs. Remember, in case you already have a subject in mind, choose the class most intently related to the topic of the story you need to describe.
Categories with Examples
Examine the categories of the contest you are planning to enter; these are the following:
- Personal narrative essay
- Fiction
- Poetry
- Short stories
- Fantasy and science fiction
If you are a good storyteller, the personal essay and fiction categories are excellent choices. On the other hand, if you know how you feel about current social and environmental issues, the science and technology essay and opinion/argumentative essay categories are right up your alley.
2. Comprehend the Theme
When it involves distinguishing oneself from the competition, a scholar must understand the query and create an interesting essay that addresses it. This segment will provide you with valuable data and help you apprehend the subject, in addition to enhancing your probability of being the winner of the competition. The theme of your essay is its foundation, and understanding it thoroughly will guide your writing.
Spend time on:
- Going over the theme statement
- Identifying the major ideas
- Researching the situation
When you are confident about the theme, examine it critically. Ask yourself:
- Which major and supporting themes do you have?
- What are its implied meanings, purposes, or implications?
- What voice should be used?
3. Develop a Compelling Narrative
For the scholastic arts essay contest, the most important thing is creating a fascinating story that will grab the reader’s attention immediately. As a rule, an essay that wins is a bright story that reflects an original approach to the problem at hand, emotional sincerity, and expression.
In their essays, students can focus on telling a clear and personal story. They can also add sensory images, funny stories, and vivid descriptions of events, making the readers live in their world. So, the scholars can set themselves apart from the competition, genuinely state their point of view, and establish an emotional relationship with the reader.
4. Show, Don’t Tell
If you would like to make your essay the number one winning entry of the Scholastic Arts Essay Contest, you should follow the famous literary rule “Show, Don’t Tell.” Rather than stating a fact or an idea, you should demonstrate it through vivid stories, examples, and descriptive words.
You would make the reader feel as if they were in the events themselves. You should let the readers feel the stress, tension, and crisis all by themselves using sensual information, conversation, and imaginative hints.
This technique will make your writing more engaging and vivid. It will also help you communicate even the most difficult ideas and emotions subtly and efficiently.
Benefits to Incorporate “Show, Don’t Tell” Technique in Your Essay
Here are some advantages to include this technique in your essay:
- Produces a bright environment
- Builds emotion and character
- Enhances complexity and depth
- Draws the reader’s attention
- Demonstrates originality and talent
5. Develop Your Unique Voice
One of the most powerful weapons that you possess as a young writer is your distinctive voice. It is your thoughts, opinions, and emotions that serve to form the peculiarities of that particular part of your writing.
Do not resist your voice, and learn how to accept yourself. One of the primary strategies that scholastic arts essay contest winners employ is the use of a strong, active voice, which transforms simple words into masterpieces. These strategies make your submission to the contest stronger and more active.
Strategies to Improve Your Voice
- You can use movement-orientated verbs in place of passive verbs, which include “argue,” “assert,” “examine,” and “explore,” rather than “is,” “are,” and “have been”.
- Changing the subject-verb-object order in passive sentences is repositioned to make them active. For example: “The ball was thrown by Kate” is an example of a change to “Kate threw the ball.”
- Some words or phrases that you use in your writing may weaken your words, such as “it is believed that” and “there is a need for.” Instead, state directly and use stronger words.
- You can improve your voice and make changes as needed with this strategy to spot weak or passive areas in your writing where it may come across.
6. Edit and Revise Your Work
Before submitting to the scholastic arts essay contest, be sure your work has been edited and revised to a high standard. The difference between your essay isn’t that it will propel you into a top-ranked college or make it competitive; the thing is, it can stop and slow down the flow of things.
To increase your chances of winning, submit something showcasing your creativity and writing ability. Otherwise, why would judges give you a free prize? So, we may say that writing, editing and revising your essay is very important.
Want to know how to edit and revise your writing successfully? Here are a few tips given by expert editors of a London-based essay writing service. Follow these strategies and make your document stand out.
