HOW THE COMPETITION IS JUDGED

INTRODUCTION

Nearly 500 man-hours were dedicated to judging the 600+ entries received for
this year's Annual Report competition.  The field of competition was as
competitive as it was diversified:  Entries came from organizations in the
top 10 of the Fortune 500 to non-profits aiding individual communities, and
sectors represented in the competition ranged from healthcare, technology,
and utilities to financial services, chemicals, and charitable foundations.

The competition was judged by a field of communications professionals
affiliated with LACP.  Their expertise spans a broad spectrum,
ranging from development work on a number of Fortune 500 annual reports for
nearly a decade to fulfilling the communications needs of small business.
Judges were screened to ensure that no conflicts-of-interest would develop
during the competition.

OVERALL

The core of competition is centered on the judging of the overall annual
report within its select category.  Categories were primarily determined
according to company size and annual revenue as indicated by the completed
entry forms. 

Further, additional categories were developed within select fields of
discipline in instances where there were a disproportionate number of
entries within a specific revenue/headcount demographic.  In such instances,
entries were primarily categorized according to their listed sector or, in
some instances industry, as associated with their ticker symbol by
MarketGuide/Yahoo! at http://biz.yahoo.com/p/ .  Should a sector/industry
listing not be available from this service due to such instances as an entry
representing a non-US-based organization, categorizations were primarily
based according to US-based peer/competitor profiles or, at last resort,
LACP's judgment.

SCORING

Scoring is based according to a proprietary judging system developed by LACP
which assigns point values to various criteria describing an annual report.
Sample criteria include creativity, artwork, and narrative, among many others.
A composite score is derived by summing the point values of the criteria and
is based on a 100-point scale.  The annual report with the highest score
within a category is awarded the Platinum Award.  The entries with the
second-, third-, and fourth-highest scores within a category are garnered
with the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards, respectively.  In the event of a
tie, multiple awards are distributed per award level.

Honorable Mentions are provided to entries not scoring within the top four positions
of a given category but who achieve a minimum score of 75.

TOP 100

New for this competition, LACP identified the Top 100 Annual Reports for
2002.  All annual reports from all categories were considered for this
honor.  Those with the top 100 scores were ranked sequentially.  In the
event of a tie at a certain point level, preference was given to those
reports with the highest score in select categories.