1. This contest provides a total award this year of $1,500 to the winners. Generally the judges will divide this among four winners. However, depending on the quality of the essays, the judges may divide the $1,550 among more or fewer than four winners, even giving the entire amount to the first place essay. Or, if the judges feel that the submitted essays are not good enough, they may withhold some or all of the awards.
2. The Mayhew Committee may announce a subject for the contest in any given year. In such instances, all essays must deal with that subject. No subject has been specified for the 2008-09 competition, however. Students may choose their own topics, restricted only by standards of propriety and good taste. Personal essays are welcomed in this category.
3. The contest jury will judge the essays on the basis of organization, development, freshness of language, originality, perception, and general literary merit. The essays should appeal to the intelligent lay reader.
4. Although writers may do research and background reading for their essays, the jury will reject research papers. Occasional footnotes are acceptable, but writers should try to make their credits an integral part of their papers. Writers should also avoid frequent long quotations.
5. Essays must be at least 2,000 words but not longer than 8,000. Manuscripts are to be typed (double spaced) on regular white type paper and have adequate margins. The student's pseudonym and the number of words in the essay should appear in the upper right hand corner of the first page.
6. All entries are to be submitted between February 10, and February 13, 2009 before 5:00 p.m., and the winning essays will be announced at an awards ceremony later in the semester. Entries should be submitted to the College of Humanities Dean's Office, 4002 JFSB.
7. The Mayhew Committee will appoint a jury of three or more essayists and critics (selected from the BYU faculty and elsewhere) to judge the essays.
8. Each student submitting an entry will fill out a cover sheet (available in the Dean’s office, 4002 JFSB) giving name, address, and telephone number and certifying (a) that he or she is eligible by proper enrollment at BYU to enter the contest, and (b) that the entry submitted is the student's own creative work. The student's real name will appear only on this cover sheet; a pseudonym, as indicated above, will be placed on the manuscript itself.

Important note: In addition to the specific rules above for the Essay Contest, see the sheet of "General Regulations" giving information on all six Mayhew Student Creative Contests. Both the general regulations and the specific rules for each contest should be followed by every student who enters one or more of the contests.


All submissions require a cover sheet. A cover sheet can be picked up in the Dean's Office 4002 JFSB, Art Gallery 303 HFAC, C-581 HFAC, and C-550 HFAC or downloaded here.