Student Paper Competition

Below you will find the guidelines that have been used to structure the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology (CNEHA) student paper competition. The purpose of this competition is to encourage student participation at the annual CNEHA conference. Competition entrants will be judged on their ability to present a cogent, coherent summary of data and to make a logical argument within a 20 minute time frame.

Student Paper Competition Eligibility

To be eligible to enter the competition, students must be:

• Registered in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at the time of the conference (a copy of the student ID must be provided with the completed paper prior to the conference.)
• A Registered member of CNEHA. If you are not yet a member, you should apply for membership with your registration for the conference.

Student Paper Competition Requirements

Students wishing to compete are required to write and present a single-authored, 20-minute paper at the conference. A standard measure used to prepare conference papers of this length is to write 8-10, double-spaced pages, excluding tables, illustrations, or references. A final version of your paper, complete with references, must be submitted via email to not later than September 21, 2024. References and editing should conform to the standards and conventions used in CNEHA’s journal, Northeast Historical Archaeology.

Student competition papers submitted prior to the conference must be the papers that are presented orally at the meeting. If you need to shorten a longer version, submit the short version, not the long one. This is only fair to the other students, some of whom are attempting this for the first time and will not be starting from a larger document.

Student competition entrants will present their papers orally at the conference on Saturday, October 19, 2024 before a general audience and a panel of scholars to be drawn from the fields of historical archaeology and anthropology, history, material culture, and American Studies. Because an element of the competition is the presentation, only single-authored papers will be accepted.

Students, who participated in previous competitions, but did not win the competition in the previous year or who received an honorable mention, may re-enter the competition in successive years, provided they meet the above criteria. Students who have previously been awarded first-place in the competition may not re-enter the competition.

Student Paper Criteria

The panelists have been asked to make their decisions based on the following criteria:

Content

Is the work original and well-organized? Is a problem or research question presented and answered by the student? Does the student use comparative data and archaeological theory? Is the research question or topic site-specific or placed within a larger social, cultural or economic context (This question could come across as favoring larger contexts over site-specific ones. Is this the intent or is this question asked simply to let the students know that entered papers may take on a range of analytical and interpretive scales)? Are appropriate sources used to support the argument?

Presentation

Panelists will consider the oral presentation (the student’s confidence and ease of presentation in front of an audience) as well as the student’s overall presentation of his or her research; they may also evaluate the use of audio-visual aids.

Contribution to the field of Historical Archaeology

Panelists will consider the originality of the research or research methods, as well as the overall contribution or usefulness to the field of historical archaeology.

Announcement of the Winner

The panel’s decision will be announced at the business meeting on Sunday morning, October 20, 2024. Students are welcome to attend the business meeting. Winners will receive a certificate of award and a one year membership in CNEHA. The first-prize winner will also have his or her paper published in the journal. All students will receive a summary of comments made by the panel that might be used to improve their work in and scholarly contribution to the field of historical archaeology.

Finally, those students who receive top awards in the competition must submit a revised version of their paper to the editorial office of Northeast Historical Archaeology within six months of the competition. This version will go out for review and must be submitted with original artwork and/or digitized images on disk (contact the editorial office for specifications and additional information).

Please contact me if you have any further questions. I look forward to meeting you and to hearing your papers.

Good Luck!
Nancy J. Brighton

Previous Winners