Dear all,

With the preparations for the fourth year of the UK Linguistics Olympiad well under way, we are looking for additional members for our volunteer markers panel.

If you are interested in volunteering, please fill in the online registration form for markers, available at http://www.uklo.org/?page_id=903.

Last year we had over 1,100 entries at the advanced level from 90 schools, and our international finalists won one silver and three bronze medals in competition with 26 other countries at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Ljubljana. (See www.uklo.org for background information and a report for the year.)

This year we anticipate yet another increase in interest from schools, and need volunteers to mark first-round entries at the advanced level. You can participate as an individual marker, or you may wish to organise a markathon with your students and colleagues. You can find out more about markathons at http://www.uklo.org/?page_id=954, or you can contact me at jb789@cam.ac.uk.

Each member of the panel of volunteer markers will typically handle a batch of marking that should take about three hours (usually less than 20 scripts). We provide a detailed marking scheme, and the marking is straightforward and largely mechanical; but we do need language-trained markers to make informed decisions on some of the more discursive answers.

The marking will give you an insight to the thought-processes of adolescents; and of course the questions are all linguistic, so they're pure fun for anyone on this list. The questions for the previous competition are at http://www.uklo.org/?page_id=17, if you want to find out more.

The competition itself takes place from 4th to 8th February and the key dates for markers are:

1st February - markers informed of school allocation
8th February - deadline for schools to send papers and candidate lists to markers
9th February - answer sheet sent to markers
12th February - markers report missing scripts
18th February - markers return marks to Marking Coordinator
25th February - papers returned to school by markers if SAE provided
15th March - marker certificates sent out

The crucial week is **9th-15th February 2013**. If you're willing to mark in principle, but are not free to mark in that week, please do register, but also send an email to jb789@cam.ac.uk to tell us that it is for future years only.

Any queries, concerns or problems, feel free to contact me at jb789@cam.ac.uk. Many thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,

Jessica Brown, On behalf of the UKLO Committee, http://www.uklo.org