Valentine Competition.
Tilova For Africa, a US-based NGO supported us with 50k and another friend who prefers anonymity donated 50k too. So for 100k let us write in the season of love!
Please choose from the topics and follow the instructions below;
competiton
Topics: Essay Competition Week 39.
For #Week39 of the #CmonionlineEssayCompetition choose a topic from your preferred genre and write to possibly emerge as one of the winners of our N60,000 cash prize.
Essay Competition: Week 6 Winner.
We have our winner for week 6. Both judges unanimously picked I Did Not Want To Die Yet by Osanyiro Oluwaseun. Osanyiro is proving to be a writer with flair. Writing on her experience with alcoholism she used the first paragraph to introduce her topic in an exquisitely creative manner that had the reader captivated and wanting more. She then beautifully developed the topic in a flowing narrative with quick recollections that didn’t derail the immediacy of her story. She concluded with the lesson she learnt. And as usual, her grammar, structure and punctuation were all accurate. Congratulations on your second winning Osanyiro. You obviously took the judges’ recommendation last week. Keep writing! We received 15 entries out of which 14 were published. One was not published for reasons which were communicated to the writer. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide feedback this week as we worked on a tight schedule, however, we will resume in subsequent weeks. Caution: Last week we discovered plagiarised contents in one of the essays and it has also been discovered in another this week. It is clearly stated in our general rules that we have zero tolerance for plagiarism. This exercise is a journey to help us get better in reading, writing and thinking so plagiarists will be disqualified henceforth. It is noteworthy to say here that our 12 judges so far have worked independently. Yet each time they have either arrived at the same pick or had at least two essays in their top three. It is incredible and it can only mean we have chosen well and we are also doing well. We have to applaud our judges for this so please stand up wherever you are and give a round of applause for them. “clap! clap!! clap!!!” Thank you. That was a rousing one. We wish to thank our sponsors, readers, writers and everyone for their support. The community is growing bigger and better so stay with us! Next up will be the topics for week 7.
Essay Competition: Week 2 Winner.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner/s of the cmonionline essay competition week 2. The winning essay is “Effect Of Foreign Debts On Nigeria’s Infrastructural Development by Oyinola Abosede” Oyinola introduced his topic well by incorporating a personal account of his interaction with a public official on the subject matter. He then developed it with sound arguments giving examples with relevant statistics and facts to emphasize the points raised. He concluded by making suggestions. His diction, syntax, punctuation and paragraphing were equally good. Congratulations to Oyinola for winning the N10,000:00 cash prize. You wrote in last time and improved this time to nick the 1st position. You can be proud of your essay and we certainly look forward to more entries from you. The publisher has also awarded N5,000:00 cash prize each to encourage the two other writers that made the top 3. How Nigerians Chose Big Brother Naija Over The Presidential Election by Aaron Livingstone.    2. Letter From The Future by Folarin Oluwatimilehin. While Aaron wrote in for the first time, Folarin is a previous winner and has once again shown that he is a talent to look out for. We are glad and honoured to encourage both of them in their writing journey. Congratulations guys. For obvious reasons, we had more entries than in the 1st week out of which 10 good essays were published. The others didn’t make our editorial standards for various reasons already listed here. Furthermore, as this is a collective learning process we will now be providing some tips from the judges’ feedback. This week we noted that the grading rubric across various disciplines particularly in Africa often attach more weight to content since English isn’t our mother tongue. Moreover, it can be argued that diction or language is about communicating effectively and not necessarily precisely. Yet adequate emphasis must be laid on good grammar, syntax and punctuation especially in creative writing, prose, poetry where style is crucial to evocation which is at the core of that literary genre. Thus our editorial standard is such that we ALWAYS trash any work dotted with red lines leaving no option to ascertain its contents. So please always double-check your grammar and punctuation. Also, endeavour to read the instructions carefully to enhance your chances of winning. Provide a short bio and a bright pic within the recommended size (Oyinola Abosede take note). Caption your essay in your own words. We provide topics, not titles. This exercise is a journey to create a unique audience of not just writers but readers and thinkers. We wish to thank everyone for their support especially our judges and sponsors. And once again congratulations to our writers and readers. We have taken off well and will even get better. Please remember that we are all winners!
