We at blog.xnepali.com have started to accept guest articles to be published in the blog. Best 2 articles selected from every 10 published articles will be awarded gift certificates.

Article Contest Rules

Articles should be sent to this email address:

Articles should reach us by September 30 October 31, 2009.

Two winners will be selected from the first 10 (ten) published articles. If more than 10 articles are received remaining articles will compete in the next cycle of selection.

First prize – a gift certificate equivalent of NRs 1000
Second prize – a gift certificate equivalent of NRs 500.

For authors living in foreign countries, winning prize can be sent by either of the following two methods:

• Equivalent amounts sent through PayPal.
• Or gift certificate sent to the relative or friends in Nepal

Article:

• Article can be any non-fiction topic that informs, teaches or amuses the reader.
• The topic should be related to Nepal. It can be any of essay, investigative article, human interest article, personal experiences, travel article etc.
• Length – maximum of 1000 words with no minimum words limit
• The article should be original and unpublished.
• The article should be written either in English or Nepali language.
• Text can be written in any text editors but should be sent in format that can be read in text editors like Notepad.
• Please use photos and illustrations as required. The photos and illustration should be the authors own creation or should hold written permission from the original creator.
• Photos and illustration should be sent in JPG format. Other format picture will be converted in JPG format for publication. Sizes and resolution could be changed before publication.
• One author can participate with more than one article – but only one article from an author can be considered for competition at one time.
• Articles can refer other websites but in-line links can not be more than one external link. If links to other websites are absolutely necessary, reference list can be provided at the bottom of the article.
• Advertising products or services and self promoting articles will not be accepted

Rights on article:

• The articles will be published in the xnepali.com or its sister websites. Other than that, the author shall hold all the rights on the article and illustrations. We might consider publishing the articles in paper form in later stage. We however will seek permission from the author if we decide to do so.

Selection Procedure:

The article will be initially evaluated by the Article Evaluation Committee (AEC) to decide on which of the four categories the article falls in:

1. Good for publication
2. Good for publication after minor editing
3. Good for publication after major editing
4. Not good for publication

An email will be sent to every article authors stating the decision made by the AEC. Further instruction will be attached if further editing or alteration is required on the article. The article falling in the category 4 will be returned to the author..

Initial evaluation will be made within one week of receiving the application. Publication however might take some time depending on publication queue.

Depending on the number of articles received, a maximum of 1 (one) article will be published on a week.

AEC is responsible for selection of article for publication (not for the selection of winners). Article Selection Committee (ASC) will be formed to select the winners.

The decision of the AEC and ASC will be final and it couldn’t be debated upon.

The winners will be selected based on the evaluation criteria developed by the ASC.

Each published articles will have ‘vote’ buttons to vote for and against the article. Visitor vote might be one of the evaluation criteria with a certain weightage.
Evaluation criteria and weightage:

• • Originality (25%)
  • Organization of information (25%)
  • Presentation (25%)
  • Number of votes received from site visitors (25%)

Article Evaluation Committee (AEC) members

• • Editor, blog.xnepali.com – Anand Sharma
  • Administrators forum.xnepali.in

Article Selection Committee (ASC) members will consist of AEC members and some guest bloggers to be announced after the publication of 10 guest articles and before the start of the winner selection process.

Winners will be announced after one month of the publication of the 10th guest article. Remaining articles will be eligible for the next competition and the contest will continue as long as we receive guest articles for publication.