On March 28, the Journalism UIL competition took place at Liberty High School in Frisco, with Julianna Sweatman, 12, placing third for Headline Writing, Nishka Tare, 9, placing fourth in Copyediting and Olivia Northcutt, 12, accomplishing sixth place in Ready Writing. Emerson participated in a variety of events such as feature writing, Copy editing, News writing, Headline, Editorial and Ready Writing. Events were scattered throughout the day, starting with ready writing at 8:00 a.m.,, ending at 3:00 p.m. with headline writing.
Top three competitors qualify for regionals, while fourth, fifth and sixth, qualify for being a regional alternative. The opportunity for Northcutt to potentially move onto regionals was a positive shock, prompting her to share her thoughts on her perceived expectations of her placing.
“ I was kind of surprised when I found out that I placed because I wasn’t expecting anything when I signed up,” Northcutt said.
The creative writing style really allowed Northcutt to be free with her love for writing, influencing her strong feelings towards the topics that she chose to write about.
“I really love creative writing and conversing about random topics, so ready writing seemed like a natural choice when I signed up for UIL,” Northcutt said. “I chose to write about the impact of society choosing to focus on technology and STEM in place of humanity and philosophy.”
Pakapon Gibbons, 11, competed in Copyediting and Feature Writing, emphasizing why it was unique compared to the other writing styles and what that means in terms of an audience.
“Something I love about that style of writing is that you can take a story and portray it in a meaningful way to a larger audience,” Gibbons said.
All in all, the competition emphasized the importance of large program competitions, but also the importance of smaller ones. It also allowed students to express the art of writing based on their own thoughts. Gibbons enunciates the aspect “By competing in UIL, it allows hardworking journalism students to showcase their skills and get recognition for their talents just like larger clubs such as theater,” Gibbons said.
