Writing Intensive Program

You may apply to either award, and your submissions will be judged against only the other submissions in that award category. Submissions from all fields, majors, and classes will be considered in both awards. However, you should keep in mind that the O’Leary McCarthy Scholarships Award funds are designated as scholarship moneys, which in almost all cases can only be applied to tuition in future semesters; as such, you should only apply to the O’Leary McCarthy Scholarship Award if you will be returning to St. Catherine University as a student in the next academic year.

No, you are not required to have an instructor’s approval or endorsement to submit for either Writing Award. Keep in mind, however, that it’s probably a good idea to check in with instructors to get their perspective on submitting a particular document for the Awards, as well as any advice or suggestions they might be able to provide.

No. Submissions can come from any discipline and can be of any type of writing — essays are welcome, but so are reports, studies, proposals, creative materials, and so on. We are interested in seeing and awarding good writing in all its forms!

No. Submissions can come from any class, in any field or major, so long as it meets the other requirements for length, language, and semester composed.

If you’ve received a good grade and positive feedback on a particular document, you might want to consider submitting it (though keep in mind that the assessment criteria for the Awards will likely be different from the assessment criteria for a course’s writing assignment). If you have spent a lot of time working on a particular document, and you have a feeling that it is good and that it would appeal to lots of readers, you might want to consider submitting it. Keep in mind that there is no harm in submitting, so it’s worth taking a chance!

You should think of the audience of your submission as the same as the audience for which the submission was originally written. For instance, if you are submitting a scientific report, you can think of your audience as the body that would review a scientific report; if you are submitting a newspaper editorial, you can think of your audience as the general reading public, and so on. Please keep in mind, however, that the reviewers of submissions will come from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, so you will likely want to minimize technical language and field-specific jargon whenever possible.

Yes. Any submission that includes use of or reference to outside materials must include both in-text citations and a complete, comprehensive bibliography. Submissions that use or reference outside materials but do not include citations or a bibliography will not be considered.

You should use whatever citation style is appropriate to the discipline or field you are writing in. Whatever format you use — MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. — you must properly format the submission in terms of that style throughout.

Please email any other questions or concerns to wip@stkate.edu.