Essay Contest Rules & Judging

Rules

The contest is open to 9th- through 12th-grade students, 13 years of age and older, attending schools in the Eighth Federal Reserve District (54 Kb, PDF), which includes all of Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi.

Each entrant must be under the supervision of a teacher. Family members of Federal Reserve employees are not eligible to participate.

1.	Students are asked to register for the contest before submitting an essay.
2.	Essays must be accompanied by the student submission form (photocopies of the entry form are acceptable) and must be received on or before the deadline. Note: All entry forms require three signatures: - the student, - a parent or guardian, and - the teacher.
3.	Each student may submit only one essay.
4.	Essays must be stapled and: - be written in 12-point type, - be double-spaced, - contain no more than four one-sided pages, - be numbered on every page, - contain one-inch margins and - contain a separate title page. Note: Data and graphs are not considered in the four-page limit.
5.	Each essay must have a separate title page listing these items: - essay title - student’s name - student’s e-mail address - home address (include city, state and zip code) - home telephone number (include area code) - supervising teacher’s name - teacher’s e-mail address - school name and address (include city and zip code) - school telephone number - total number of pages submitted
6.	The title of the essay, but not the author’s name, should appear at the top of the first page of text.
7.	A reference page should be included after the last page of text. All sources must be properly acknowledged and correctly noted in the essay. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source.
8.	Essays will not be returned to the author.
9.	Essays that do not conform to contest rules and regulations will not be submitted for judging, nor will they be returned to the author.
10.	All students need to keep an electronic version of their essay in the event that they are named as one of the winners.
11.	Winners of the essay contest will need to provide a social security number in order to receive the savings bond award.
12.	Participants must agree to the following submission agreement: “Content” is any material, including but not limited to writings, artwork, photographs, designs, plans, information, suggestions, ideas, data, questions or comments, submitted by you to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis through this site.  You may only submit Content that you created.  You may not submit Content that plagiarizes the work of others or violates or infringes the rights of others including, without limitation, patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, publicity or other proprietary rights. You may not submit Content that violates any laws or that would place the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in breach of any applicable laws.   Any Content you submit becomes the property of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and will be considered to be non-proprietary and non-confidential. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis will have no obligations of any kind with respect to any Content you submit and will be free to edit, reproduce, use, disclose, publish and/or distribute any Content for any purpose whatsoever, without limitation. You also agree that The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis will be free to use any ideas, concepts, artwork, inventions, developments, suggestions or techniques embodied in the Content for any purpose whatsoever, with or without attribution, and without compensation to you. In addition, you hereby waive all moral rights you may have in any Content submitted by you. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is under no obligation to use any Content submitted.

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Judging Criteria

Essays will be evaluated according to five criteria listed below:

1.	Comprehension	How well does the essay reflect a thorough understanding of the topic?
2.	Organization	Does the argument follow a logical and easily understood progression?
3.	Creativity	Were diverse resources and ideas used to develop the topic?
4.	Writing/Style	Were correct grammar, spelling and punctuation as well as concise language used?
5.	Conclusions	Do the conclusions follow logically from the argument? Are the conclusions compelling?

Direct questions you may have about the writing of the essay to the student’s supervising teacher.

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