> SIG Writing BEESST AWARD

The SIG Writing Best Early Stage Short Talk Award aims to encourage and motivate early stage scientists to continue their research efforts in the writing field. This award is attributed to promising JURE members of the SIG Writing as a distinction for their outstanding research presentations during the Research School preceding the SIG Writing Conference. To be eligible for the award the first author of the presentation must be a JURE member of the SIG Writing. Recipients of Malt Joshi travel grants are not eligible for the award, if the work presented at the SIG Writing Conference is the same as the one presented at the Research School.

An evaluation panel composed of three trainers of the Research School and the junior coordinator will rate presentations concerning the following items:
1. Research significance: Extent to which the work is relevant for theory, practice, and policy, within the writing research domain
2. Research quality: Extent to which the theoretical framework, research goals, methods, results, and conclusions are clear and appropriate
3. Poster design: Extent to which the poster is attractive, concise, and well structured, maximizing readers’ interest and understanding
4. Presentation organization: Extent to which the work was presented in a clear and structured way, following a coherent line of reasoning and sticking to the point
5. Presentation style: Extent to which the talk was well prepared and delivered in a fluent manner, with correct grammar and appropriate vocabulary

The recipient of the BESST award will be announced at the SIG Writing Closing Conference. A monetary prize of 400€ will be given to the winner.

BESST Award Recipient 2016 Natalie Usher, University of Oxford, UK Using multiple sources of qualitative data to trace the impact of peer assessment on academic writing development