*Important Note: In any question of procedure or documentation, the Constitution and Contest Rules should be consulted.
Internet and E-mail Documentation
Q. Is e-mail or information secured from the Internet an acceptable form of documentation?
A. Students are allowed to access the Internet to locate documentation. As long as the site they have downloaded the information from is a legitimate one, it is acceptable to offer as documentation. (The obvious ones are
encyclopedias such as Encarta.) Many contemporary authors today have their own website, and information from these are acceptable, since they are copyrighted to the author, as is information students download from a
publishing company’s website. However, be careful of personal web sites that are not copyrighted. These do not provide acceptable documentation.
Acceptable Internet sites include those run by:
Government Agencies
College/University pages that are maintained by faculty and university department personnel, not students
On-line encyclopedias
Book Publishers
On-line libraries maintained by government agencies, colleges, universities
If an on-line data service is used for documentation, the source of the published material should be included.
Many students are now receiving e-mail direct from the authors themselves. E-mail is acceptable as long as it provides sufficient information to legitimize it as being received from a proper source. If the email address does not indicate the legitimate source (such as Scholastic Publishing), it is preferable for students to request from the respondent that they include their title/position and contact information. Note: The respondent should be instructed to copy the original request for information onto their response so the particular request can be verified.
Letterhead Stationary Documentation
Q. Is a letter from the publisher/author on letterhead stationery acceptable?
A. Yes. The letter should be formal and on official stationery, not handwritten on plain paper.
Written Documentation
Q. What does the Constitution and Contest Rules mean by “written documentation”? May I hand copy or type my documentation?
A. No. Documentation should be provided from its original source, either photocopied or downloaded and printed electronically. Students may not create their own original documentation.
Library of Congress
Q. What if the Library of Congress catalogues the book as “Personal Narratives”?
A. This identifies the work as being autobiographical.
Dewey Decimal Classification
Q. Why did UIL include the Dewey Decimal Classification as a possible source for documentation?
A. Although the Library of Congress is much simpler and consistent, Dewey Decimal Classification was included because the majority of public schools have their libraries catalogued with this system.
Q. I thought all Dewey Decimal Numbers represented non-fiction works?
A. Not true. Fairytales and Fables are listed under 398.2 and their very nature is fiction. American fiction in Dewey Decimal Classification is given the number 813. Other cultures such as German literature, French literature, etc. have their own Dewey Decimal numbers too.
Best-Seller Lists
Q. Where can I access past best-seller lists?
A. The New York Times on the Web Books Specials page archives their lists going back to 1997. www.nytimes.com
Magazines
Q. How do I provide documentation for selections published in literary magazines?
A. These present an enormous challenge to prove since they are not catalogued under Library of Congress or the Dewey Decimal System. You will need to contact the publisher for written confirmation is non-fiction.
Documentation Resources
Q. If the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal does not clearly catalogue a work fiction, where can I go for prose documentation?
A. Reference books may be very helpful in providing documentation on whether a literary work is
catalogued as fiction.
Several Internet sites are proving helpful.
Booksinprint.com for example. (Use the “Advanced Search” to filter books as non-fiction. If it does not give the cataloged information, then go to lcweb.loc.gov and use the publisher information to contact the publisher and seek confirmation.
OCLC (a global library cooperative)
ALSO
www.amazon.com
www.oclc.org
Q. Can Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, be used for documentation purposes?
A. No. (see www.uil.utexas.edu/academics/speech/wikipedia_ruling.html)
Published
Q. In order to prove a selection is published, printed material and Internet material has been printed in hard
copy as well as being on the Internet, may we use Library of Congress cataloguing information?
A. Yes. Students may research a book by accessing the Library of Congress Online Catalog. If the book is
listed there, you may download and print the cataloguing information in order to serve as proof the work is
published in hard copy.
Fiction - Yes or No?
Q. What if my piece I wish to read for Category B of prose appears to be fiction but the cataloguing of my book does not say fiction prose?
A. Examine the original source of the material. Is there anything published in the book that indicates it is not a true story? Check the introduction to the book or the preface, prologue, introduction, etc. Sometimes the book jacket will include a statement about this book being fictitious.
Authors
Q. For Category A of Prose, the Southern Experience, may I read Mark Twain or Maya Angelou? They both write about the south.
A. No. Both writers were born in Missouri, which is not one of the 12 states approved for the category.
Q. In Category A of Poetry, is it acceptable to use a poet who was nominated for one of the designated awards?
A. No. The poet must have been named an actual recipient of the award.
Q. Are you required to use the actual poem for which the poet received the award?
A. No. You may use any published poem written by the award-winning poet.
Q. How do we obtain documentation the poet is a recipient of one of the approved awards?
A. A list of award winners is posted on the UIL website. Also, this manual includes links to the websites for each award so you can print from the official award website, as well. Download the list, making sure you print the homepage to identify the site and the specific award; then highlight your poet’s name to show to the contest director.
Special Collections
Q. My students enjoy the Chicken Soup for the Souls series. Can these be used for the Prose contest?
A. It is strongly recommended students not use selections from the Chicken Soup series. They are problematic and usually result in disqualification due to incomplete documentation. Documenting the stories proves very difficult. Many times the individual attributed to a particular story in the collection is only a contributor and not the original author. Finding proof of original authorship will require a student and coach to obtain confirmation from the publisher. Again, we recommend students not use this series.
Same Selection
Q. Can you explain the rule concerning using the same selection I’ve already used in UIL competition?
A. Contestants may not use the same literary work more than one year at UIL State Meet. See further discussion on this issue just prior to the Questions & Answers section.
Prose Poetry
Q. I’ve found literature which is referred to on the book jacket as a prose poem. Should it be used in the prose contest or in the poetry contest? Where would it fit?
A. A Handbook to Literature, 8th edition, Harmon and Holman discusses this “modern phenomenon” and indicates that “some writers and critics argue that the prose poem doesn’t really exist.” “It may be that prose poem is a graphic or print category determined, finally, by how a piece is laid out in print.” Literature scholar Lawrence Perrine indicates in Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense that a prose poem is “usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse.”
Because this is a competitive situation, contestants are urged to use contest material which clearly can be
determined as prose or poetry. The risk of controversy or disqualification is not worth it. Literature which clearly fits the genre categories abounds and makes it unnecessary to risk using literature which creates a genre blur.
One Poem or Two
Q. Is poetry which includes stanzas divided by Roman numerals but not individual titles considered one poem or multiple poems?
A. Poetry that has one title but Roman numerals between stanzas is one poem. The divisions are called cantos. A Handbook to Literature defines a canto as a section or division of a long peom. Derived from the Latin cantus (SONG), the word originally signified a section of a narrative poem of such length as to be sung by a minstrel in one singing. The books of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage are divided into cantos. Early in this century, Ezra Pound published pieces at first called “cantos of a poem of some length” and eventually called that poem simply The Cantos. Contemporary examples include: The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg and Rage by Lesléa Newman.
Specific Writers
Check the speech page of the UIL website for rulings about particular authors.
More Questions
See the web site for additional questions and answers to be added throughout the year.
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