ECOS Student Article Competition

Do you have an interest in the conservation of nature? Do you have something to say about it? British Association of Nature Conservationists is pleased to announce ECOS Student Article Competition. Through the ECOSE contest, BANC provides leading-edge comment on policies and debates and challenges in nature conservation.

BANC is looking for thought-provoking, original essays on any aspect of nature conservation. There are two categories for entrants: undergraduate and postgraduate. If you are a student at any UK academic institution, or if you completed a course after May 2017, you are eligible to apply.

Who May Eligible:

To eligible, the candidates must be following all the eligibility criteria:

• There are two categories for entrants: undergraduate and postgraduate.
• If you are a student at any UK academic institution, or if you completed a course after May 2017.

How to Apply & Competitions Rules:

To participate, the applicants must submit an essay as a Microsoft Word or Open Document Format attachment to enquiries@banc.org.uk.

Note: make sure you put ‘Submission to student essay competition’ in the email header.

Rules:

• Submissions over 3MB should be shared via a file hosting services such as Dropbox or they Transfer.
• Entrants currently enrolled in a postgraduate course will be assessed as part of the postgraduate competition.
• However, if an article is the result of undergraduate study and the entrant is within one year of graduation, considered as part of the undergraduate competition can occur at the discretion of the judges.
• All submissions should be the original work of the entrant, free from plagiarism and restrictions on publication. Collaborative entries must be identified as such.
• By submitting material (written, visual and in any other format) to the Competition, participants agree that their work will be published in the conservation journal ECOS, and made available free of charge in digital format. Articles will be edited according to the ECOS style guide. No royalty will be paid.

Submission Requirements:

• Length: Submissions should be 800-1500 words, including references and captions.
• Format: We find that most people produce crisply written articles straight off, but we like to have some simple guidelines for articles – these are set out in the list below.
• Style: use plain English, active tense. We edit out all or most passive tense.
• Title: a short punchy title which clearly indicates what your article is about.
• Summary: include a maximum of three sentence summary-intro in italics, immediately under the title.
• Keywords: you can include up to 5 keywords with your article, which will be used to tag it within our indexing system
• Subheaders: Please use subheadings throughout, to flag up key issues and structure the body of the text.
• Examples: short examples of key points raised are always welcome. These can be in case study boxes or integrated into the text.
• Illustration: if you can help provide or point to sources of relevant photos or other illustrations that add interest to the article this is always helpful to us.
• Biog sentence: provide a max two sentence author’s biog-description in italics at the end, after the references, concluding with your email address and if you have one, your twitter name.
• Images: Use landscape format where possible. Minimum width of 1600 pixels.
• Graphs, charts, and figures: At submission stage, these should be embedded in your article. Please retain all data, as we may need this from you in order to recreate figures in our own house style.
• Embedded media: As a digital publication, articles can include embedded media such as YouTube videos or Sound Cloud files.
• All media should have a clear caption describing their contents.
• References: Remember that you’re writing an article, not a university essay. While due credit should be given, references and asides should be limited.

Benefits:

• First place in the category
  • Undergraduate: £100 + Conservation Careers Lion membership for 12 months plus one hour of career coaching
  • Postgraduate: £100 + Lion membership for 6 months
• Second place in the category
  • Undergraduate: £50 + Owl membership for 6 months
  • Postgraduate: £50

Application Deadline:

The competition closing date is June 25, 2018.

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