Corpora: $1000 for a linguistics term paper?! Again??!

[Philip Resnik]

[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this posting.]


How often does an undergraduate get a chance to make a thousand bucks
for a well written paper?

The answer: Annually!  (See last year's results below.)

Now in its third year, competition for the University of Maryland
Undergraduate Essay Prize in Linguistics is officially underway
-- the formal announcement is below and on the Web at
<http://umiacs.umd.edu/~resnik/prize2000/>.  Submissions can be papers
written last year, or, since there's a December 15, 2000 deadline,
students can write something new for the competition -- yes, they can
even polish up and submit a term paper written for a course this fall.

Faculty, please encourage your students to submit papers!

Students, please submit those papers you're about to be working on!

And everyone, please feel free to forward this announcement to other
bulletin boards or mailing lists where there might be interest.

Cheers,

  Philip
  ----------------------------------------------------------------
  Philip Resnik, Assistant Professor
  Department of Linguistics and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies

  1401 Marie Mount Hall            UMIACS phone: (301) 405-6760
  University of Maryland           Linguistics phone: (301) 405-8903
  College Park, MD 20742 USA	   Fax   : (301) 405-7104
  http://umiacs.umd.edu/~resnik	   E-mail: resnik at umiacs.umd.edu




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The University of Maryland Undergraduate Essay Prize in Linguistics
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The University of Maryland Department of Linguistics is pleased to
announce the 2000/2001 University of Maryland Undergraduate Essay
Prize in Linguistics, an international competition now in its third
year.

The prize of $1000 will be awarded for the best undergraduate student
essay on a topic in linguistics, and the winning essay will be
published in the 2001 University of Maryland Working Papers in
Linguistics.

Submissions may be in the areas of computational linguistics, formal
semantics, language acquisition, language change, lexical semantics,
neurolinguistics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and formal syntax.

   * Eligibility. Applicants must at the time of submission be enrolled at
     least half time in an undergraduate program of study leading to a
     bachelor's degree or equivalent, and must not already possess any
     degree in linguistics. Essays should have been written within the
     previous or current academic year, and must represent the original work
     of the applicant. Previously published essays will not be considered
     for the award. Current and former students of the University of
     Maryland, College Park are ineligible.

   * Deadline. Applicants must submit three (3) copies of the essay to the
     address listed below, to be received no later than December 15, 2000.
     Late submissions will not be considered.

   * Length and format. Essays must be submitted in English, typed or
     word-processed in no smaller than 10-point font, single-sided,
     double-spaced, and on white paper, with at least 1-inch margins on all
     sides. Applicants should use single-spaced endnotes rather than
     footnotes, and follow style guidelines of either the Modern Language
     Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA).
     Essays must be no longer than twenty pages, excluding bibliography,
     including at most two pages of endnotes. Essays not conforming to these
     instructions will not be considered.

     The applicant's name must not be included on the essay, since reviewing
     is anonymous. Instead, include a cover sheet listing the title of the
     essay, applicant's name, address, telephone number, e-mail address (if
     available), school and program attending, year in the program, and the
     topic area or areas of the essay (taken from the list above).

   * Judging. All essays will be judged anonymously by the Faculty in
     Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

   * Award. The Essay Prize of $1000 will be awarded in February 2001, and
     the winning essay included in the 2001 Maryland Working Papers in
     Linguistics. The Department reserves the right not to award the prize
     in a given year and may change the terms of the award for future
     competitions.

Submissions should be sent to:

Undergraduate Essay Prize
Department of Linguistics
1401 Marie Mount Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-7505 USA

Inquiries should be directed to the above address, or to the Undergraduate
Essay Prize Coordinator: Philip Resnik, resnik at benjamin.umd.edu,
(301) 405-8903.

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Last year's results

 Winner: Jason Kandybowicz, Rutgers
  The reiterated numeral construction

 Honorable Mention: Cliff Crawford, Cornell
  A condition on wh-extraction and what it reveals about the syntactic
  structure of Tagalog

 Honorable Mention: Janet Eisenband, UPenn
  The use of gender information in pronoun resolution

 Honorable Mention: Rebecca Hanson, Calgary
  Fusion and the acquisition of S-nasal clusters

 Honorable Mention: Peter J. Vasquez, UCLA
  Linguistic ability in the right hemisphere: evidence from
  language development in two left hemispherectomies

 Honorable Mention: Lynsey Kay Wolter, Swarthmore
  The case of predicates: questions of control and binding