Aggies write their way to national recognition
Three Utah State University students won the Cambpell/Pearce communication prize for the best co-authored undergraduate essay, as announced in March by Clemson University in South Carolina.
Kathryn Fifield, a junior in liberal arts and sciences; David Hart, a junior in computer engineering; and Cathy Allred Larsen, a sophomore in psychology, are part of the Rhetoric Associates program. They work closely with English professors so they can help students in English classes with their papers.
“It’s a lot of fun and it’s helped me improve my writing,” Larsen said.
Their paper started as a final project for their class.
“The three of us happened to be friends,” Hart said, and that is how they ended up working on it together.
Larsen said putting it together was interesting because each group member has a different writing style. So they revised it a lot, and had several peers and professors revise it as well.
“None of us had a clue we might win” Hart said. “It was just cool because it was a national competition and here we are from a state school and we win.”
Fifield said receiving the phone call with the announcement was a total shock.
“They’re from the East Coast, and for us West-Coasters it’s prestigious to make that connection.”
According to Clemson University’s Web site at www.clemson.edu, Clemson University’s nationwide collaborative writing contest highlights the importance and power of writing well. The assigned topic was “Why writing makes a difference.”
“It’s important to say what you want to say, exactly how you want to say it,” Fifield said about the winning essay.
Their essay “Bursting the Bubble” focused on the advantages of communicating “so that we’re not isolated and alone.”
The prize includes $5,000 to be divided among the faculty sponsor, the corresponding department and the three student authors.
Clemson University’s efforts in helping young people write better have earned it Time magazine’s “Public College of the Year” award.
The winning essay will be published on the Clemson University’s Web site this month.