Closeread Prize Announcement – Scrollytelling with Quarto
Ever wanted to create impactful scrollytelling stories like the ones you see in online news?
Scrollytelling stories let you explain complicated concepts to readers as they scroll down the page. You could build up a complicated plot layer-by-layer, zoom in on a famous map, highlight a key quote from an interviewee, or even animate your own web graphics.
Closeread brings all of this and more to you inside Quarto. And now we want to see what you do with it — with the 1st Closeread Prize!
You could make educational resources or tutorials, raise awareness of an important — or silly — issue using data journalism, or create something we haven’t even thought of. Surprise us!
We’re keen to see people kick the tyres on Closeread: see which features are popular, what still needs work or better documentation, and what other features people need.
We’re also excited to build a community of scrollytellers around Closeread, so be sure to hop into the Closeread discussions and help each other out!
Entries for 1st Closeread Prize open up today, and you have until midnight on December 15 anywhere on Earth to submit them. You can submit as many entries as you want at pos.it/closeread-2024!
The Closeread extension is written by Andrew Bray and James Goldie and is named after an engaging series of scrollytelling stories by the same name from The New York Times.
Submission essentials
- Submit your entries at pos.it/closeread-2024.
- Deadline is midnight on December 15 anywhere on Earth.
- Your submission should be a Quarto document or Quarto Shiny app that uses Closeread.
- Read up on the Closeread documentation to get started
- File issues and problems on the Closeread GitHub repository
- Talk to other entrants on the discussion board
- For a video introduction to Closeread, check out Andrew’s Posit Conf talk “Closeread: bringing Scrollytelling to Quarto for a light video introduction”.
- Your submission should be hosted somewhere publicly (you can use Quarto Pub or any other host!).
- Any data and code used to create your submission should be both openly licensed and available in a public repository.
Judging criteria
Scrollytelling stories will be judged on a combination of educational value or newsworthiness, effective use of scrollytelling to deliver the story, artistic and design merit, and technical accomplishment. You might feel stronger in some of these areas than others — that’s okay! We’re excited to see and celebrate a wide range of entries.
Awards
Honorable mentions will win a pile of Posit hex stickers (shipped worldwide!), bragging rights when we announce the winners, and a dedicated spot in the Closeread Gallery!
Three runners up will get all of that, plus a free year of Posit Connect Cloud — everything you need to publish data-driven documents and apps!
The grand winner will get all of the prize listed above, plus a Posit swag prize pack valued at $200 — as well as a half hour virtual meeting with the Closeread authors, Andrew and James, for support, feedback and ideas.
Need inspiration?
We have some examples ready to get you going in the Closeread Gallery, but here are some of our favorite scrollytelling pieces to get your minds racing!
- New York Times: Close Read
- ABC News: How to spot fake and AI images
- Stuff: This is the tale of two pandemics
- Permutation Test: A Visual Explanation of Statistical Reasoning
But we want to see what you have cooking! Thank you, and good luck!
