Spring 2026: Submissions due Monday, February 23 by end of day (11:59pm EST)

Each spring we accept submissions from students in five categories:

• Humanities
• Social sciences
• Natural and applied sciences
• WRTG 104, WRTG 105, WRTG 105E, WRTG 105B
• Multimodal Projects from any discipline (e.g. websites, podcasts, video projects)

Submissions should be non-fiction, academic work created any time during your undergraduate career at UR. Please limit papers to twenty pages of text (not including notes and references).

Entries should be submitted using our writing colloquium awards form.

If you would rather email your submission as an attachment, please send it to wsap@ur.rochester.edu.

For email submissions please create a title page for the paper that includes the following information:

• Your name, student ID, and email address
• Your class year
• Title, subject, and number of course (if this paper was written for a course)
• The category for which you are submitting the paper

If you have any questions about the contest, please contact the Writing and Speaking Center director at stefanie.sydelnik@rochester.edu.

All entries are anonymized so that judging is blind. For the first round of judging, two writing consultants independently read and review each submission for the category. They then confer and determine which papers to select as finalists. There are typically four to seven finalists per category.

The finalists are sent to the faculty judge in a relevant discipline who selects one winner and one or two honorable mentions from among the finalists.

Graduate student judges and faculty judges consider the following criteria when they evaluate the submissions.

For papers, judges assess the work's overall effectiveness, taking into account the originality and strength of the argument, the clarity of the paper's ideas, the organization of the essay, the use of and engagement with any source materials and/or research data, and the quality of the prose.

For multimodal projects, judges evaluate the purposeful and effective design choices for the rhetorical situation, the work's effectiveness in conveying its message, and the appeal of the visual, aural, and spatial elements of the design (and any other multimodal components that contribute to the work).

First prize and honorable mention winners are awarded a cash prize and invited to attend the Colloquium Awards Dinner. At that event, first-place winners give presentations based on their winning work. The event is attended by the consultant and faculty judges, as well as administrators and faculty invited by winners and WSAP.

1. Can I submit the same work to multiple categories?

We do not accept the same work for multiple categories. If you have questions about which category would be best to submit a work to, please reach out to wsap@ur.rochester.edu.

2. My name is incorrect on the form: how do I fix it?

The "name" field in the form is populated by WSAP's internal database, which is not tied to UR Student. To update your name in this database, please reach out to wsap@ur.rochester.edu.

3. I'm a senior, can I submit a paper I wrote while I was a first-year student?

Yes! Undergraduates may submit work completed anytime during their time studying at UR.

4. Can I revise my paper before submitting?

Yes. You are welcome to revise and edit your work before submitting to the contest, provided that you do not use any unauthorized tools or software (such as AI tools like ChatGPT) to do so. You can also make an appointment with a writing consultant or writing fellow for help!

5. Can I submit a paper I wrote while studying abroad?

We accept work written while abroad, as long as you participated in a University of Rochester-affiliated abroad program while you were an undergraduate student at the University.

6. Can I submit a paper that was not written for a course?

We ask that all papers submitted to the Contest be affiliated with the University of Rochester in some capacity. While this often looks like a paper written for a class, we also welcome papers written as part of independent research projects, projects done in collaboration with UR faculty/staff, work created during a fellowship, etc. This work must have been done while you were a matriculated undergraduate student. If you are submitting a project done independently, please email wsap@ur.rochester upon submitting to let us know how the work is affiliated with the University.

7. Can I submit a piece of creative writing?

We ask that all essays be argumentative in nature. For multimodal pieces, creative writing and other creative elements may be included that helps enhance the message of the work.

8. Can I submit a work created before I was a student at the University if I updated it as an undergraduate student?

Work that has been significantly changed or expanded upon with support from a member of UR faculty/staff can be accepted (see Question 4 for additional information). If you have questions about your specific paper and if it qualifies as "significantly changed or expanded upon," please reach out to wsap@ur.rochester.edu.

9. What is the policy for papers written using AI tools such as ChatGPT?

For submissions written using AI text generation software (such as ChatGPT), we ask that you include a statement explaining how the software was used in the piece and that you cite all instances where you use text generated by AI. For submissions written for a course, please also include a document that shows your instructor gave you permission to use AI on the assignment. All submissions that use AI should abide by the Academic Honesty policies in place for these tools.

10. Can I submit a paper I wrote in a language other than English?

We cannot accept papers written in languages that are not English, as one or more of the judges reviewing the paper may not be fluent enough in the language to adequately assess it. Similarly, we cannot accept papers written in another language that use online translation software or a translation service to convert them into English, due to the Academic Honesty policies surrounding translation software and services.

11. Do citation pages and appendices count toward the page limit?

These pages do not count toward the overall page limit. However, the body of the essay must be 20 pages or less and we ask that supplemental pages do not bring the overall page count above 30 pages.

12. Can I submit a work written by multiple authors?

We do accept work written by multiple undergraduate writers, provided we receive written agreement to submit the work from all contributors. All authors must be University of Rochester undergraduate students for the project to be eligible for the contest.

If you have any other questions, please reach out to our office at wsap@ur.rochester.edu or to the Writing and Speaking Center Director at stefanie.sydelnik@rochester.edu.