Student Information

Student Paper Competition

TCFE, in conjunction with the 5th Forensic Congress is sponsoring a Paper Competition open to all graduate and undergraduate students.  The papers are to be the work of students only.  Student co-authors are permitted.  No non-student or faculty advisors are permitted as co-authors of the papers.  Papers will be accepted on any of the topics listed in the 5th Congress program areas including failure case histories or a discussion of a system or class of failures.  Additional details are noted below:

 

• Papers are to be a maximum of 3,000 words.  Figures, tables and photos are permitted in addition to the word count.  Papers must be double spaced.
• A professional level of writing is expected.  The quality and quantity of references as appropriate to the topic selected is an important criterion for the paper. 
• Use of original figures, photos, and diagrams is desirable and encouraged.  Proper crediting and referencing of sources is required.
• Papers should be submitted in standard ASCE journal format.  Refer to http://pubs.asce.org/authors/journal/ for additional guidance.  Students should also refer to papers published in the ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities for additional examples of topic areas and format items such as how to treat references.
• The paper submission shall contain a cover page including author names, degree being pursued, contact information including your department and university name and title of the paper.  Students who will graduate prior to the date of the Congress are permitted to submit papers but they must include an email contact address that will be valid after their date of graduation.
• Papers should be submitted electronically (pdf format) to M. Kevin Parfitt by August 14, 2009.  For a list of topics, please click here. 
• A prize of $500 and a plaque will be awarded to the top paper.  Additional awards may be made to other papers at the discretion of the competition committee.  Papers will not be published in the proceedings, however, if the paper is of appropriate quality it will be considered for publication in a future issue of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities.
• While TCFE encourages participation in local student chapters of ASCE and AEI, students do not have to be a member of ASCE to participate in this competition.