Student paper contest

General

1.Once each year, each Branch may hold a Paper Contest under its own responsibility.

2.The winner of each Branch Contest may compete for the Region 8 Student Paper Contest, held within the Region limits. An international jury will grade the written paper as well as an oral presentation of the papers, without knowledge of the identity of the author and of his school.

3.The Paper must be presented by one person only (although it may be authored by more than one).

4.Each author must be an undergraduate student and a member of an IEEE Student Branch at the time of the original submission of the paper and a member (student or not) of the IEEE at the time of the oral presentation. The work presented has to be completed before the first engineering degree where a thesis is required. A doctoral thesis is not considered.

5.The original paper may be written in any language. If the original language is not English, an English translation of the paper must be included in the submission. The oral presentation should be in English.

6.When entering a paper in the Regional Contest, each counselor will provide a document certifying that condition 4 is fulfilled, giving the IEEE membership number of the author, and stating during which year after high school the work has been performed. Any other useful information concerning the work and background is welcome. This document should be attached to or be part of the removable fly-leaf (see "Guidelines on Layout").

7.Travel expenses (train 2nd class, or plane economy class for very long distances) will be provided by the Region 8 Student Activities Fund to one author of each paper accepted by the jury. Living expenses which may occur while attending the oral presentation may also be reimbursed; the guidelines for this reimbursement will be mailed to attendees before the presentation.

8.The Life Member Fund is offering three prizes (the 1996 amounts are respectively 500, 300 and 200 U.S. Dollars). Furthermore, the Region 8 Student Activities Fund offers US$250 as the Dick Poortvliet award to the branch where the winner comes from.

9.The three winning papers are published in the IEEE Student Papers Book.

10.Published work is excluded from the Contest. Any paper subsequently published should mention an acknowledgment of the received award. Grading

11.There shall be five judges. The jury is international, appointed by the SAC Chairman.

12.The contributions are graded as follows: written paper content --> 45 points written paper presentation --> 25 points oral presentaion --> 30 points

13.A preliminary selection based on the written document may be made by the members of the jury, either if too many papers are submitted or if some papers do not reach the expected level. Character of the paper

14.Papers should cover technical engineering aspects of a subject reasonably within or related to the areas with which the IEEE is concerned with.

15.The work need not be original in engineering content, but should be original in treatment and concise in coverage of the author's contribution to the subject.

16.All Papers must be typewritten, double spaced, one side only. Any equitation or symbols that cannot be typed may be written in. Pages must be numbered consecutively. Text may not exceed 25 pages or 5000 words whichever comes first (15 to 20 pages is quite a reasonable length). Additional figures may not exceed 10 pages.

17.Six copies will be sent by the contestants to the SAC Chairman. Submitted papers will not be returned. Oral presentation

18.Those authors selected to give an oral presentaion should develop a pleasant and logical presentation of the subject matter fitted to 20 minutes. The jury may question each contestant individually for ab additional period of 20 minutes maximum.

19.Charts, reasonable models, 2" x 2" (5cm x 5cm) slides, and overhead projector transparencies are allowed. A blackboard will be available. Additional presentation tools may be provided if a request is made and granted in advance.

20.The presentation should not attempt to cover the entire paper, but rather to give a general idea and enlarge on one or two specific points. Guidelines on Grading the

Paper The following criteria is suggested to provide a uniform grading standard:
1.Do the authors present their independent work?
2.Is the significant amount of presented work new?
3.Is the subject matter of substantial technical content and is it presented at an acceptably advanced level?
4.Is the 100-word abstract concise, informative and accurate?
5.Does the written presentation include a satisfactory introduction which properly orients the reader with respect to the general area with which the paper deals? Does the concluding portion of the paper summarize the reader's impression of what the paper has accomplished? Are the conclusions supported by evidence.
6.Does the exposition (and analysis which may be involved) proceed in an orderly an logical manner? Is the paper self-contained?
7.Does the author exhibit ingenuity and resourcefulness in methods of presentation, choice of illustrations, use of analogies and the like?
8.Is the paper technically accurate?
9.Is an unmistakable meaning conveyed with acceptable brevity?
10.Is the format and typesetting quality of the paper appropriate?

Guidelines on Layout
The following guidelines are suggested to assist grading by providing a uniform layout.
In general the paper should be organized as follows:

1.Removable fly-leaf page. Since the judges must handle the papers without knowledge of the identity of the author and his educational establishment, it is required that the paper itself shows no such identification other can title. The title, name of author and his home address, school and Branch Counselor's name must be shown on a fly-leaf which can be removed. The Counselor's document should be removable too.
2.Title page. On the title page, only the title of the paper should appear. The title should consist of a minimum number of key words necessary to portray accurately the content of the paper. Readers interest is stimulated by a well-chosen title. The author's name should not appear on the title page, nor should any other name of persons or schools.
3.Table of contents. The table of contents should consist of a list of parts of the paper, and the page numbers, in the order in which they occur.
4.Abstract. The abstract should not describe the paper, but should give in brief the essential facts of its content, for example, a brief statement of the problem or objective an a concise summary of results or conclusions, touching upon methods or other details only if they are unique or if they are some paticular significance. The abstract should no longer than 100 words.
5.Introduction. The introduction should lead to the development of the subject so that the reader may obtain a clear understanding of the significance of the paper. This often can be done by giving briefly the state of the art as background. Then bring out the added advantages of the method of approach and emphasize the importance of the results or conclusions.
6.Body. The main argument of the development of the subject is carried out in the body of the paper, complete with supporting data. The argument should proceed in a logical sequence according to a prepared outline. The writing should be in the third person. Supporting data and results can often be presented most effectively as curves, charts or tables. Well-known abbreviations may be used in the text but should be defined where used the first time, followed by abbreviation in parentheses. Generally the use of abbreviations should by confined to not duplicate text matter.
7.Conclusion. The conclusions are often considered the most important part of a paper. They should be stated concisely in a separate section at the end of the paper. If there are three ore more conclusions, greater emphasis can be obtained by numbering each conclusion an setting it off in a separate paragraph.
8.Tables. Generally, each table should be typed in a separate sheet an numbered consecutively using Roman numerals. Small tabulations or listings may be made in the text where necessary for continuity. Each table should be titled by giving a brief description as a heading following the table number at the top. Ditto marks should not be used in tables, but brackets may be used to group information common to several lines.
9.Diagrams. Three types of diagrams may be used: photographs, oscillograms, line drawings. Keep reading matter on illustrations to a minimum; include it in the captions. Portions of illustrations may be identified by letters and explained in the captions. Whenever feasible, combine several curves on the same coordinates. Their identifying letters or numbers should be in clear spaces between cross-section lines. If it necessary to place data over cross-section line, erase these lines.
10.Appendices. Detailed mathematical proofs, development of equations, and examples which are subordinate to the main argument in the body of a paper, but not essential to the following the argument, should be treated in appendices. References are made in the text to details in the appendices. Main equations as they are developed should be numbered consecutively, with the number in parentheses opposite the equation in the right hand margin.
11.References. Any information or development taken from books, periodicals or courses, i.e. from any external source, should be appended to enable the reader to consult those sources.
References should be numbered consecutively and should follow the form shown below: For a periodical: R.N. Hall, "Power Rectifiers and Transistors", Proc. IRE, vol.40, pp. 1512-1519, November 1952. For a book: W.A. Edison, "Vakuum Tube Oscillators", Wiley, New-York, pp. 170-171, 1948.