The Scottish Labour History Society is pleased to annouce this year's Ian MacDougall Essay Prize.
The aim of the Prize is threefold:
* to honour the memory of Dr. Ian MacDougall (1933-2020), founding secretary of
the Scottish Labour History Society and the Scottish Working People’s History
Trust
* to encourage the finest standards of scholarship amongst undergraduate students in
the field of labour history in Scotland
* to promote the study and recording of labour and popular history in Scotland.
The essay prize will be awarded annually, the winner to receive:
* a cash prize of £400
* publication of the winning essay in Scottish Labour History
* one year’s free subscription to the Scottish Labour History Society, including
subscription to Scottish Labour History.
A runner-up prize of £100 will be awarded where deemed appropriate. This, and other entries of sufficient quality, may be invited to publish in Scottish Labour History and, if so, will receive one year’s free subscription.
The essay prize will be awarded at the annual Ian MacDougall Memorial Lecture, held at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, in April of each year.
Entry requirements and rules for the Ian MacDougall Essay Prize are as follows:
* the essay prize is open to anyone currently registered for a first degree in Britain or
abroad, or to anyone who has completed such a degree no earlier than February
2023
* submissions are to be 4,500-5,000 words in length, including footnotes and
references
* submissions should be sent as a Word document by email attachment to the
Scottish Labour History Society at: admin@scottishlabourhistorysociety.scot
* the author’s name and other identifying details (e.g.: acknowledgements to tutor,
etc.) must not appear on the essay
* all entries must be accompanied by an official Ian MacDougall Essay Prize entry
form, downloaded from the Scottish Labour History Society website.
* the closing date for entries for the first will be 31 January 2024
* submissions can be on any labour history topic broadly defined, with particular
reference to Scotland
* submissions must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere
* where material submitted is not of a suitable standard, no prize will be awarded
* the decision of the judges will be final; no correspondence will be entered into.
Style Guidelines for Ian MacDougall Essay Prize Entries
The Society asks entrants to ensure they conform to the house style.
Footnotes should be numbered consecutively, using the following conventions:
Books: S. Boston, Women Workers and the Trade Union Movement, London, 1980, pp60-61
Articles: C. Webster, ‘Healthy or Hungry Thirties?’, History Workshop 13 (Spring 1982), p112
Second and subsequent citations should appear as an abbreviated form of the title, for e.g. Boston, Women Workers, p52; and Webster, ‘Healthy or Hungry Thirties?’, p120
Quotations should appear in the text in single quotation marks (‘…’), with a footnote.
For dates, use day, month, year; for decades, use 1920s; for centuries, spell out (e.g. nineteenth century); for numbers up to and including ten, use words (e.g. eight years); above ten, use numbers (e.g 54 per cent). For spellings and style issues, please refer to The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
Please see below for the entry form.