Dear Judge:

Thank you for agreeing to critique Michigan news websites.

PLEASE REVIEW OUR CRITIQUE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE STARTING YOUR WORK.

This website has been designed as a hub for critique judges for information related to our Spartan critiques.

MIPA’s website standards are designed to provide a framework for the judge in evaluating the news website, to reward the staff for creativity and accomplishment and to provide suggestions for improvement for the future. We have tried to make our critique guide as open-ended as possible to allow the judge to consider all aspects of the student media and its audience.

Please submit your critique to our online form. We have a worksheet version of the critique guide in Word and Google Docs to help you prepare your work.

Please offer plenty of useful feedback and evaluate the website on journalistic standards while allowing experimentation for a purpose. We suggest you find at least 1-3 positive things to say for each area of the judging guide and 1-3 recommendations for improvement - regardless of the score in that area. In other words, we want to see encouraging, constructive criticism.

Please do not leave comment areas blank.

Please view the website(s) you’ve been assigned several times at various intervals between now and April 1 so that you can get a feel for how often it is updated and you can see the breadth of content student journalists produce for the Web. 

We will process payment for your work as soon as all of your assigned critiques are received in the office.

Use the Website menu on this site to see some important info and a primer on how we like to have our websites evaluated by our judges. If you have any questions about critiques or have any problems accessing information on this website, please don’t hesitate to contact the MIPA office at 517-353-6761 or ask@mipamsu.org. 

Sincerely,

Jeremy W. Steele, MIPA executive director

Tracy Anderson, Digital Media chairperson 

Accessing entries

• Click on the Website Backgrounders menu item and find your name in the list.

• Please read about each student media outlet to which you are assigned by clicking on "Information about this media outlet." This is information provided by the adviser to help you better under the circumstances of this school and this media outlet.

• Use our judging guide standards for additional help.

Submitting your critiques

• Complete the online form.

• This form is built on the Qualtrics platform. Qualtrics uses cookies to save your work as you go. If you need to leave your work for an extended period, please skip ahead to the last page and submit your work so far. You will receive an email that will include a link that will allow you to revise what you previously have submitted.

• A Word or Google Doc worksheet is available, from which you can copy and paste your work into the online form.

IMPORTANT!

• Please keep a copy of each critique for your records (just in case something happens).

• If, for any reason, you find yourself unable to complete your critiques by the deadline, please let us know immediately. We understand and we'll get someone else to take over!

• Thank you!