Student Paper Award
Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers 2016
The AAG-RTS encourages graduate students to participate in our sponsored sessions at the Annual Meeting. The AAG-RTS offers prizes to the best student paper presented at the conference in two categories: Master’s and PhD. The prize is a cash award of $200 and $500, respectively.
Eligibility Criteria & Deadlines
To be eligible, you must be enrolled as a graduate student by the AAG’s official abstract submission date (October 29th, 2015)
- register to attend the AAG Annual Meeting
- present in an AAG-RTS sponsored session at the AAG Annual Meeting
- submit a research paper* based on your Annual Meeting presentation (papers must be submitted by March 11th in order to be eligible for the award)
Members of the AAG-RTS board, assisted by senior scholars attending the Annual Meeting, will review each submission and attend the participants’ presentations.
Each student wishing to be considered for the award must send their name, affiliation, and paper title to the AAG-RTS Chair by February 29th, 2016.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the AAG-RTS Chair, Patrick Brouder: firstname.lastname@example.org
*Students are encouraged to submit a single-authored paper. However, we will accept papers co-authored with other students. We cannot accept papers co-authored with non-students (e.g., supervisors or other faculty).
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PAPER SUBMISSION
Submissions must be between 3,000 and 5,000 words, including abstract, text body, tables, figures and references. The focus is on quality, not quantity.
Font & Format
- All fonts must be standard (12 point) Times New Roman on A4 or Letter size paper.
- Please “Left Justify” your paragraphs — do not use full justification.
- The preferred line spacing is 1.15 or 1.5 for the entire paper (including the abstract and tables). Single line spacing is acceptable for the references, but only if you have a space between each reference.
- Use standard 1 inch margins (or the approximate equivalent in cm).
- The preferred format for most files is MS Word.
- Use the APA referencing style.
The maximum number of words allowed in a Title is twelve, including the subtitle, if any. The title should focus on your paper’s Conceptual Framework more than the case study. The case study site should be mentioned in the abstract and listed in the keywords, however.
- Do not capitalize supplemental words, such as it, as, of, a, but, they, then, that, for, if, etc.
- The first page must include: Title, Author name and affiliation, Abstract, Keywords, followed by the starting paragraphs of the text of your paper.
Your abstract should be between 200 and 300 words in length. It should summarize the manuscript in a concise statement of objectives, major findings and major conclusions. Specifically, you must include the following information in your abstract:
- Objective/Purpose of the paper
- Theoretical Context
- Findings and Significance
- You need to say what you did and what the results were, not what you will do in the paper. For place-based articles, the places referred to in the article should be mentioned as well.
You may include up to 10 keywords at the end of the abstract. Please carefully select your Keywords. For place-based articles, the keywords must include the major location in the paper.
- Top Level Heading:
Transitions into the Labour Market
— Bold, Initial caps of main words, range left (no indent), double line space above and below
- Second Level Heading:
— Italic, initial caps of main words, range left (no indent), double line space above, single (1.15 or 1.5) line space below.
- Third Level Heading:
Consuming modern identities. In the 1960s psychologists and sociologists looked…
— Italic, full point (period) after heading, range left (no indent), initial cap only, text after heading runs on same line.
- Section Numbers may be used, but only in conjunction with these heading formats.
Photographs, Charts, Figures & Tables
- You must indicate the source of all figures and tables in your work. All photographs, charts and figures will be referred to as “Figures”, and numbered as Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on. Tables are not figures. Table must be included at the end of the Main Document.
- Images must be saved separate to your text. Please do not embed figures in the paper file, as it reduces the image resolution. Files should be saved JPG or TIF format.
- All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the paper (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b)).
- Figure captions must be in the Main Document (the complete text of the paper) and numbered correspondingly to match the image file names, which must be descriptive of the graphic, e.g. Figure1, Figure2.
Captions for all Tables and Figures – must be fully self-contained and understandable to the reader without their having to refer to the text. Acronyms, Initials and Abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Title needs to clearly explain what the figure shows.
- Both Figure and Tables must be placed centrally on the page, either at the top of bottom of page, identifier must be in bold, followed by a full point, initial cap only, the legend must be under the figure.
- The Table or Figure’s Source must be initial cap and italicized followed by a colon. The note itself is to be in Roman, followed by a full point. For example: Source: Smith, 2000.
- Tables and Figures tend to take a lot of space and should be used only when necessary to facilitate the reader’s understanding of the paper. Please do not include any tables or figures that are not necessary.
Referencing (Non-Western Scripts)
If you are citing a reference that is in a non-western script (such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Hindi), please translate it into English, as in the following example.
- He, J. (2000) Tourism in China. Tourism Tribune 10(5): 1-10 (in Chinese).