Saint Mary's Academic Writing Awards

The Writing Centre has announced that the deadline for this year’s Saint Mary's University Undergraduate Academic Writing Awards will be Monday, May 30, 2022 at 4:00pm AST.

This annual competition recognizes the best in undergraduate academic writing at Saint Mary's University. Awards are available in four categories: Humanities, Social Science, Science, and Business. There are also two levels of awards—lower (students with 60 or less total credit hours from any institution) and upper (students with more than 60 total credit hours from any institution). Papers at the upper level will be judged at a higher standard.

Submissions must be:

• Written by an undergraduate student

• Written entirely by the student making the submission

• Individually written; group assignments are not eligible

• From either Fall 2021 or Winter 2022 courses, but cannot be an undergraduate thesis

• Accompanied by the original assignment description from the course

• Accompanied by the submission form, digitally signed by the instructor of the course

• Submitted via email (writing@smu.ca) as a Microsoft Word document, unless the submission is in an alternative digital medium (e.g. .mp3, .mp4, .mov)

• Submitted before the deadline.

Students must agree to participate in the publishing process to be published.

Students may submit a paper from any course from September to April, regardless of whether it is related to their primary discipline. For example, a student in Science may submit an English paper.

For more information, please visit the Writing Awards website.

Academic Writing and English Language Learners Conference, Oct. 25-26, 2019

The conference for Academic Writing and English Language Learners (AWELL) is a two-day conference designed for faculty, language instructors, composition instructors, and writing centre professionals who teach and tutor ELL students. The goal of the conference is to provide tools and approaches in a workshop format that may be used directly in classrooms and tutoring sessions.

We want to provide an open forum to all those interested in any area of additional language studies and academic writing, including digital writing pedagogies, multiliteracies, plurilingualism, and intercultural writing supports. Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

• Pedagogy and practice for multilingual classrooms

• ELL pedagogy relating to globalized students

• Learning community writing practice

• Technology in writing practice relating to ELLs

• Multimodal and digital approaches to ELL writing instruction and practice

• Considerations of general teaching and learning practice to ELLs 

Two-day registration ($175.00).
Saint Mary's University faculty or staff ($100.00).
Student or writing tutor ($75.00).

Registration fee includes lunches and break refreshments.
Post-conference dinner is self-funded.

Summer Writing Workshop success!

Get ready for uni is August

Fifty-five incoming, first-year students from across Atlantic Canada spent two day learning about writing and academic life at university.

Student workshops included:

• Listening to lectures and note-taking

• Writing project outlining and development

• Writing in the disciplines

• Professor’s roundtable

• Grammar and syntax

Feedback from students who attended was great.

“The workshop give you a chance to experience a small slice of the university life.”
”I learned valuable skills and I also made friends!”
”The lecture note-taking session was very informative and taught me stuff I didn’t know.”
”I now feel more prepared for SMU and university.”
”I learned a lot that I wouldn’t have thought about.”

Next year’s Summer Writing Workshop is August 18th and 19th, 2020