How to Create a Compelling Collection: A Guide to Our New ‘My List’ Contest

Are you participating in our new “My List” Review Contest? Given how much creative freedom it offers, we think it will be one of the most fun challenges we’re running this year. You can work alone or with others, and can choose from 14 categories — including music, TV, movies, video games, books, restaurants, theater and more — to make your list.

To help you figure out what to write, not only do we have the step-by-step directions below, but we also have a related writing prompt and a new edition of our Conversations With Journalists feature in which you can ask Lindsay Zoladz, a Times pop music journalist, how she makes lists like “6 New Songs You Should Hear Now.”

Enjoy, and if you’re participating in our contest, make sure you submit by Feb. 12!

Note to teachers: Throughout this guide we have suggested that students both find their own lists and check out the ones we’ve linked. Please preview any you assign to make sure they are appropriate for your students.

First, find as many as you can in the wild.

Lists of what to watch, listen to, read, see and eat are everywhere, and our first piece of advice is to start to become acquainted with them. As you scroll social media, flip through magazines or surf the internet, notice when, where and how these lists show up, and start saving the ones you like best.

Right now, as a new year begins, it’s especially easy to find these collections since media outlets of all kinds post roundups like “The Best Movies of 2024” or “The Albums We’re Looking Forward to in 2025.”

Find them from as many different sources as you can, and then bring a few to class and share them with others. Keep in mind, however, that you’re looking for lists that go beyond just naming items. For our contest, you’ll also need to explain why each item is on your list.

Next, use these free links to read some selected examples from The New York Times.

Here is a selection of lists that have been recently published in The Times. Choose a few that interest you and check them out.

21 Movies, Books and Albums With a Theater Focus to Consume During the Holidays

Now that you’ve studied several — from The Times and elsewhere — answer these questions:

• Why do you think lists like these are so popular? What’s effective, interesting and entertaining about them?

• What common elements make up these lists? That is, what do you expect to find? What would you not expect to find?

• What do you notice about how these lists are usually organized?

• What do you notice about how they speak to their audience? For example, are they casual or more formal? Do they sound as if a friend were talking to you, or more as if a professor were giving a lecture?

• To what extent do these lists presume you have some background knowledge about the topic? Do you think you can still get something from them even if you don’t?

Now choose one piece to examine closely.

• What does the introduction do? How does it explain what you need to know? How does it help you anticipate what you’re about to read?

• Next, focus on the individual items. How does the creator both show its relationship to the overall theme and give you specific information about each thing on the list?

2. Talk to a Times journalist who makes lists like this for a living.

“6 New Songs You Should Hear Now.” “7 Hot Tracks From a New Generation of Female Rappers.” “9 Great Songs That Mention Baseball Stars.”

Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic at The Times, is the author of these lists and many more, and from Jan. 9 to 22 you’ll have a chance to ask her questions.

What could you ask her about her process — about how she chooses her themes, makes her choices or creates her descriptions? What can you learn from her that will be helpful for your work?

Find everything you need to participate here.

3. Come up with a range of ideas for your own list.

Here are the 14 categories you can choose from, but remember that you can also combine categories if you like:

— architecture
— art
— books
— comedy
— dance
— fashion
— movies
— music
— podcasts
— restaurants
— technology
— theater
— TV shows
— video games

And here are some ways to get started:

• Use the questions we ask in our related Student Opinion forum, which are designed to take you through a brainstorming process. We hope you’ll both post some of your own answers and respond to the answers of others.

• Get inspiration from the lists you’ve read so far. Which have stood out to you? Why? Could you take on a different topic in a similar way?

• Ask for suggestions from people who know you well. What would your friends or family say you know or care the most about? What do you tend to recommend to them?

• Work with your class to brainstorm. Share as many list ideas as you can, both those that you’ve found “in the wild” and those you’ve come up with yourself. Let each idea inspire new ones until you have dozens of possibilities to choose from.

• Finally, ask yourself: Which of my ideas would be most fun or interesting for me to pursue? Which do I care about most? We have found over and over again, across all the contests we’ve ever offered, that students produce their best work on topics they truly care about.

4. Play with your angle.

Once you have a general idea for what you’d like to write about, the real creative challenge begins.

Let’s say you’re a devoted Swiftie. One easy list for you to make might be “My Favorite Taylor Swift Songs.” But considering the artist’s popularity, many other students will probably send lists just like this, and it will be hard to stand out among them.

Instead, brainstorm some ideas for a more original spin. Keep in mind that whatever you write, it will have to be appropriate for a general audience, not just fellow Swifties.

Instead of “The 63 Most Stylish People of 2024,” how about “The 5 Looks Most Popular at My School”? (Please keep in mind, however, that for this contest you’re not submitting photos, so you’ll have to use vivid language to describe the looks!)

