Voice of Democracy Essay Contest was started in 1947 and is sponsored by Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). This is an audio essay contest held annually. This is one of the most popular essay contests for high school students open to students in grades 9-12. The national winner is awarded a scholarship worth US$ 30,000 to meet the expenses to pursue further education at an American university, college or a vocational/technical school. All state first place winners also get an award. There are other awards ranging from US$ 1,000 to US$ 16,000. Total value of the scholarships is more than US$ 2.5 million. Every year, more than 50,000 entries from students in high schools are received.
Eligibility Criteria and Essay Rules

Applicants for the Voice of Democracy Essay Contest have to be below 20 years of age and studying in grades 9-12. Previous years’ first place state winners also are not eligible to apply. The closing date for the entries for 2010/2011 contest is 2010-11-01. The neatly typed essay has to be submitted along with the speech recorded in an audio CD. Recording should be done in the applicant’s own voice. Total length of the recording should be 3-5 minutes. Music, singing, poetry or sound effects are not allowed in the recording.
Topic for the Essay

Every year a different topic is given for the Voice of Democracy Essay Contest. This year’s topic is “Does My Generation Have a Role in America’s Future?”. The student can use their imagination and creativity to select an essay idea which should fall under this topic because the given topic is too broad. The student shall crate a suitable and attention grabbing sub title to show what he/she is writing in the essay about, keeping the topic as the main heading.
What is the Purpose of an Audio Essay

Audio essay is not for reading but for listening. Still a neatly typed draft has to be submitted with the CD for entering the contest. The audio essay has become more powerful literary form today because of the possibility of delivering it through the internet as a podcast which can reach a target group more conveniently thorough internet. It is not necessary to follow any writing style and essay format, but has to follow a logical order in presenting.
Criteria for Judging the Audio Essays

The rules for the Voice of Democracy Essay Contest state the judging criteria as follows.

• originality 30
• content 35
• delivery 35
As the students can see the delivery of the speech also is given high prominence allocating 35 points out of 100. Students shall consider getting some voice training and learn the finer points in public speaking. But the draft is more important and is deciding the total marks. Therefore the draft must be full of valuable original content. If the students are seriously interested in submitting a winning audio essay they can get the help from a good essay writing company to prepare the draft for the audio essay.This post originally appeared on http://essayblog.org/essay/essay-writers