Early Career Outstanding Paper Award

The Early Career Outstanding Paper Award is given every two years by the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. The next year for this award will be 2023. The award includes a certificate and a monetary award of US $500.

The award is intended to recognize an outstanding paper published in Scientific Studies of Reading by a scholar who has earned his or her doctorate within the past 7 years. The award is given for the best paper, as determined by the SSSR Awards Committee. Outside letters of support are not needed for the award. Only the application is required.

For the award to be announced in July 2021, the PhD should have been received after Jan. 1, 2014 and before June 1, 2021. Consideration will  be given for medical or parental leaves, if requested. (Those who are graduate students at the time of application and who do not yet have a PhD are not eligible for this award.) These dates will change accordingly in future years, so that each time the award will always be given to someone who has had the PhD for 7 years or less. If your paper is not chosen for the award in this round, and if you are still eligible 2 years later, you may submit a new application for the paper during the later round. Please note that applications are not automatically carried over but need to be resubmitted.

The paper in Scientific Studies of Reading must be published online or in print before the due date of the application, which is  April 15, 2023. 

Please complete the  Word doc application and email it in PDF format to Jennifer Hughes  (scientificstudy.reading@gmail.com) by April 15, 2023.

Word doc application (send as a PDF)

  • 2021 Award winner: Selenid Gonzalez-Frey
  • 2019 Award winner: Laura Steacy
  • 2017 Award winner: Elsje van Bergen