Instead of “What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries in January,” how about a list of the best art to see for free in your area?

Instead of “Questlove Made You an Energy Playlist,” why not a themed playlist of music for when you are doing homework or are on the way to a track meet?

Make a list that offers more context about something you’re an expert on.

Maybe you’re a sneakerhead and wish more of your fellow enthusiasts understood the role of the Air Jordan in sneaker history. Try making a list that explains that in a way that is interesting for others, as this Times list does for movies about Bob Dylan.

That’s also how a piece like “Digging Into Kendrick Lamar’s Samples” works. In it, Ms. Zoladz, the Times pop music critic we wrote about above, describes how, through the use of samples, “GNX” is “an album in deep conversation with the past and present sounds of West Coast rap.” The list goes through some of the most notable sonic references on the album and explains how the artist and his producers “flip them into something new.”

What history or context could you offer readers to help them better understand something you love? How could you explain it in such a way that an average reader would appreciate it?

Try making a negative list instead of a positive one.

Not every list has to focus on “the best.” Instead, maybe you’d like to warn people away from something. “5 TV Shows That Have Totally Unrealistic Teenage Characters”? “Three Overrated Broadway Musicals”? “The Ugliest Buildings in [Your Town]”?

Work with friends:

Pool your knowledge! Times critics do this often, both for broad looks at culture like “What Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2025” and for spotlighting their special interests, as in“25 Jump Scares That Still Make Us Jump.”

Think about how much fun you could have together sampling the best French fries in your neighborhood or debating the most memorable movie couples in rom-com history.

5. Write an efficient and engaging introduction.

Now that you have a great idea for a list, it’s time to start writing. But for this contest, you have only 600 words, so your introduction needs to use every one of them well.

The good news is that you don’t need a lot of room to set your readers up. Take a look at this first paragraph:

The floor creaks, the music turns ominous and an uneasy quiet sets in. Then BAM! It’s the classic jump scare. This staple of horror movies, when done well, is instantly memorable. With Times film writers, filmmakers and stars weighing in, we ranked the 25 jump scares that still get us every time.

What did this introduction manage to do in just 52 words? Does it make you want to keep reading (and watching)? How does it get you in the right mood? How does it explain why a list like this is worth making? How does it give you necessary information about what you’re about to read?

Let’s look at a few more. Here’s the intro to “Best Comedy of 2024”:

Joe Rogan jumped to the front of the conservative media establishment. Netflix went in deeper on live comedy, while Disney entered the stand-up market. Katt Williams beefed even more than Kendrick Lamar and Drake. John Mulaney and Taylor Tomlinson became talk show hosts. It was an eventful year in comedy. Here are some highlights.

How does this intro offer both a broad overview of the state of the industry in 2024 and some important details — all to back up the statement that “it was an eventful year in comedy”?

What if you want to create a list that looks at art or culture through a different lens than just “best of”? Here’s how “8 Comics to Read This Pride Month” did that in just 41 words last June:

This collection of comics and graphic novels, a mix of nonfiction and fiction stories, has settings as disparate as a cabin in the woods and a 24-hour convenience store. What unites them is that they all star L.G.B.T.Q. protagonists. Happy Pride!

Finally, here’s the opening to a list that you might not have known you needed until you saw it: “Family and Friends in Town? Here’s What to Watch Based on the Mood.” It begins this way:

“What do you all want to watch?”

This question has torpedoed many get-togethers, leaving the poor soul wielding the remote at a Thanksgiving gathering to search and scroll through seemingly infinite streaming options until everyone is cross-eyed and over it. Let’s skip that part, shall we? Here are a handful of picks that might fit the bill for some common holiday dynamics.

How does the writer set a scene we can all relate to and entice you to read on?

6. Make sure each item on your list sticks to your theme.

The novel “James” by Percival Everett appeared on many lists of Best Books of 2024, and was one of The Times’s top 10 picks. It also appears on The Times’s best audiobooks list. Here is how the book is described in it:

Several times throughout this retelling of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of the titular enslaved man (Twain’s Jim), a white character notices James’s standard English cadence with shock and asks: “Why are you talking like that?” With impressive comedic timing and vocal agility, Hoffman skips nimbly between James’s natural eloquence and the “slave filter” he uses to hide it from white people, deepening a project that hinges on vernacular as both signifier and tool of liberation.

How does the first line quickly summarize the book’s topic for those who might not know? How does the rest of the description focus on what makes the novel an excellent audiobook? What do we learn about the book through its narration by a talented actor?

Another example? “6 Podcasts for Reflection and Restoration” was published at the end of 2021, just as the Omicron variant was causing new waves of Covid-19 infections during the holidays. As the introduction says, “in their own ways, these six podcasts can help you to take a breath, refill your emotional cup and get some rest ahead of the New Year.”

