See a Winning Report (Link to entry book with condensed reports at the end.)

For the complete set of rules, regulations, and instructions, click the Document Library link to the left.

Please read these Web pages carefully. Follow rules and complete forms as required: failure to do so may disqualify your entry.

The Research Report, limited to 20 pages, must include a title page, a short introduction describing the background and purpose of the work, an experimental section including methods and results, and a short concluding discussion of those results and implications. Bibliographic references for all the sources consulted in preparing the Research Report must be included. Refer to research journals for examples of report formats to guide your own format.

Illustrations include any tables, diagrams, charts, drawings, and/or maps necessary. Color and B&W illustrations/photographs are accepted. Photos may be printed on full sheets of photo paper or embedded in the report and printed on text pages, but small photos should not be mounted scrapbook-style on text pages.

Entries must include a 100-word summary of the project in layperson’s terms and a 250-word scientific abstract. The summary will be used by readers seeking a project overview, as well as in preparing press releases to convey information about STS projects to the public.

The Research Report is evidence of research ability, scientific originality, and creative thinking. It is an opportunity to demonstrate competence in planning and completing a project in science, mathematics, or engineering.

The report should describe actual laboratory, field, or theoretical research, not library research. If ideas or data other than the entrant’s are used, this must be stated clearly and with appropriate referencing.

Projects need not be entirely original; most research builds on the work of others. However, projects must contain significant original or novel elements, and clearly present the entrant’s own contribution.

In writing the report, do not describe in detail the experiments/procedures of other researchers that preceded your project. Relevant work must be referenced, followed by an explanation of the entrant’s original contribution to or expansion of previous work.

Entrants are encouraged to seek every possible resource: books, journals, experts in the field, adult advisors. Supply the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of those who helped you.

This is a scholarly undertaking and should focus on the research project. Lengthy autobiographical detail about the development of the entrant’s interest in science is not appropriate. Personal history, while interesting, is not scientific research. It may appear in entry essays.

Investigate the literature pertaining to your subject, but do not use a history of the literature as the report. Any history provided should be only for background and not be the purpose or subject of the research.

There is no time limit on the period over which research is performed. Many entrants spend years developing the work that is eventually submitted; others will have spent a few intensive months. Each entrant may submit only one entry and research report.

Entrants are encouraged to explore research methods in their chosen field, define the problem, set up controls, collect data, determine final results, draw conclusions, and write a report to present it well.