(The essay rules below are not listed in order of importance, please strictly comply with them all.)
Submission of source materials. The front page or cover of all cited sources and a copy of the pages cited shall be submitted with each essay. Formats accepted: Word, WordPerfect, Acrobat/pdf. The first page(s) of the source submission document will be a Table of Contents to same, setting forth a bibliography of your sources in the order they appear in your Essay and quick reference page numbers to find the copies of the sources you relied on in the source submission document. No table of contents or bibliography will accompany the Essay, just proper citations to sources as set forth herein. By way of example, if you have a 3 page table of contents for your source submission document and you cited 10 sources and each of them is three pages, you would submit a 33 page source submission document with the first cited source being pages 4-6 and the last cited source being pages 31-33.
The thesis must be stated in 5-25 words as the first free standing sentence (hereinafter the “Position Statement”).
The essay must cite to and rely upon what the author concludes to be the most informed, most scholarly and most scientifically reliable and valid sources to support the Position Statement.
The essay shall be limited to 15,000 words, excluding footnoted citations to sources. To the extent applicable to the topic and the Position Statement, sources are expected to include:
peer reviewed literature cited as follows:
Stinger, C., What Makes a Modern Human. Nature. 458(7396):33-35 (2012), p. 35 (this page would be referenced if the Essay text had the following quote: “The majority of our genes (>90%) derives from our common African heritage, and this should take precedence over the minor amount of DNA that is different…”);
Thompson, A., Melt of Key Antarctic Glaciers “Unstoppable”. Scientific American. Vol. 185, No. 12 (June 14, 2014);
Joughin, et al., Marine ice sheet collapse potentially underway for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica. Science. Vol. 344, p.735 (May 16, 2014); or
Rignot, et al., Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica from 1992 to 2011. Geophysical Research Letters. Published online May 12, 2014. doi:10.1002/2014GL060140.
peer reviewed medical literature cited as follows:
Levi, N., et al., Medications as Risk Factors of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis in Children: A Pooled Analysis. Pediatrics.2007;123(2):e297-e304, p. e302 (this page would be referenced if the Essay text said Levi, et al., concluded that the strongest evidence of a causal relationship between acetaminophen (branded as Tylenol) and TEN was a positive rechallenge); or
Xiang, A., et al., Association of Maternal Diabetes With Autism in Offspring. JAMA. 2015;313(14):1425-1433, p. 1431 (this page would be referenced if the text said Xiang, et al., concluded that while preexisting type 2 diabetes was not associated with autism in offspring, gestational diabetes was),
scholarly publications cited as follows:
Smith, A. (1776), An Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations, Scotland: Strahan and Cadell (No additional examples will be used. All citations much include the specific page(s) relied on); or
Campbell, C., et al., (2004) The China Study, The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted. Cornell University: BenBella Books.
All statements, conclusions and opinions which are not solely the authors shall be followed by a footnote to the source(s) relied on. The first cite to a source shall be a full citation in conformity with the examples above. If not covered by those examples the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation guidelines shall be followed. http://www.mla.org/style.
All citations shall include precise page numbers references (preferably one page but never more than three) to the sources the Essay relies on which directly support - as opposed to generally relate to – the proposition for which the Source is cited.
Subsequent citations to a source shall also be in footnotes and shall be abbreviated. To illustrate, the first cite would be: Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations, (1776), p. 58. The second cite to that source would be: Smith (1776), p. 519.
There may be internal citations with page references after the first full footnoted citation (eg., while Smith, A., concluded that markets regulate themselves (Id. at 62), this author submits …”
Any words used verbatim from any Source shall be surrounded by quotation marks, before the footnote for that source appears. The author or Source quoted may be noted in the text (eg., as Dr. Campbell stated: "most, but not all, of the confusion about nutrition is created in legal, fully disclosed ways and is disseminated by unsuspecting, well-intentioned people, whether they are researchers, politicians or journalists". This quote (if not the first to this Source) would be immediately followed by a footnote that would read Campbell, et al., (2005), pp. 249-250.
When the author makes a statement or conclusion that is not directly supported by one or more cited sources that shall be acknowledged (eg., while Smith, (2014), concluded…the author believes, opines or posits that the data, studies or available information more soundly support the conclusion that …).
All significant, prominent, apparently well-accepted and/or noteworthy sources that do not support the Position Statement shall be referenced and assessed (hereinafter “Competing Facts or Data").
The Essay shall set forth the facts, data, logic and bases for which the author has concluded that it’s Position Statement is a more sound conclusion than the conclusion(s) supported by the Competing Facts or Data (hereinafter the “More Sound Conclusion”).
If the Competing Facts or Data leave doubt or ambiguity as to whether the Position Statement is the More Sound Conclusion that shall be acknowledged, referenced and explained (eg., the available data or studies may not provide a definitive answer or the nature of the essay topic may not be soundly addressed by available sources, or may not be capable of being definitively answered by modern science).
When a source does not directly support the proposition for which it is cited this shall be acknowledged and the different conclusion or unsupported observation shall be explained and defended.
Cite check, spell check and proofread your Essay. All potentially winning essays will be capable of being published, and may be published, without alteration.
