Student Essay Competition

A)     Format

1.       The competition will be in the form of a web-submitted essay with a maximum length of 1000 words, excluding the title. Equations, references, tables, and diagrams should NOT be included.

2.       The topic of the essay will be the relevance to the work of the student candidate of an archival paper (i.e. one in international journals including conferences papers published on IEEE Xplore) published during the previous two calendar year s. The student should comment on the reasons that the selected paper was interesting, the reasons why it was important to the candidate’s work (which should include a description of the candidate’s work and that of the chosen paper), and the way in which the paper influenced the candidate’s thought and future work.

3.       The paper chosen should NOT be one from the institution attended by the candidate as a student, but could be on any subject relevant to the candidate.

4.       The essay should be written in English.

5.       The essay could either be in the form of a continuous text with suitable paragraphs or could be divided into un-numbered sections with headings.

6.       The competition will be an annual event.

7.       One essay is allowed per student per year.

8.       Essays from the same student in different years should be based on a different choice of journal paper.

B)      Eligibility

1.       The competition will be open to all DEIS student and graduate student members. DEIS IEEE Student Members are encouraged to enter. Although the competition may be expected to relate most strongly to graduate students, undergraduate students do undertake projects and industrial placements for which the topic would be relevant.

2.       Only single author submissions will be accepted.

C)      Judgement Criteria for the essay

1.       The clarity of the candidate’s description of the relevance of the chosen paper.

2.       An ability to identify the important points and present them succinctly.

3.       An ability to present the topic in an interesting way.

4.       Construction of the essay so that the argument is presented coherently.

5.       The essay should be in readable English to the standard expected of conference or journal papers.

6.       The panel of judges reserve the right to take the level of experience of the candidate into account when making their judgement.

D)     Announcement and Submissions

1.       The competition will be announced both on the DEIS website and in the EI-Magazine at the end of the calendar year prior to the year of the competition, i.e. in the November/December issue of the Magazine and simultaneously on the website. A reminder will be placed in the January/February issue of the Magazine of the calendar year in which the competition is to take place.

2.       The announcement will include details of the competition and of the submission procedure

3.       Submission will only be via the website.

4.       All submissions should include a) a signed statement from the candidate that they are the sole author of the essay, b) their IEEE (Student) membership number, c) an upload of the chosen paper, d) the name and address of their institution and their department head.

5.       Submissions are due on or before March 31^st of the competition year. No submissions will be accepted after this date.

E)      Award for Competition winner and runners up

1.       The winning candidate will receive a certificate from DEIS naming them, their institution, and the title of the winning entry.

2.       The head of department of the candidate’s institution will be informed directly of the candidate’s success.

3.       The winning entry will be published on the DEIS website and in the EI-Magazine. This will be in the first magazine issue after the judgement has been made.  

4.       Two runners up will also have their entries published on the DEIS website (in exceptional circumstances the number of runners up could be reduced to none or increased to four).

5.       The runners up will also receive a certificate from DEIS.

F)      The EI-Magazine and the DEIS website will publish the names of the winning candidate and the runners up.

G)     Timetable

1)      First announcement: November/December issue of Magazine and simultaneously on the website

2)      Reminder: January/February issue of the EI Magazine and website

3)      Deadline for submissions: March 31^st

4)      Expected date for panel recommendation to DEIS Awards committee: 30^th May

Announcement of winners: provisionally September/October issue of the Magazine and simultaneously on the website.