Tips for Preparing Award Nominations

PDF File

Whereas we all agree that content is more important than aesthetics, presenting your nomination in a neat, organized package makes it easier for the Awards Committee members to evaluate the information in the package. We suggest that you organize all material in one PDF file (although multiple files are okay if a single file is too large to email), with a table of contents referring to pages within the file.

Supporting Materials

When a nomination calls for a substantial amount of supporting material (e.g., books, manuscripts, videos, etc.), we suggest you reduce that material to a manageable quantity by including just the highlights—scanned chapters from books, relevant pages of manuscripts, a montage of video clips, etc. Materials can include links to relevant resources as needed.

Hierarchical Organization

Similarly, when a nomination calls for a substantial amount of supporting material, it would be helpful if that material were presented in a hierarchical order, with the most impressive items highlighted first, and less important items subordinate to those.

Letters of Support

Letters of support should be current. Letters that are two or three years old carry less weight than those that are written specifically for the current nomination.

Self-Nominations

While self-nominations are accepted in all of the awards, it is the general feeling of the committee that self-nominations are not as strong as nominations by another party. If the committee were to judge all other criteria equal in two nominations, the one nominated by another party would likely be looked on more favorably.