The Joan Pavelich CASDW Annual Award for the Best Dissertation in Writing and Discourse Studies recognizes the most outstanding PhD dissertation in Writing Studies, Discourse Studies, Rhetoric, or a cognate field for the preceding year. The award will be given to a student in a Canadian university or to a Canadian student studying outside Canada.  To be eligible, dissertations must have been defended between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2015. An announcement of the winning dissertation will be made at the CASDW Annual General Meeting.

The award includes a prize of $100 and a one-year free CASDW membership for the following year.

The deadline for nominations is April 1, 2016. Self-nominations are accepted. The assessment criteria for the award are the following: (1) the overall quality of the writing and thinking; (2) the significance of the question(s) addressed in the research; (3) the importance of the new knowledge presented in the thesis; and (3) and methodological rigour and/or innovation.

Applicants/nominators should send the following items to each member of the selection committee listed below: a pdf file containing the dissertation (or a link to an online repository), a CV, and a cover sheet with the applicant’s full name, citizenship, institution and degree program, and the contact information for their primary supervisor.

Jay Dolmage dolmage@uwaterloo.ca

Rachael Cayley rachael.cayley@utoronto.ca

Andrea Williams al.williams@utoronto.ca

Sheila Hannon smehanno@uwaterloo.ca

Duncan Koerber dkoerber@ryerson.ca