I would definately enter such a competition, even for far less valuable prizes: I enjoy that type of writing, and would love to have some papers on my CV.
It is important to maintain integrity in assigning credit. But it would be good to encourage everyone to publish, as long as basic quality standards are maintained. There are more and less prestigious academic journals. Some are easy to get accepted to.
The main challenge is to match up people with the relevant skills—domain knowledge, writing ability, skills in academic-style writing—and to match up people of the relevant skill levels. (You might want the match higher-ability people with higher-ability people to get ideal results, but if a lower-ability person shows promise you might want to give them a higher-ability mentor.)
I would definately enter such a competition, even for far less valuable prizes: I enjoy that type of writing, and would love to have some papers on my CV.
Luke, you might consider emphasizing this as an incentive, rather than the contest money.
Maybe make people who didn’t win but still did a vaguely decent job get mentioned as co-authors (maybe not) or acknowledged somehow?
It is important to maintain integrity in assigning credit. But it would be good to encourage everyone to publish, as long as basic quality standards are maintained. There are more and less prestigious academic journals. Some are easy to get accepted to.
The main challenge is to match up people with the relevant skills—domain knowledge, writing ability, skills in academic-style writing—and to match up people of the relevant skill levels. (You might want the match higher-ability people with higher-ability people to get ideal results, but if a lower-ability person shows promise you might want to give them a higher-ability mentor.)