BLUE PROGRAM

Contests & Journals 

(Grades 8-11)

At a Glance

You are in the midst of your high school career. As you navigate your coursework, try out new extracurricular activities, and even begin studying for your SATs in advance, one thing remains certain: everything you do now will prepare you for the years that follow. This is the period where every research topic you explore, every essay you write, and each unique idea you have has an impact on the rest of your life.

This is the time to test your knowledge, explore your intellectual curiosity, and challenge yourself to think outside the box. As you expand your academic interests and develop your voice as a writer, now is the ideal time to enter essay contests and journals. Top-tier competitions and journals—such as John Locke, Concord Review, John F. Kennedy Essay Contest, and the Harvard International Review—all allow you to explore exciting and vastly different forms of essay writing. Whether you are interested in crafting a philosophical essay, writing an opinion piece, conducting an in-depth analysis of a text, or engaging in deep research for an article, an essay contests and journals are the best way to turn your ideas into tangible results.

The J&B team is dedicated to creating competitive essays and supporting the learning processes behind them. By working one-on-one with a team of trained consultants, you can break down essay writing—from ideation and brainstorming to outlining and editing. J&B will work closely with you to ensure that your essay represents who you are as an innovative thinker. Your final essay not only stands a chance of winning an award (a great addition to any college resume) but is a memento of the hard work you put into perfecting your writing!

We at J&B understand that no students have the exact same interests: whether you are a passionate creative writer, a philosopher, an economist, or an environmental advocate, J&B provides personalized guidance in recommending essay contests and journals that suit you best. As you work with our team of experienced consultants, you will get the chance to not only discover who you are but see where your ideas will take you in the future.

J&B provides support and guidance for the following essay contests and journals:
✓ Concord Review
✓ Journal of Student Research (JSR)

✓ John Locke Essay Competition
✓ Ayn Rand Anthem Essay Contest
✓ Harvard International Review Academic Writing Contest
✓ Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
✓ Harvard International Economics Essay Contest
✓ YoungArts Writing Awards
✓ Bennington College Young Writers Awards

✓ Columbia Undergraduate Law Review High School Essay Contest
✓ John F. Kennedy Profile In Courage Essay Contest
✓ International Philosophy Olympiad

Overview

Consulting Process

[Orientation]
We want to ensure that our clients are fully informed of all the details associated with consulting steps. During the orientation, we will go over each consulting step in detail, address any questions/concerns, introduce our project platform (on which clients should upload comments, questions, drafts and other documents) and how to utilize it. Prior to moving on to the next step, any of the client's questions and/or concerns will be clearly addressed.  

[Step 1] Ideation & Brainstorming

One does not need to emphasize how important it is to have good ideas in essay writing. We (“J&B”) certainly know what they are. Good ideas are the ones uniquely generated and selected by the writer, and they directly contribute to producing a final draft both logical and creative. In this step, J&B methodologically help clients come up with not just so-so but superb ideas for their competition essays. 

[Step 2] Topic Confirmation
By the end of Ideation & Brainstorming session, clients should expect to have working but less concrete ideas for their potential essay topic(s). That is absolutely fine. In this step, J&B helps polish the rough, incomplete ideas. How so? Well, by providing clients with top three topics of their interest and passion. This is feasible, for we are relying on the client's ideas and thoughts gathered in Ideation & Brainstorming session. We make sure we fully utilize the client's ideas and thoughts in order to transform them into a list of competitive topics that fully reflects the client's interest and passion.  

[Step 3] Lecture
Once the topic is selected and finalized, we are ready for the lecture. In this step, our consulting team prepares and provides clients with a detailed, PowerPoint-based lecture on the selected topic. The clients are additionally provided with ten scholarly journals to review and prepare to actively engage in discussions for Step 4, which is a seminar session. 

[Step 4] Seminar
Prior to this step, we expect clients to thoroughly re-review the lecture slides as well as scholarly journals provided with. In this step, we engage in active discussions with clients on three to five journals of our choice. Clients should expect to, for example, restate the writer’s thesis in their own words, formulate counterarguments that would potentially invalidate the writer’s claim(s) and others. By the end of Seminar/Debate session, clients should be ready to begin working on an outline.

[Step 5 Outline
In this step, clients will be provided with J&B outline template, model outline and reading sources. It is vital to fully understand the underlying structure and logic in the outline template. A pursuit of essay writing is both creative and logical. Merely having creative ideas is not enough; having a solid, logical structure with compelling evidence to adequately embrace those ideas is equally important to produce a unique, superior final draft. We need both art and science to create a masterpiece.  

[Step 6] First Draft
Once clients fully review and understand the outline template, model outline and reading materials provided in the previous session, they are now ready to work on a first draft. A significant number of our clients have greatly benefited from the resources, especially the model outline. The outline – typically 7-12 page-long – is detailed and clear enough for the clients to fully understand the content (e.g. thesis, claims, etc.) as well as underlying logical structure. Don’t worry if the first draft seems rough and incomplete! It is supposed to be, indeed, rough and incomplete at this stage. 

[Step 7] Editing & Feedback #1
In this step, it is J&B’s full responsibility to make thorough, detailed edits as well as provide meaningful feedback to the first draft produced by clients in First Draft step. We utilize comments when giving feedback; moreover, we ensure to correct inconsistencies, logical fallacies, awkward, ungrammatical sentences, and others. Our edits and feedback are detailed, clear and meaningful.

[Step 8] Second Draft
After thoroughly reviewing the edits and feedback provided in Editing & Feedback #1 step, clients are now ready to revise the first draft, which ultimately becomes a second draft. We expect they carefully review and consider our feedback left in comments accordingly. In case clarification or/and elaboration required, we can be readily reached on a clients’ project platform. 


[Step 9] Final Editing & Polishing
In this step, we ensure to review and correct, if needed, all errors, both big and small. Moreover, we polish any word, sentence or paragraph that requires further improvement. J&B believes, based on experience, that an infinite number of revisions do not necessarily lead to a more quality draft; rather, it often results in, oy vey, a worse quality draft. Our edits, feedback and polishing are quality-oriented not quantity-oriented. 

[Step 10] Evaluation 
Upon satisfactorily producing a final draft, our next and final step of consulting is so-called evaluation. We thoroughly evaluate clients’ writing skills based on session participation (e.g. ideation & brainstorming, seminar, etc), first and second drafts. It is our aim that clients meaningfully utilize the evaluation along with other academic resources and experience gained from consulting when working on other essays in future. We truly hope the experience with us will help them become more independent, competent essay writers.

한글 공간

에세이 대회에서 수상만 하면 좋은 대학에 갈까? (에세이 대회, 수상 할 때까지 계속 해드립니다!) 

에세이 대회를 그룹으로 준비한다고요? 

  

업체에서 홍보하는 에세이 대회 결과, 그냥 믿어도 되는걸까?
 

Schedule an Info Call

Please use the form below to tell us about your essay needs, and we’ll call you at the scheduled date/time. If you are outside of United States or Canada, please make sure to include “+” and the country code in phone number section. The call is conducted in either English or 한국어 depending on your preference. 

  

floating-button-img