Pi Sigma Alpha Newsletter Essay Competition

subtitle: Publish or Perish? Nah, We Prefer "Publish and Win Things!"

As part of the Newsletter's ongoing mission to solicit and recognize the highest levels of commitment to Pi Sigma Alpha and the most careful thinking about the value of membership in an academic honor society of the Society's type, we are proud to present, in this issue, the announcement and call for submissions for the first of what we're hoping will be an ongoing series of essay competitions in future years. The purpose of this competition is to foster that contemplative thinking and writing about Pi Sigma Alpha, the discipline of political science, students, faculty and constituents of the discipline so that we can add to the body of debate and discussion on political science-- and all of our roles in it-- with student voices, which we believe are a critical part of the dialogue.

It probably doesn't hurt our chances of receiving submissions that in order to encourage short essay-writers to send us their best work, the Newsletter is providing a prize to the winner(s) of this competition! That fortunate individual (or those individuals; see rules, below) will win their chapter(s) a brand-new Pi Sigma Alpha chapter banner (see picture, left).

The theme for this competition is How Pi Sigma Alpha is Making A Real Difference at Our College and In Our Community. All student members of the Society are invited to write no greater than a two-page single-spaced essay in MS-Word or convertible machine-readable format and email it to editor@psanews.org on or before 5 pm on Friday, January 8, 2010. Other rules that apply:

(1) entrants must be initiated student (graduate or undergraduate) members of Pi Sigma Alpha and a recognized local chapter of the Society. Co-authorship is allowed, but all co-authors must be student members of the Society and their local chapter, and only one prize, as described above, will be awarded to the chapter on their behalf.

(2) all entries become the property of Pi Sigma Alpha, The National Political Science Honor Society, and may be published in the Pi Sigma Alpha Newsletter or other media as the society sees fit, provided authorship credit is given to the author(s) of the selection. Entries will be judged by a committee appointed by the National Office, and tiebreaking mechanisms are in place in case the committee is deadlocked on a winner or winners. All decisions regarding a winner or winners are final, and shall be made at the sole discretion of the Society as contest sponsor. All interpretations of these rules issued by the Society shall be considered final and binding, and by entering this competition, entrants accept all decisions made by the Society regarding the competition's administration, the judging of papers and the awarding of prizes.

(3) at its discretion, the Society reserves the right to declare multiple entries to this competition as winning entries. If the Society takes this action, all authors or co-authors who submitted a work designated as a "winning entry" are entitled to a prize selection as outlined by and subject to rules declared above.

(4) the Society reserves the right to reject any entry which does not follow formatting rules, particularly length and machine-readability requirements; papers should be typed in a 12-point font, single-spaced. If notes or references are used and/or cited, they should appear at the end of the entry and will count toward the two-page limit. Papers should follow the APSA Style Manual in their formatting. Papers should also clearly address the competition theme noted above; this is a major factor in judging, and the more clearly and directly papers address the theme, the better.

Start thinking, and start writing soon! Once you're ready to submit your final draft, send it via email as a file attachment to editor@psanews.org -- and make sure we have your name, chapter, university and email address so we can contact you about claiming the contest prize when your best writing WINS!!!

Deadline: Friday, January 8, 2010  (5:00 pm Eastern Time)