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Sandeep's announcement on the TWIN list:
Hello,
On behalf of the TWIN portal and judges, I'm glad to announce the winners of the recently-concluded TWIN Technical Writing Blogging Contest. Before getting into the specifics of the three winners, I'd like to write some boring preface...err...thank all the participants who submitted their blog posts for the contest. It was both informative and fun to read posts on some really diverse topics. And don't believe a word when Suman announced that we're going to publicly ridicule the really sad posts. That I AM announcing the winners instead of him is sufficient proof of the kind of evil we're convinced he is capable of.

Now that I've dispensed with shamelessly name-calling Suman, a few words are in order to outline the yardstick the judges adopted to shortlist the winners. In general, we've identified these broad parameters in deciding the winners:

1) Uniqueness of the theme -- the central idea of the piece. Was it original or a mishmash of ideas borrowed from multiple sources?
2) Flow -- how effectively and clearly did the blogger tell the story. In several ways, blogging is extremely informal writing although that's not mandatory. Clarity above all, comes first, so there!
3) Structure -- how was the information organized. Was is logical? Were any loose ends left untied?
4) Syntax --did the piece adhere to grammar, language, and related detestable...err...desired rules?
5) Value -- what learning did the reader takeaway from the post? Did it enrich the reader's expertise, skill, and other nice-sounding things?

Based on these parameters, and adhering strictly to the lofty
principles of neutrality, fairness, justice, and objectivity, we shortlisted these folks:

Preran -- http://www.twin-india.org/?q=node/191
Vidyut -- http://www.twin-india.org/?q=node/143
Promythia -- http://www.twin-india.org/?q=node/110
Raula_vivek -- http://www.twin-india.org/?q=node/96
Anindita -- http://www.twin-india.org/?q=node/87

Just so that the participants feel good, I need to mention that the judges fussed over each post arguing why their shortlisted entry was better than the other. At one point, they got personal...okay, I exaggerated.

However, as there's place for just three at the top, we had to painfully choose, and shortlist the winners. To make this a tad more dramatic, I'm going to give the names of the winners in reverse order.
#3: Vidyut
#2 Promythia

And you really need to hold your breath because I can sense your impatient anticipation.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first place of the first ever TWIN Technical Writing Blogging Contest goes to ANINDITA for her superbly-written "Genesis, before Darwin, of a User Manual."

If the length of this announcement bored you, I want to absolve myself of all fault. Gururaj and Suman asked me to write this at gunpoint.

On a more solemn note to the winners, please email
Suman(sumank at gmail dot com), Gururaj(gururaj.bs at gmail dot com), or me
(deepu.sandeep at gmail dot com) (much better if you sent that email to all of us) offlist, your full residence or office address where you want us to courier your respective (hate that word!) prizes.

For some reason, the best is supposed to reserved for the last, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank IBRUK for generously sponsoring the prizes.

Thank you folks, and looking forward to participation in greater numbers in future blogging (or other) contests!
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Best Regards,
Sandeep B
List Administrator