Submission Details

What is the Essay Prize? 

The Essay Prize is awarded once each academic year for a particularly well-argued, thoroughly researched, and eloquently written student paper. Students may submit their papers in the fall according to the guidelines below. (Lecturers are also encouraged to nominate students or invite them to submit their work.)

The winner will be notified by email and publicly announced and celebrated on our departmental website in December. The winner will receive a 25€ book voucher from buchbar Erfurt and will be featured on the University website.

We would like to thank our sponsors at buchbar Erfurt for their generous support!

How Do I Submit My Paper?

Papers eligible for the award include essays written in the fields of American and/or British literature during the academic year 2025/26 (October 2025 – September 2026). Submissions may take both traditional (textual analysis) and non-traditional forms (alternative methods or subjects). BA theses are also eligible. Each student may submit one essay under the terms described below:

• Please only submit clean copies (without comments, and without any further revision on your part).
• Include a cover page stating “2026 Essay Prize Competition,” the date of submission, the title of the course and the name of the instructor, your name, and your pledge.
• For the pledge on the cover page, please write out the following variation of the honor code and sign it (if submitting via email, please include a digital signature): “I pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid during the completion of this work. I am submitting an identical copy of the original, with no changes except for this title page and, if they were missing from the original, page numbers in the upper right-hand corner and MLA documentation of all sources on a Works Cited page.”

To submit, please send a PDF copy of your paper to: verena.ferda@uni-erfurt.de
The deadline for submission is Sunday, November 15, 2026.