Y-Essay Contest

Student Essay Contest Rules

 

Contest:

The League of Women Voters, Deschutes County (LWVDC) believes students are the best advocates to increase the voting turnout in their age group. To encourage that advocacy, LWVDC has initiated a student essay contest: Y-Essay (The ‘Y’ is for Yes, Youth, and Why?). The subject of the essay is “Why Vote?”  The contest is open to high school seniors, Class of 2024, in Deschutes County. The winning essayists will each receive an award of $500 and a 1 year free membership to LWVDC.

Purpose:

The purpose of this essay is to persuade others to exercise their right to vote by answering the question, WHY VOTE?
Two examples of ways you might approach your persuasive/inspiring essay are ‘Why you should vote’ and ‘Why I will vote.’

• Compose an original, persuasive essay of 500-700 words in English.
• Your target audience will be your peers.

Formatting and Submission - follow these instructions exactly:

• Essay submissions will be accepted from October 1st through October 31st.
• Format the essay using Calibri or Arial font in 12-point, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, and left justified.
  
• At the bottom of your essay, post the document word count excluding citations.
• Append a separate page for citations. Note: if others’ ideas or quotes are used, they must be cited.
  Use the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for citing works both in text in your essay and on the citations page.
• Once your essay is complete, save the document as a .pdf file with the file name as your birthdate.  Example, a birthdate of April 24, 2012, would be saved as 042412.pdf. (Note the 2 digit year - 12, not 2012)
• Do not include your name on your essay.
• When your essay is ready to submit, click the Y-Essay portal as before, enter as a student, and click on Step 2.
  Complete the form in Step 2, digitally sign, upload your final .pdf essay, and submit.
  

 

Judging Process:

• Essays are judged by volunteers from LWVDC and throughout Deschutes County comprised of elected officials, educators, news editors, and authors.
• Judges will review essays during November and score them based on the rubric (see Judging Criteria below).
• Three judges will review each essay. If any top scores for two or more essays are tied, those essays will be rescored.  There are 4 criteria, each criterion can have a maximum of 10 points, and each essay maximum of 40 points. The scores of three different judges are averaged for each essay's final score. 
  

 

Judging Criteria:

Please click HERE to access the judging rubrics to use as you compose your essay.

• Inspirational: Uplifting or emotive feel.
• Original: Conveys a uniquely personal point of view.
• Persuasive: Provides clear and cohesiveness arguments.
• Readable: Technical structure and accuracy. 

Winning Essays:

• Contest winners will be notified in December. They will receive their winnings and have the opportunity for a photo-op with the LWVDC President.
• LWVDC will publicize the winners the first non-holiday Monday in January.

 

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