Hallmark Reflection

by Tishara Reid

During the summer of 2013 our chapter did extensive research for the Honors in Action Project (HIA). The Honors study topic was “The Culture of Competition”. Throughout the research we narrowed our search and extensively investigated how ranking systems affect students’ choice of higher-level institution. To document all our work we had to do hallmark reports and submit them to the Phi Theta Kappa website where they are read and evaluated for a Hallmark award.

     The hallmark essays that we submitted were prepared for the HIA project, College Project and distinguished chapter officer. As a team, we were all responsible for ensuring that the hallmarks were completed by the January 29th deadline. The writing of the hallmarks was extensive and tedious because we had multiple questions but the hard part was trying to put in all the information while adhering to the given word limit. Writing the hallmarks taught me how to make my writing concise and to the point but using as few words as possible. The editing and elimination of unnecessary information was the most difficult part of writing the hallmarks for the team. All the information that we all contributed seemed important, so we had figure out ways to decipher what was really of the highest importance and most relevant to the question being asked by the hallmark.

       Overall, we managed to get the hallmarks done just in time to meet the deadline. However, if I was afforded the opportunity to do the hallmarks again, I would definitely suggest starting the hallmarks sooner than we did. Even though we did get them done, working so close to a deadline put a lot of unnecessary pressure on the members of the team and this could have been avoided had we taken initiative and started them sooner as suggested by our advisors. All in all, it was a great learning experience.