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General Submission Guidelines

We encourage the submission of scholarly, philosophical and legal analysis papers on issues affecting and related to strengthening marriage and family. This may include original research, a review of research on relevant topics, a legal analysis of current issues, synthesis of philosophies or historical perspective, analysis or media, etc. Reference here for ideas on previous entries. Each submission should also include an explanation of how the paper or project strengthens the family. Although some topics or research may not be directly related to strengthening the family, submissions can explain why the process of research, writing, education or projects related to families help to strengthen families in general or personally. All paper and project submissions should be submitted by email to studentsforthefamily@gmail.com. Refer here for the grading rubric and specific grading requirements. Submission Format:
  • Send your electronic copy of submission (in PDF or MS Word format, please do not embed submission within email) to studentsforthefamily@gmail.com by 11:59pm on Jan. 4th, 2013.
  • Submission email subject line: "Submission, [Undergraduate Paper, Graduate Paper, Project, or Young Professionals], Your Name"
  • Email Body: How is this submission related to strengthening marriages and/or families?
Format of the Body of the paper:
  1. Use 12 point font, double spacing, and one inch margins. Exclude name from all but the title page; number all pages except the title page (the page after the title page should be numbered as page one)
  2. Title Page: Title, student name, school (or profession), academic discipline/department, major, class (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, or Graduate Student), Type of submission (Graduate, Undergraduate, Young Professional and Paper or Project) and contact information (address, email and phone number)
  3. List any class(es) that the submission was made in conjunction with
The grading process:
  • All footnotes, including those with references, counts against the page limit. Works cited page(s) at the end of the paper or project proposal do not count against the page limit.
  • Submissions that have already received monetary reimbursement through a different competition or have already been published in an academic journal are ineligible.
  • All quoted material should be fully cited according to the preferred style guide for your academic discipline. Any plagiarism will result in the immediate disqualification of a submission.
  • Paper Grading: Your paper or project will initially be looked over by members of Students for the Family to ensure adequate compliance with submission requirements. Following the compliance check, your paper or project will be given to our student grading committee composed for basic editing and scoring. The papers will then be delivered to our faculty grading committee, comprised of professors from various universities and fields. Ultimately, the score of the paper will be a combination of the grade received from the student editing committee and the faculty grading committee, with more weight given to faculty ratings.  They will grade the paper or project based on the grading criteria listed on this website.