University Writing

Rules and Criteria

Every January past and present Honors 150 students have the opportunity to participate in an annual Honors 150 Writing Contest. This is a cash award contest with the following prizes: $300/1st, $200/2nd, $150/3rd in each of the four categories. Winning entries are published online and possibly in some other format by the college. The four categories are as follows:

Category One: Personal Narrative/Essay

Personal Narrative

Definition and Purpose:

"A personal narrative is an autobiographical story about a specific incident or series of related incidents in a writer's life which show conflict and eventual growth in the writer's character. Narratives serve many vital functions in society. For example, narratives maintain community and culture, helping people understand beliefs. Narratives can also create new communities or enlarge the scope of a current community" (Hatch and Van Valhenburgh 16).

Techniques:

Because personal narrative is defined as an "autobiographical story," the writer of this genre should employ story-telling techniques. These techniques include the effective blending of summary and scene, dialogue, imagery (appealing to the five senses), characterization, the evocation of setting in order to advance character and plot, and the use of active verbs and nouns in favor of the typically less effective stacking of adjectives. Structure and focus are important in the personal narrative just as they are in any piece of writing. A story need not be told in chronological order. The structure of story, however, typically includes conflict, rising action, crisis, and resolution.

Personal Essay:

Definition and Purpose:

A personal essay is defined as an anecdote or anecdotes taken from one's life and connected to an idea. For example, in Thomas Plummer's "Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome," his idea is that students should take responsibility for their own education and thought processes and not wait for someone else to tell them what to think. To evidence the validity of this idea, Plummer draws on experiences from his own life as well as examples from literature and popular culture. Plummer's essay is very much idea-driven; however, the idea in a personal essay does not need to be as overt as Plummer's. It can be more subtle and open to interpretation. As Philip Lopate says in "What Happened to the Personal Essay?": "While it is true that historically the essay is related to rhetoric, it in fact seeks to persuade more by the delights of literary style than anything else" (301).

Techniques:

As with the personal narrative, the personal essay should be written using effective story-telling techniques. However, because a personal essay may be more idea-driven than image- or story- driven, these devices may be less prevalent than in the personal narrative. Structure is paramount in the personal essay. The writer of the personal essay has the challenge to, without heavy-handed moralizing, impose meaning on the seemingly random and sometimes chaotic events of his or her life. Hence, the reader of the personal essay needs to be pointed in the correct direction by the writer-he or she needs some sort of "road map" so that it is clear where the essay is going and why it is important to read it. Typical structures for the personal essay might include comparison/contrast, cause and effect, definition and process.

 

Category Two: Great Works Response

Definition and Purpose:

Great Works help students develop one of the AIMS of a BYU education:  Life-long Learning.  In seeking out the greatest and most influential works of human history for careful study, these works help students “gain a familiarity with some of the foundational works of literature, theater, visual art, film, music,” dance and science that “continue to influence our basic assumptions about the world.”  The Great Works response builds a foundation of expression by applying critical analysis and research skills to the student’s lives (Why Write? 301).

Techniques:

The Great Works Response should include a historical context section, an analysis section and a personal response section.  It should include a persuasive thesis for the analysis.  The three parts should work together, building on each other.  The response should ultimately show the student’s attempt to interact with the “text.”  As former Associate Dean of Honors Scott Miller said, “The Great Works Response isn’t so much an exercise in following instruction as one of following the heart and articulating responses to these works” ( qtd. in Why Write? 301).  The response should also clearly discuss the specific aspects of the genre.  For example, a theater response for Shakespeare would concentrate on theatrical elements, while a literature response to Shakespeare would concentrate on the literary elements.

Category Three: Research Paper

Definition and Purpose:

Research-driven writing with a persuasive thesis.  Research writing is a way of creating new knowledge, of entering the academic conversation, responding to scholars one finds in one's research and voicing one's own position on issues. The research paper helps students understand how to synthesize information and the points of view of several different authors, subordinating these voices and arguments to the students' own voice, using them to support a unique paper. It also aids students in understanding and using the conventions of academic research writing.

Techniques:

A research paper should have an effective title, an introduction, a focused, arguable thesis, a body that supports the thesis with support from research material, and parenthetical citations in MLA format within the text. An "arguable thesis" is one which creates an academic argument-that is, one which does not necessarily contain a proposed solution to a problem or a call to action (although these are also acceptable) but is a statement reflecting a topic that invites attention, discussion, and creates new knowledge.

Category Four: Argument Paper

Definition and Scope:

An argument paper should, obviously, argue something. If it proposes a solution to a problem it should be persuasive that a certain solution is not only sound but also better than any other solutions available. The argument should be comprehensive, fair and rhetorically effective. It may incorporate outside sources as evidence.

Techniques:

An argument paper would include a brief introduction to the problem or matter in need of interpretation/definition, a summary of opposing viewpoints, some sort of refutation and/or incorporation of these opposing viewpoints, and a description of a solution. The author(s) of an argument paper would effectively use evidence, including, if applicable, scholarly sources, personal experience, figurative language, and inductive and deductive reasoning. Furthermore, the author(s) of an argument paper would incorporate rhetorical devices such as ethos/mythos, pathos, logos, etc.

Contest rules:

Deadlines:
Winter semester students:                  May 1
spring/summer students:                    August 23
fall semester students:                        December 23

All papers submitted for the contest must be word processed, double-spaced, and printed on white paper on one side only and be bound only by a staple in the upper left-hand corner. The author's name should not appear on any page of the entry. Each entry must also have teacher recommendation (a verbal recommendation is acceptable, signature is better), be accompanied by a contest cover sheet, and be turned in to the contest box in 185 HGB by the appropriate date above, or mailed to Honors 150 Contest, 185 HGB, Provo, Utah 84602, and be postmarked by the relevant date. Submissions will not be returned.

Note: The judges of the Honors 150 Writing Contest reserve the right to withhold any of the category prizes if no entry merits a particular award.