The Graduate Student Paper Competition was initiated at the 40th Annual Meeting held in Boise, Idaho in 1986.  Separate contests are held for Master’s and Ph.D. students with $200 awarded for first place and $100 awarded for second place.  The student must have conducted the research presented in the oral paper and the paper must be accepted by the Annual Meeting Committee to be eligible for the competition.  Only one oral paper may be entered each year.  However, students may enter as many oral papers as they wish during their degree programs. 

Click here to see the judging sheet (i.e., judging rubric) that judges will use to evaluate your oral presentation.  Papers that are involved in this competition are interspersed among other papers of similar topics during the concurrent technical sessions.  At least three judges will evaluate each paper and points will be assigned based on the criteria listed in the judging rubric.  

All oral presentations are podium style with stationary microphone, a laptop computer for Power Point slide presentations at the podium, and digital screen projection.  All speakers must arrive at their session room location at least 45 minutes before the start of their session to load their presentations on the laptop computer provided for their session.  It is the responsibility of the speakers to ensure that their presentations are properly loaded, accessible, and operational prior to the start of their session.