***
Hey, there! Looking for the latest Shmoop Essay Contest?
Look here: http://www.shmoop.com/essay-contest/
***
Spring 2010 Essay Contest
Results: http://www.shmoop.com/news/2010/06/21/essay-contest-winners/
— original post below —
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Shmoop announces our first essay contest for high school students.
Answer this question in 500 or fewer words:
In Robert Frost‘s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” …
Examine the relationship between the speaker in the poem and his environment, which includes not only the woods themselves but his horse, the owner of the woods, and the community. Include in your discussion an examination of Frost’s use of language and imagery, focusing on how these contribute to the meaning of the poem and help him to achieve his purpose. Be sure to support your ideas with evidence from the poem.
1 Grand Prize Winner Wins an iPad
- Apple iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G
- 16 GB
- Does not include 3G data plan, sold separately
3 Runners-Up Get a Shmoop T-Shirt
- Yeah, it’s no iPad. But you’ll look great. Trust us.
Finalists to be Judged by Jim Burke
- Jim Burke is a Special Advisor to Shmoop and an all-around awesome English teacher.
- Mr. Burke teaches AP English Literature and 9th grade College Prep English at Burlingame High School in Burlingame, CA.
- Mr. Burke is the founder of the English Companion Ning, an online community of 15,000 English teachers.
- Mr. Burke has published 20 books for English teachers.
- Check out Jim Burke’s personal website.
Contest Rules
- Contest open to currently enrolled High School (or Senior High) students (and younger)
- 500 words maximum
- Open to students from around the world (as allowed by local law)
- Entries must be written in English
- Deadline for entry is May 28, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time
- One entry per student and only one student per entry
- To submit your entry, email your essay as a Word, Text, or PDF document to support@shmoop.com
- No other media types will be accepted
- You must include:
- Your first and last name
- Age
- Your current grade level
- Name of your English teacher
- Full name of your high school, plus its main phone number and address
- By submitting your work to Shmoop, you give Shmoop permission to republish your essay, along with your name, school, city, and state.
The Fine Print
- No purchase necessary to enter.
- Contest void where prohibited by law.
- 1 student per entry (no group submissions allowed). Student must be currently enrolled in High School, Sr. High School, or equivalent (homeschooled students are welcome). If younger students (e.g. Middle School) want to give it a shot, we welcome your submissions, too.
- Prizes may not be exchanged for cash or other goods and are non-transferable.
- Finalists and winner will be selected by the sole discretion of Shmoop’s judging panel. Sorry, we cannot provide individual feedback on entries.
- Can’t Buy Me Love: Shmoop judges do not respond to any attempts to win favor (even if we have major weaknesses for chocolate, cupcakes, and roasted almonds).
- We’ll make you Interwebs famous: By submitting an entry, you grant Shmoop University, Inc. an irrevocable, worldwide license to publish your work, in part or in its entirety, along with your name, school name, city, and state.
- Shmoop is all about inspiring original thought… let’s keep this contest clean: By submitting an entry, you confirm that this work is entirely your original work and that you have not received any help from others. If you have relied on any other person or publication’s thoughts to write your essay, you must cite your sources in MLA format. You acknowledge that Shmoop may use an anti-plagiarism service to verify that your essay is original and may inform your school administration if you have submitted plagiarized materials.
We plan to enter!
I’m excited.😀 -buys you chocolate- Anything?
Hey does this work for high school students all over the world?????
Hi,
Do you accept international participants?
Thanks,
Fatina
Are you able to enter this from Scotland?
Yes, we accept entries from outside the U.S. – so long as it is alllowed by your local law.
May teachers help with editing/revising and proofreading?
MJB, that is a great question. While we believe that revision and feedback are critical parts of teaching writing, our rules for this contest state that students may not receive any outside help. In order to keep the playing field level, entries need to be the sole work of the student.
this is cool.!!!!!!!!!!! i am going to WIN!
What if one is only 13 years old and in high school? Am I still eligible for the contest?
What format does the essay have to be written in? MLA? If MLA, must it include the four line heading? Single or double spacing? Thanks.
Do you allow home educated and/or Post Secondary Education Option students to enter?
Christian – yes, high school or middle school students are welcome to enter.
Anthony – we’re more interested in your great thinking than formatting. Single spaced or double-spaced is fine. Or, heck, 1.5 spaced, for that matter. No headers necessary, although a title is probably a good idea. If you need to cite sources for your essay, please use MLA citation format.
including all of the name, school, english teacher stuff, does it still have to be 500 words or less? OR does that apply only to the actual essay itself?
I’m really looking forward to trying to win this, it will be nice to test myself, especially against people from all around the world. Good luck everybody.
There is usually a hidden word in the essay that many of the ap groups dare us to use. Last year was (this is sparta!), what’s this year’s?
does it HAVE to be 500 words? and dos it have to be a specific font?
Can I talk to my family about ideas i have?
I love the ipad its so cool
Will there be anymore contests like this?? Cuz i hate ipads they don’t work!
This is the best thing ever
Is there any application or do i just email it to you
Love apple products, but my husband NEEDS an iPad so badly!!!!!