Here is one entry. How does the writer make it fit her theme?

‘99% Invisible’

When the world feels stressful, meditation suggests that we focus on our immediate surroundings: that building, those trees, the ground beneath our feet. Though the long-running podcast “99% Invisible” is not designed to be meditative, its sound-rich explorations of the physical world make it perfect listening material for fraught times. For more than a decade, ever since its origins on public radio, the show has delved into the unseen designs, patterns and decisions that shape our lives. Though it’s primarily about design and architecture, many episodes go beyond that remit — one memorable installment last year delved into the bizarre origin story of the Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out.” There’s a back catalog of more than 400 episodes to choose from, and no matter which one you start with, you’ll come away with your view of the world slightly changed.

Finally, here is an entry in a collection of movies and TV shows titled “In a Year of Anxiety Onscreen, Here’s Who Portrayed It Best”:

‘The Bear’

“The Bear” is widely accepted as the anxiety-inducing show on TV right now, and for good reason. The restaurant world is already fast-paced and stressful without all the pressure Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) places on himself and his co-workers in the opening weeks of his restaurant’s rebrand and glow-up. And though Carmy’s anxiety is often at the forefront of the drama, the final episode of Season 3 shows Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) meeting her limit as well. Agonizing over a decision to become a partner of the Bear with Carmy the control freak or take a head chef position at another restaurant with better benefits and (likely) less drama, Sydney breaks down in the middle of a party at her new home. She steps outside and has an anxiety attack; she hunches over, hyperventilating, overwhelmed by the decision she has to make.

What do you notice about how the writer keeps the focus on her theme? What individual words are used here to hammer home the anxiety-producing nature of this show?

7. Compel us with your opinions.

For many years, we ran a Student Review Contest that was the precursor to this one. To help students understand how a review is an argument and how strong descriptive language can help make it, we created several lesson plans. To go into greater depth on these skills, you might visit this resource and this one.

But for the My List contest, students must present opinions on not just one work, but several. How do you make a case for something in just a paragraph or so? Here are some examples.

“8 Video Games to Play Next” is a list that features contributions from Times gamers around the newsroom. Each entry is short and to the point — but notice how, in entries like these, each word is carefully chosen:

Bleak Faith: Forsaken

You’re a lone warrior lost in the depths of the Omnistructure, a vast urban sprawl that has grown beyond reason. The handful of people left are scrambling to survive and hold onto their sanity. Expect tough enemies, unforgiving combat and dramatic boss battles.

Play if you liked: Any Soulslike game, but are ready to forgive some rough edges.

What to know: Bleak Faith is an independent title produced by three people, so expect a fair amount of jank. But the game nails its atmosphere, which blends grimdark fantasy and cyberpunk.

How does the writer put you in the middle of the game? What words or phrases are most evocative? Do you learn enough in just 93 words to form an opinion of your own about whether or not you’d want to play? How do the headings at the end in bold help (“Play if you liked:” and “What to know:”)? Could you use headings like this for your list?

Next, consider this entry from “22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now”:

Comadre Panadería

Austin, Texas

Mariela Camacho’s pastries are the stuff of Barbie-fueled, masa-laden dreams. Her conchas are airy with a crackly shell, and bright with flavors like berries or matcha. The pínguína de maracuya, a chocolate-dipped cake filled with passion-fruit cream, is one of several offerings that taste like better versions of a nostalgic treat. The showstopper is the pink cake: toasty with corn, tart with a prickly pear buttercream and delightful with sprinkles. Despite their saccharine appearances, not one of the desserts is overly cloying, and even the coffee drinks (Texas pecan horchata! Cranberry vanilla agua fresca!) strike the playful tone of the pastries.

For our contest, you aren’t allowed to submit photos — but if you can write descriptions this vivid, you won’t need them! What are you imagining these desserts look like? What words are especially evocative here? How can you describe the items on your list so clearly that your readers can picture them in their heads?

8. Make sure it all works together and … submit!

Now it’s time to read the whole thing over and make sure that it holds together and that every aspect of it works. You might ask yourself:

• Does the title of my list accurately reflect what’s inside it?

• Is my theme or focus something that others will be interested in?

• Does my introduction help readers understand the topic and prepare for the list to come?

• Have I thoughtfully chosen three to five works that are clearly connected to my theme?

• Do I show how the individual items on my list relate to that theme?

• Do I state my opinions in a way that is persuasive and compelling?

• Do I offer details to support those opinions?

• Does the voice in the piece sound like me? Is it engaging to read?

• Are my language and tone appropriate for the topic I’ve chosen?

• Have I written the list in such a way that an average reader could understand it and get something interesting from it?

• Is it 600 words or fewer, not counting the title?

• Have I followed the contest rubric?

Good luck and thank you for participating!