| College and Cheney Prizes |
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Submissions are invited for the College Prize in the Sciences & Mathematics and the Cheney Prize in the Arts & Social Sciences, which the College intends to award for written work of exceptional merit. The value of each prize will be £200. The closing date for submissions is Friday of first week, Michaelmas Term (14th October 2011), and the competition is open to undergraduates who will then be in their second, third or fourth year.
Submissions, which may be either in the form of an essay or else in some other form appropriate to the subject, should be no longer than 3,000 words, excluding any references. The style should be formal, as would be expected for publication, and use referencing and bibliographic systems appropriate to the discipline. Essays should be intelligible to the non-specialist and should therefore both include some explanation of why the problem discussed is significant, and also address the wider implications of the question addressed. For instance, applicants submitting an essay on a scientific subject might discuss the social, ethical or technological implications of a particular subject. They should aim, at the very least, to be readily intelligible to fellow-scientists not necessarily in the same field. Previous winning essays for the College Prize in Sciences and Mathematics have included: “Should we Believe in the Big Bang?”; “Study on Co-infections in Dengue Patients in Singapore”; and “The Synthesis of Noble Gas Compounds – Making the Unreactive React”. The subject of the work is entirely open, the only requirements being that the subject and its manner of treatment should have been chosen unaided by the author, and the work should not have been marked by any senior member. The work may derive from the author’s course of study, but tutorial essays or written work prepared specifically to meet a university requirement will not be considered. Equally, submissions may deal with a subject quite distinct from the university syllabus. Work prepared for presentation in any seminar or discussion group organised primarily by junior members is welcome. Work that has previously been successful in earlier competitions for University or College prizes is not eligible. Submissions will be considered either for the arts or for the sciences prize according to the subject matter of the submission (rather than according to the author’s subject in Schools). Submissions may present original work, or they may review or expound some collected field of knowledge or thought. In either case, the judges will reward originality, along with clarity, cogency and any other qualities they consider relevant. Authors will be asked to identify their work with a code assigned in the Tutorial Office so that they remain anonymous to the judges. The winning entries may be published in the Wadham College Gazette. Dr C.S. Mawson Senior Tutor May ’11 |