Dean’s Writing Awards: all you need to know

Calling all poets, first-year students, scholars, and most of all, writers! Do you know what time of year it is? It’s time, once again, for the Dean’s Writing Award contests.Katie Elliot, who won first place in the First-Year Division last year, entered a paper she wrote for her “American Film and Culture” class, which she had with English professor Jeff Jeske.“When I found out that I won, I was so surprised,” Elliot said. “If I had something that I would like to write and wanted people to read, I would do it again.”Students will be awarded for superior writing under the following categories:Dean’s Award for First-Year Writing [$100] is judged by the Academic Skills Center. Submissions for this category may be about any subject in any field, and may be based on either a personal and unique response to a more standard form of academic writing. These essays will be judged on criteria important to both scholarly work and autobiographical essays – sensitivity, clarity, and insight. Dean’s Award for Personal/Reflective Writing ($50) This is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. First prize will go to the essay that best unites style, voice, and compositional skill in a non-scholarly writing style. Examples of essay types include description, reflection, and narration.Dean’s Award for Scholarly/Critical Writing ($50) First prize for this category will go to the essay, written for a class, from the subjects of arts, humanities, social sciences or business that researches an academic topic with the most insight and originality, in the most intriguing style. A copy of the assignment must be included with the writing. Dean’s Award for Writing in the Physical and Natural Sciences (2 awards, $50 each) The First award is for outstanding work in science written for the general public. Essays which are written in this particular category may feature controversies, issues, experiments, or phenomena and may focus on explanations or arguments.The other award celebrates excellence in the area of reporting for a scientific experiment or investigation that the author him/herself has done as a Guilford student. The essay should focus on an audience which has a background in science. Essays will be judged on how suitable they are for the particular audience, clarity, value to this audience, and how scientifically accurate they are.The Betty Place Prize in Poetry ($50) This prize honors the memory of librarian Betty Place, a lover of words. First prize will be awarded to the poem written with precision and passion. All essays must have been written within the past year. Although there are no length specifications, the authors should present essays in the format most appropriate to the academic disciplines for which they are written. In writing an interdisciplinary essay, the writing should be in the standard form which is most appropriate to the essay. If the essay has already been submitted for a class, the student should submit a copy that has not been marked on.A removable cover sheet should list the title of the essay or poem, the name of the contest to which the entry is being submitted, and the student’s name, although student names should not appear on the particular poem or essay.Writing entered is limited to one essay per student for each essay contest, and three poems per student for the poetry contest. Students should place their entries in one of professor Jeff Jeske’s mailboxes, either in the basement of Duke or in Archdale. The deadline is March 8, 4 p.m.