University Libraries' Undergraduate Research in Writing Award

Undergraduate Research in Writing Award

The University Libraries have established the Undergraduate Research in Writing Award to celebrate excellence in library research.

This annual prize will recognize up to two students who have most successfully applied Information literacy skills in a paper or project. Information literacy has been defined as the ability to identify an information need, find sources that address it, evaluate and incorporate those sources, and use information ethically. (Association of College and Research Libraries)

The award consists of a $500 scholarship prize for first place and $250 for second place (prizes will be applied directly to tuition).

Winners will be selected among faculty- or student-nominated student projects submitted from Oakland University’s General Education Writing Intensive and Writing Intensive in the Major courses. The winning projects will be selected by a panel of university faculty members by the end of the Winter semester every academic year.

The award-winning projects will be deposited in the university’s repository, OUR@Oakland, and made available online.

Timeline

The award will be given to up to two students each academic year. Nominations are accepted throughout the year for courses taught in the preceding Winter, Summer and Fall semesters.

Nominations may be submitted at any time before the deadline of March 1, 2013 for papers written in Winter 2012, Summer 2012 and Fall 2012 semesters.

Submission procedure

Student projects can be nominated by faculty or by students. If a student chooses to nominate a project, the Research in Writing Award Committee will contact the supervising faculty member for confirmation.

Faculty-nominated projects:

The supervising faculty members completes and submits the faculty nomination form. The form asks the faculty member to write a brief justification for the nomination and to provide a description of the assignment. Faculty may submit nominations for multiple students from their eligible courses.
The Award Committee will contact the student, who will submit a completed online student application form and provide a final version of the project.

Student-nominated projects:

The student completes and submits the student nomination form. The form asks the student to briefly describe how the project meets the award criteria and to provide a description of the assignment.
The student also submits a final version of the project.
The Award Committee will contact the faculty member who will submit a brief statement evaluating the project.

Contact Information

Dominique Daniel
Assistant Professor, Humanities Librarian for History and Modern Languages
Email: daniel@oakland.edu
Phone: 248.370.2478

Eligibility

Only individual work is eligible.
Students have to be currently enrolled at Oakland University at the time of award selection.
Papers have to be written for a course that meets the General Education Writing Intensive requirement, or the Writing Intensive in the Major requirement.
Papers have to include a bibliography, list of works cited, footnotes or other bibliographic system according to recognized style guides.
Individuals must agree to submit their papers to the OUR@Oaklandrepository. Individuals will maintain copyright and the work will be made available online.

Evaluation criteria

Successful projects will demonstrate effective application of information literacy principles:

identify and retrieve information online or in person, using appropriate formats. Students effectively make use of research resources. When applicable students gather information from surveys, interviews, and other primary sources.

evaluate information critically. Students are able to evaluate sources for their reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness and bias, and they understand the importance of the context in which the sources were produced.

analyze and synthesize information so as to acquire new knowledge. Students identify and summarize the new information provided by their sources.

integrate new and prior information into the paper. Students know when and how to paraphrase, summarize or quote sources and provide appropriate and accurate citations and credits.