By Jonathan Stankiewicz
CCSU’s Elihu Burritt Library staff is hosting a research and creative writing competition in the culmination of its 200th birthday.
“This award will recognize excellence in research and [or] creativity related to Elihu Burritt and his lifelong interest in many important topics, including abolitionism, international peace, linguistics, and ocean penny postage,” says the library website.
Students interested are encouraged to “submit essays, papers, short stories, plays, historical fiction, poems, descriptive prose, video documentaries.”
Two $200 prizes will be awarded to the winners of the competition on Dec. 8 at the Elihu Burritt Birthday party.
The library, and the Special Collections room is full of Burritt research materials and is welcome for students to use for their submissions in the competition.
http://library.ccsu.edu/help/spcoll/burritt/
To be eligible in the competition, students must be undergraduates at any class level with any major or discipline, agree that the paper or project will become property of the Elihu Burritt Library, and send in their work by Nov. 22.
Evaluation criteria for the competition will be judged with the following in mind: “unusual depth or breadth in the use of the Elihu Burritt Collection material located in the Special Collections Department, the Elihu Burritt Collection at the New Britain Public library, and [or] the Elihu Burritt Peace collection at Swarthmore College, PA.,” information sources are appropriate to the context of the project, print and electronic sources must be properly and fully cited in a works cited using discipline-appropriate bibliographic style guide, writing has clarity, coherent organization and is grammatically correct.
To be considered for the award applicants must include their application form, an electronic copy of the final version of their project, and an electronic copy of their bibliography, works cited list. And all projects must be submitted electronically as Microsoft Word, RTF, or PDF.
If you have any questions, please contact Renata Vickrey, Special Collections, [email protected] or (860) 832-2085.
Visit the awards’ website at http://library.ccsu.edu/help/spcoll/burritt/ for more information, submit projects, and electronic application.