Contest

Judges and Judging Guidelines

Blind review by a committee consisting of two professors and two graduate students will determine the contest papers accepted to the conference and, out of those papers accepted to the conference, the best papers. The papers submitted to the contest will be distributed as evenly as possible amongst the judges. Each judge will independently rate the papers on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is "definitely accept this paper" and 1 is "under no circumstances accept this paper."

Judging criteria include, but are not necessarily limited to:

  • Clarity of argument (e.g. is the thesis clear and are the reasons for believing the thesis clearly expressed? Does the organization of the paper need improvement? Are terms defined?)
  • Originality, to show that the author is capable of some level of independent thinking
  • Use of references, to show that the author is relatively familiar with the issues and different viewpoints pertaining to the paper topic
  • Adherence to the submission guidelines (e.g. length of paper); this judging guideline will not be strictly enforced because length of paper, for instance, is not a prerequisite for a good paper
  • Accuracy; for instance, one should not claim that Socrates wrote, "As for me, all I know is that I know everything" (pg. 8,309, Cat in the Hat).
  • Spelling and grammar

Judges will use discretion when deciding whether to accept a paper into the conference with a low score (<5). Judges may also confer with other professors if judges are not familiar enough with a paper topic to judge accuracy. Of the papers accepted to the conference, if a judge believes that he/she has any winning papers, then he/she must provide reasons to the judging committee why that is so. The judges will then meet for a second time, after each judge has read all of the top candidates, to discuss and vote on the top candidates in order to determine the three best papers. The latter step occurs only if, at the first meeting, more than three papers are believed to be winning papers.

Prizes

The three best papers will receive cash or check prizes at the conference after all presentations are made. Randomly drawn participants will receive gift certificates. All participants will receive certificates of participation.