For Editing
An edited article, on the other hand, demonstrates that you can bring perfection to all matters and do not despise criticism.
- Simply put your essay away for a couple of days and come back to it.
- Read your post aloud to catch awkward phrasing, wordiness and grammatical errors.
- Get a mentor, friend or teacher to help give feedback on your writing.
- Helps to keep the essay in a consistent layout and voice.
- Check quotes, data and facts.
For Revision
You will have no trouble writing a winning entry for the Scholastic Arts Essay Contest if you adhere to these revision recommendations.
- Squeeze the sentences and paragraphs to make the writing more coherent and float better.
- Revise your thesis statement so that it is, in reality, expressed, well said and powerfully presented.
- Using suitable transitional phrases or terms ensures a clean drift from one idea or paragraph to the following.
- Avoid making statements without helping your view with an instance or description.
- Carefully study your sentences to avoid needless phrases, terms, or sentences, and express your meaning concisely.
7. Adhere to the Contest Guidelines
To write a winning essay, you are required to follow some rules, which include the length and format of the essay. As a rule, the scholastic arts essay contest tips, requirements and expectations may be breached down into the following steps:
- Understand the eligibility criteria.
- Choose the best topic for the essay.
- Keep in mind word count while writing.
- Observe the submission requirements.
- Don’t miss the deadline.
- Note the evaluation criteria.
The rules are there to make the contest honest for all contributors and to let each creator show his or her dazzling writing talents. Many students put plenty of effort and time into writing their essays, and if they were disqualified from a rule breach, they may suffer substantially.
Moreover, even though the essay is of exactly high-quality, it should have gained the highest scores, but not following the necessities can bring about a lower score or even a disqualification.
8. Practice, Practice and Practice
Work, work, and greater work; that is what the scholastic arts essay contest takes to win! By working towards writing frequently, you could become a higher author with many different competencies like coherence, creativity, and readability. The scholastic arts essay contest is an intensely competitive area, attracting hundreds of the most proficient students.
When you keep writing many articles, your essay will become more resourceful and extra thoughts-driven. If you desire to do nicely, it’s far vital to craft an essay justifiably showcasing your voice, perspective, and style of writing.
Through practice, you will
- Find your voice, tone, and fashion of writing to make your essays more real and exciting.
- You get better at searching complicated topics, the usage of your mind, and expressing your ideas.
- Realise how well you could motivate those minds to express tough topics.
- Writing many articles will enhance the expression of your sentence.
- You can learn how to control your time and exercise in surroundings in which you ought to finish your article inside a time constraint.
What are the Criteria for the Scholastic Writing Contest?
The Scholastic contest evaluates scholarly work by 3 fundamental criteria, as follows:
- Creativity.
- Technical skills.
- The development of a unique voice or vision.
How Much Does It Cost to Enter the Scholastic Writing Contest?
The cost of entry documented in the Scholastic Art + Writing Competition is $10.00 for single entries and $30.00 for entries in a portfolio. The Awards are hosted with the aid of the Alliance 501 non-profit organisation for young artists.
How Many Pieces Can You Submit to Scholastic Art and Writing?
The volume of work you may submit is generally unlimited, except for photography and portfolio. In Art Categories, each person is allowed to submit up to 16 pieces for photography. Writing also accepts two portfolios of artwork and two portfolios of writing. In addition, the images you include in the portfolios will be included in your maximum of 16 works.
End Note
Participating in the Scholastic Arts Essay Competitions is the dream of every writer. After participating in this contest, they feel their lives have been changed. But the real difference comes when you win the first prize in this international level competition. So, to help you ace this, we have compiled a guide with winning tips.
These tips will help with your essay, and you will be able to pursue your love of writing. In addition, with the help of this article, you can express your creativity throughout the competition. So, you require a mixture of imagination, passion, and faith to win the Scholastic Arts Essay Contest.
Finally, just do not forget that you should remain true to yourself in your voice and point of view. And, of course, do not be afraid to experiment and take risks. You can achieve success if only you remain constant on your way and dedicate yourself to excellence.
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