More than Marks Writing Contest

We know how hard you work on your writing, and we’re giving you a chance to show it off to the world! If you wrote something this year that you’re really proud of, we’d love to read it —because we understand that writing is about more than just marks (although marks are nice too).

Who can participate?

You must be a UTM undergraduate student in good standing.

What can you submit?

You can submit any writing you’ve done for a credit-bearing UTM course this year, such as:
- an essay
- a review
- a report
- and more!
Your submission must be no longer than 30 pages in total (including references, tables, graphs, cover page etc.).
You can submit a paper exactly as you wrote it for a course, or you can revise it before submitting it to us.
You can submit one paper you wrote by yourself, and/or one paper that you wrote as part of a group (a maximum of two in total).

Entry Instructions & Deadline

Submissions are closed for 2021. Congratulations to our winners!
Please submit your paper via email to academicskills.utm@utoronto.ca no later than the deadline (TBD for 2022).

Prizes

First-place winner(s): $150 Gift Card for the UTM Bookstore
Second-place winner(s): $75 Gift Card for the UTM Bookstore
Third-place winner(s): $25 Gift Card for the UTM Bookstore

Contest Winners

2021 Winners

Rachel Stubits

First Place: Rachel Stubits

Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS): A Review (PDF)

Committee remarks:

This essay is an erudite and well-researched account of Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, covering the current state of research on possible causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment, and doing so in a clear, coherent manner, with the effective utilization of both prose and tables. In addition to presenting the scientific context, the author also makes clear the personal and emotional struggles involved in living with and studying this disorder, which makes the essay a powerful reading experience and one that conveys a sense of urgency for further study of this condition.

Second Place: Veronika Sizova

The Monster in the Looking Glass: Reflections of the Creature in Frankenstein’s Heroines (PDF)

Committee Remarks:

This is an articulate and creative examination of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, taking a novel interpretive approach by making an insightful connection between the struggles of Frankenstein’s monster and the struggles that three of the novel’s female characters face as they cope with being marginalized in a patriarchal society. The author notes that the monster ultimately “lacks a coherent gender role”; nonetheless, this very ambiguity enables it to shed light on the status and behavior of the female characters, just as, by the same token, they shed light on it.

Third Place: Myia Hellmer

Tonian Macroalgae Fossils from the Dolores Creek Formation, Canada. (PDF)

Committee Remarks:

This is a well written paper on the evolution of green algae and their rise to dominance during the Cambrian. The paper is sound in terms of its methodology and clearly represents a formal undergraduate research project. This paper is a clear and well written analysis of a new type of algae, thus making an original contribution to knowledge in the field. The paper’s findings have the potential to impact current understandings of the timing of algae and land plant diversification.