The Daily Mississippian, in conjunction with the University of Mississippi and the S. Gale Denley Student Media Center, are pleased to announce the 2008 The Daily Mississippian Policy Proposal Competition! Through this competition, a select group of winning students will have the opportunity to have their ideas published in The Daily Mississippian and viewed by thousands of journalists, political campaign members and university community members during the week of the presidential debate. One winner will even receive a much-coveted ticket to the debate!

To ensure that you have the best chance possible of winning the ticket to the debate, please read and follow the following competition rules very carefully. If you have questions, send them to editor@thedmonline.com or call 915-5503 after 4 p.m. and ask to speak to The Daily Mississippian’s Editor-in-Chief, Tyler Clemons.

Eligibility:

In order to draft and submit a proposal for consideration, you must currently be a full-time student enrolled at the University of Mississippi. Note that this includes graduate students and law students. You may only submit one policy proposal, and the proposal must be your work and yours alone. Team or class proposals will not be accepted.

Topics:

Your policy proposal should answer both of the following questions: What is the most pressing foreign issue facing America today and why? What policies can our government enact to solve this problem? Your proposal must address a specific problem and policy proposal within one of the following five areas: the New Cold War, free trade, human rights, China or Iraq/War on Terror.

Format:

Your proposal must be typed double-spaced in MLA style using 12-point font with one-inch margins. You should submit two versions of your proposal: one full policy proposal and one synopsis. Your full policy proposal must be a minimum of five pages but may not exceed 10 pages, excluding the works cited page. Your synopsis may not exceed 800 words and should constitute a brief but sufficient summary of your full proposal, including at minimum a significantly shortened statement of the perceived problem and proposed solution. Your synopsis should be fit to run on the Opinion page of The Daily Mississippian should it be selected as a winner. If you are unfamiliar with MLA style, visit owl.english.purdue.edu.

Submission:

You should e-mail your full proposal and your synopsis as an attachment in a single Microsoft Word (.doc) document to policyproposals@thedmonline.com. Include your name, classification, major, phone number, address and the category of your proposal in the body of your e-mail. DO NOT include any personal information or information that could potentially be used to identify you within your proposal or your synopsis. Failure to abide by this rule may result in the disqualification of your proposal.

Deadline:

We must receive your proposal no later than 10 p.m. CDT Sunday, September 14, 2008. Proposals received after this time will not be accepted under any circumstances. If you are selected as a winner, you will be notified by a personal e-mail no later than 5 p.m CDT Sunday, September 21, 2008. A full list of winners will be run along with the first winner’s proposal synopsis in the Monday, September 22 issue of The Daily Mississippian.

Prizes:

If your proposal is selected as a category winner, the synopsis of your proposal will run on The Daily Mississippian’s Opinion page during the week of the presidential debate. If your proposal is selected as the overall winner, it will run the day of the debate and you will receive a ticket to the presidential debate.

Judging Procedure:

Your proposal will be judged by a series of two panels. Initial judging of your proposal will be done by a panel consisting of three faculty members who are experts in the category you have chosen and two members of The Daily Mississippian’s editorial staff. This panel will determine whether your proposal is worthy to advance to a final overall selection panel, which will consist of members of The Daily Mississippian’s editorial staff and one faculty member from each of the five initial panels. This panel will choose the best proposal from each category as well as an overall winner.

Judging Criteria
Your proposal will be judged in the following five areas:

Originality: Your proposal should clearly demonstrate that you have a thorough knowledge of the issue about which you are writing and that you have devoted considerable original thought to the proposed solution. You may draw from others’ research and ideas, but a carbon copy of the ideas or solutions proposed by other individuals or groups will not be accepted.

NOTE: You may submit a policy proposal which you have prepared for classes in the past so long as the proposal your work and yours alone. Such proposals must conform to the guidelines of this competition and will be judged by the same criteria as all other proposals.

Research and Support: Your proposal should clearly demonstrate that you have spent considerable time researching the issue about which you are writing and you have incorporated such research to support your proposal well. This aspect of the proposal will be judged from three angles: how much research you have done, the quality of your sources and how well you use your research to support your proposal.
NOTE: All unoriginal quotations, statistics, concepts and ideas must be clearly cited according to MLA style. Your proposal must include a Works Cited page.

Solvency and Plausibility: Your proposal should plausibly solve the issue about which you are writing. Your proposed solution need not completely eliminate the perceived problem, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, your proposed solution should significantly alleviate the problem without significant disadvantages.

Foreign Policy Focus: The proposal should fit wholly within one of the following five categories: the New Cold War, free trade, human rights, China or Iraq/War on Terror. Generally, your proposal should be narrowly tailored to a specific perceived problem within one of the above categories that you can address sufficiently within the maximum ten pages of the full proposal.

Style: Your proposal should be well-written with a logical flow of ideas and reasonably free from distracting grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. Your proposal should be written on a level such that an intelligent, reasonably well-educated American citizen can fully understand what is being said. Your proposal should include a clear statement of the perceived problem and solution and should explain any technical jargon with which the average reader would not be familiar.

Anonymity: It is of vital importance that your proposal remain anonymous to the judging panels until the selection of winners is finalized. Any attempt to discuss your proposal with or disclose yourself as the author of your proposal to a member of The Daily Mississippian’s editorial staff or a faculty member of the judging panels will result in your immediate disqualification from the competition.