How To Score and Comment on a Nomination

Watch this short video about how to score and comment on a nomination

Scoring and commenting on a nomination couldn't be easier:

Read through the nomination (including any supporting materials or links attached to the nomination)
Select a score from the pulldown menu
Provide a brief, constructive comment about the nomination
Click one of the buttons provided to submit your score and comment, and proceed.

It should take you no more than 2-3 minutes to read through and score most nominations. Here are the meanings of the scores on the pulldown menu:

Recuse	Select to recuse yourself from scoring a nomination because you or your organization are in some way associated with it. You must recuse yourself from scoring nominations submitted by your own organization.
Wrong Category	Select if you believe a nomination has been submitted in the wrong category and you are unable to rate it in its current category. Provide a brief explanation of your decision in the Comments field.
10	Best performance: absolutely the best, in your experience.
9	Extraordinary performance: among the top 10%, in your experience.
8	Above average performance: among the top 20%, in your experience.
7	Above average performance: among the top 30%, in your experience.
6	Average performance: among the top 40-50%, in your experience.
5	Average performance: no better or worse than any other in your experience.
4	Below average performance: among the lowest 40%, in your experience.
3	Below average performance: among the lowest 30%, in your experience.
2	Poor performance: among the lowest 20%, in your experience.
1	Poor performance: among the lowest 10%, in your experience.

Guidelines

Be sure to read the information about the nominating organization that appears above the nomination, including the organization description, the title of the nomination, and the nomination's category.

Do not compare one nomination to another. Score each nomination you judge on its own merits. Nominations will vary in tone, length, and structure because of the openness of the entry requirements.

Entrants will sometimes submit the same nomination to multiple categories. In these cases you should judge each instance of a nomination independently.

Judge the achievements portrayed in each nomination based on (a) your own experience, and (b) your understanding of how organizations and people in the nominee's industry performed during the eligibility period, given the condition of the economy in general and the condition of the nominee's industry in particular.

Score each nomination on the achievements portrayed in the eligibility period only. Use any information about the nominee from before the eligibility period as background only. Exceptions to this rule are for Lifetime Achievement categories and web site/blog categories.

Use RECUSE or WRONG CATEGORY as your score only for the reasons stated in the scoring chart above. If you cannot score a nomination for any other reason, click the orange Cancel button and choose another nomination to judge.

Presentation counts. You should give some weight in your score to how well a nomination is written, and to how well the entrant answered the questions presented.

Many nominations feature links to online news stories, press releases, or other documents that the entrant has provided to support the claims made in the nomination. Please look at these documents. When you click on them, they will open in a separate browser window so that you will not be taken away from the judging page.

Use of the Comments field: You MUST provide a brief, constructive comment about every nomination you score. Keep in mind that entrants will see your comments after Stevie Award winners are announced (although they won't know who made the comments). Entrants are looking for feedback from the judges about how to improve their nominations and how to better portray their organizations' achievements.