Undergraduate Technical
Paper Competition
Information regarding the Technical Paper Competition can be found below. If you still have questions that are not answered, please email: iise.hardrockers@gmail.com.
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General Information
The paper will be due a few weeks before the conference in order to allow judges ample time to read through the paper submissions before the oral presentations.
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Paper submissions are due by February 12th @ 11:59 PM. Submit your paper by emailing a PDF version to: iise.hardrockers@gmail.com.
The paper competition presentations will occur on Saturday, February 18th @ 12:00 PM.
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Prizes will be awarded to first, second, and third place in the amounts of $500, $300, and $200, respectively.
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Each school may submit up to two papers for the competition.
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A brief overview of the rules can be found below but the comprehensive list of rules can be found HERE. ​
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Please make sure you have read and understand these rules before submitting your paper as failure to do so may result in disqualification from the competition.
Students must be an undergraduate student when the nominated paper is written.
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Paper can be projects done for a company as part of a course, internship, or other activity. They may be undergraduate research projects done at the home institution.
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A faculty member may serve as an advisor on a project, but the work should primarily be done by the students.
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A faculty member cannot be a co-author of the paper.
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Only IISE members are eligible to participate.
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Each participating university, including the host institution, may submit up to two papers as entries.
Eligibility
Rules
Multi-authored papers are permitted, provided the names of all authors are on the paper.
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The faculty advisor, or department head, of the participating school must certify that the paper is an undergraduate work and that the student is a member of IISE.
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Only the first-place winner (one paper) will represent a region in the competition at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo.
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In the event that the first-place winner is unable to present at the finals, the second place winner will represent the region at the finals.
Judging is based on 75 percent written presentation and 25 percent oral presentation. Each presenter must be allowed an equal amount of time, not to exceed 15 minutes plus three minutes for a question-and-answer period. Questions can come only from students and judges outside the presenter’s chapter.
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Judging Criteria:
Depth, significance, and originality of subject matter
Excellence of written presentation
Excellence of oral presentation
Judging
Paper Formatting and Layout
8½-inch x 11-inch paper.
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The paper should not exceed 20 pages including appendices.
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Font should be Times New Roman, point size 11.
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Margins of 1 inch (2.5 cm) all around.
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Single spacing.
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Full text justification.
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The following information should be placed at the top of the first page:
Paper title: 16 point Times New Roman bold and centered.
Author(s) listing: 12 point Times New Roman bold, centered and include names, university, city, state, zip code and country.
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Text should be organized into sections and subsections, with an introduction and a conclusions section being advisable. A single line should separate paragraphs; no indentation should be used. Font guidelines are as follows:
Section headings: numbered, 12 point, bold, upper and lower case, left-justified and leave one blank line above only.
Section sub-headings: numbered, 11 point, bold, upper and lower case, left-justified and leave one blank line above only.
Regular text: 11 point Times New Roman, full justified and a single line between paragraphs.
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Sub-bullets must be indented.
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Figures, tables and their captions
Tables and figures when included in the main text need to be as close to the point of their introduction as possible. It is noted that figure and table numbering should be independent. Captions guidelines are as follows:
Figure captions: 10 point Times New Roman, centered and place below the figure, leave one blank line above and below.
Table caption: 10 point Times New Roman, centered and place above the table, leave one blank line above only.
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Equations should be centered and numbered, with the number in parentheses, positioned flush to the right margin. Preferably, they should be prepared with an equation writer.