SO let me get this straight… this is a poetry contest right? Or is it essay?
Also , what is the judging based on?
Also, is there any specific topic?
Thank you.
@ACE: it’s all in the rules above.🙂 this is an essay contest for high school students and the question is based on Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
i think this is a very good idea…i want to try to do this because i have never done a contest like this before…also the ipad would nice to have…”Shmoop, do yall count words like “a” or “or” because some teachers, or in this case judges don’t count those words. and do we have to do in-line citations for works or words that we cite?” let me know please because im very interested in this! thanks!!
@ Vincent – every word counts.🙂
We require MLA citation… you can see our “citing Shmoop” page: http://www.shmoop.com/help/cite-shmoop/#mla
I researched some interpretations of the poem but I used a multitude of ideas(including shmoop) in my own mash-up interpretation. No pladgerism though. Sill cite? And my essay is 500 words on the dot–will the citing be a problem if it puts me over the word limit?
Hi Michelle – yes, you should always cite sources that influenced your ideas (just as you would for an essay that you turn in to your teacher). Please trim your essay down to 500 words including the in-line citations.
Revision is probably the most important step of the writing process. The delete key can often be your best friend.🙂
I have a big issue on my hands, how will you know if the person will or will not cheat??? I think that contests like these should have it to where you will be recorded for every where you go and I meant to where we would send a recording of everything we type and there should be a limit of how long it would be. It’s gonna be very hard to win since my school, they sent an E-mail to all our teachers and that is how I got here. This is like the one of the worst ideas but I’m gonna try to actually do this and hopefully I win🙂 . . . I’ll see you guys later then???
At what time will the essays be reviewed and the winners be notified?
when will the winners be announced?
The deadline for entries is May 28, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time and we’ll announce the finalists and winner in early June. Good luck!
are we aloud to resubmit our esays if we have made a small mistake
What if a Post-Grad student [ English Literature] wants to enter the contest ?
Are we allowed to use helpful sources in our paper? And if we do use them, do you cite them using paranthetical citations?
hi. this sounds like a fun contest to enter . although i am only in 7th grade so this is a little to difficult for me. may i have family help? or is there going to be more contests like this every year so i may do it when i get a little bit more knowledge about the subject.
if i already submitted my essay and i wanted to resubmit it because i made a mistake. is that possible
can graders participate too?
@ Elizabeth – yes, please resubmit and make a note in your email that you are resubmitting so we don’t read both submissions.
@ Aditi – sorry, this contest is only open to high school (secondary) students and younger
@ Sarah – yes, if you use any outside resources, you must use MLA citation
@ Adonica – not sure what you mean by “graders.” The contest is open to high school (secondary) students and younger.
ummm, what I meant is even if I am not High School student I can join? . . . because I am only Grade 5 .😦
if you will right an essay the topic is all about the “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” ? , and none other else ?, only that topic ? . . .
Yes, the contest is open to younger students. Way to be ambitious!
The only question for this contest is in the rules above. We only have 1 topic (or question) because it creates a fair playing field for everyone who enters. We won’t accept entries that do not answer the question in our rules.
Good luck!
sorry could you by any chance extend the deadline please?😀
We’re sticking to our guns. May 28th. You still time, you still have time.
Could you clarify the prompt a bit? What exactly is the main question we’re adressing?
what if i am an asian, am i still allowed to enter?
I think for the next one, you should have a creative writing contest! It could up to us to decide what kind of topic to choose, but we would have to follow some sort of basic guidelines.
@Rim. Our contest is open to high school-aged students from anywhere in the world!
SHHHHHHHMOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP
i think that nobody will ever win the ipad so what is the point
I have a few questions about the word count.
Does my Works Cited count in the word count? (not the in-line citations)
What about:
My first and last name,
Age,
My current grade level,
Name of my English teacher,
Full name of my high school, plus its main phone number and address?
How long untill we get a notice saying you got our essay?
Hey if you’re in Mrs. Horwath’s class at Enterprise High School this is 50 extra credit points!!! That’s a lot, I’m working on mine right now………cause it’s due tomorrow for Horwath
Are we supposed to recieve a confirmation email after we send our essay?
Hello!
I wanted to ask about the strictness of the 500 word requirement. If a student writes more than this amount, is that okay with the judges? I don’t mean a large portion, but by a small margin, say 10-15 extra?
what do we do if we sent our essay in with our school’s name and number, but forgot to put in the address?
just submitted mine! i’m so excited for this. love you, shmoop.
When will the winners be announced?
thanks:)
When will the winners be announced?
When will the results be published? And are the winners being emailed?
When will the winners be announced?
When will the winners be announced?
when & how will y’all let us know who won & who are the runners up?
When will winners be announced?
its 6/18…where are the winners?
It should be announced sometime today!
Now when you say “roughly June 18th” did y’all mean around/near June 18th or precisely June 18th?
Does Shmoop have any idea when the winners will be announced?
😦 I really want to know who won.
And the iPad goes to….
http://www.shmoop.com/news/2010/06/21/essay-contest-winners/