Eclipsing Opinions Essay Contest

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November 22, 2008

Eclipsing Opinions Essay Contest

“Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.”- Herbert Spencer

Choose an object on campus or a place you’ve encountered during your time here at Cornell, and explain how it reflects the Cornell community.

Please respond in an essay no more than 1,000 words and no less than 800 words. Be sure to include a title and page numbers on each page. Submissions are required by 11:59 pm on March 19th, 2010.

Submission

Submit your essay via email to: eclipsingopinions@cornellsun.com

When submitting your essay, be sure to include:

* Your Name

* Your netID

* Your class year

* Your essay as an attachment in one of the following formats only:

o .doc (Microsoft Word 97-2004)

o .pdf (Adobe Portable Document Format)

Please note: Submissions in the .docx format will not be accepted.

Rules and Information

The 2009-2010 Eclipsing Opinions Essay Contest is meant to encourage and incite an interest among Cornell University undergraduates in the art of journalistic opinion writing. All entrants will be judged by a group of Cornell University faculty and The Cornell Daily Sun staff on the quality, persuasive effect, and clarity of each essay. Submissions will be accepted between February 12th and March 7th, 2010 at 5pm via email to eclipsingopinions@cornellsun.com. Please ensure that all submissions are in only .doc or .pdf format. Essays submitted in .docx format will not be considered. All essays must be original. Any submissions obtained from a third-party source or used in any other class or contest will be disqualified from consideration immediately.

One winner will receive $400 in cash, the title of Contest Champion, and publication in the April 16th edition of Red Letter Daze. One runner-up will receive a $75 prize, the title of Contest Runner-Up, and publication in the April 16th edition of Red Letter Daze. Other outstanding finalists may also receive publication in Red Letter Daze, along with the title of Contest Finalist, with no additional prize. Winners and finalists will be notified by Friday, April 2nd.

Please note that in order to ensure the highest quality drafting of your work, you are encouraged to attend the Walk-In hours of the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines held in several locations on campus. For more information on this service, please consult this website.

Our essay prompt will be posted on this site by February 12th, 2010. Check back frequently until that date to find the post. Please consider the prompt as a helpful guide toward a topic or thesis, but do NOT respond directly to a specific question. Keep in mind that the prompts will not be printed with the winning essays. The essay has to stand on its own, without the guiding question as a reference.

All entrants must keep essay submissions within the range of 800-1000 words.

By submitting this essay, you give The Cornell Daily Sun the right to publish, promote, reprint, and distribute your work without fear of legal claim or copyright.

Special thanks to our sponsors for the devotion and dedication to supporting the arts in journalism: Tompkins Trust Co., The Cornell Store, Chateau Lafayette Reneau, Cornell Cinema, and the Johnson Museum of Art.

Chateau Lafayette Reneau