Fact sheet

How to participate

1. DIRECTIONS

Write a 1,000-word essay, in French, on the following question: “How do you see the world 15 years from now?” 

• Your essay must have 3 main parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
• Your arguments must be supported with research.
• The essay should present your personal point of view, and can give the reader a glimpse of your thoughts and experiences.
• The essay may be written in the first person. (Yes, it’s okay to use the word “Je”!)
• Use your imagination but don’t forgot to cite your sources!  
• Read the Evaluation Grid to find out how your essay will be evaluated.

Are you having a tough time getting started? Here are a few questions and ideas to help you out:

• Which discovery or technology will change our world? Why?
• Which significant changes in the political, cultural, or geographical landscape will have occurred?
• Which object will no longer exist? Or which animal or plant species will be extinct? Why? What impact will this have on our daily lives?
• Which contemporary world issue do you hold dear to your heart? How do you think it will have evolved in the future?

Share your passion!  You can choose any topic… sports, nature, peace, arts, education, justice, culture, business, childhood, etc.  Just make sure you create a creative and convincing portrait of the future!

How to submit your essay

• To enter the contest, you must submit your essay using the online entry form.
• Your essay must be in plain text (no bold characters, no italics, no underlining, and no formatting other than capital letters and spacing between paragraphs).
• To make end notes, do not use exponents (2) and do not use the end notes function in Microsoft Word or other similar software. Instead, write the numbers in parenthesis, as illustrated in the example below.
• We suggest that you copy your text from a word-processing software such as Microsoft Word, paste it in a software such as Notepad to make sure the formatting is okay and in plain text, then cut and paste the text in the appropriate field in the online entry form.
• Your essay must have a title and you must leave a space between every paragraph. Please follow this this example.

2. CATEGORIES

In the entry form, please indicate in which category you belong.  Your essay will be judged against essays of other entrants in the same category.  French for the Future reserves the right to verify that you have categorized yourself in the correct category.  Warning! If you choose Category 1, but meet one or more of the requirement of Category 2, you will be disqualified.

Category 1: French Second Language (“FSL”):
Choose this category if your first language is not French and if you are currently enrolled in Core French, Extended Core French, Basic French, French Immersion, or any other version or type of FSL program, available in your province or territory of residence.  

Category 2: French First Language (“FFL”):
Choose this category if:

• your first language is French;
• you speak, write and comprehend French with native fluency;
• you regularly speak French at home with one or both parents; or if
• you are enrolled or were enrolled in a French-first-language school for more than three years   within the past six years.

3. PRIZES

You must rank the available prize scholarships in their order of preference on your entry form with your most preferred scholarship ranked as no. 1.

Scholarship Amount	University	# of Scholarships Offered: French Second Language (FSL) (Category 1)	# of Scholarships Offered: French First Language (FFL) (Catégorie 2)
$20 000	University of Ottawa	1	1
$10 000	Université Sainte-Anne (N.S.)	2	2
$5 000	University of Ottawa	2	2
$5 000	Université Sainte-Anne (N.S.)	1	1
$5 000	Laurentian University	1	1
$5,000	Glendon College of York University	1	1
$3 000	Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta	2	2
$2 000	University of Ottawa	20	20
		TOTAL : 30	TOTAL : 30

If your essay is selected as being in the top entrants of your category, you will be eligible to win the scholarship you have ranked the highest that has not been already awarded to an entrant with a higher ranking essay within your own category. For example, if you are the second place winner in your category, you will be eligible to win the scholarship you ranked highest, unless it is unavailable as it is has already been awarded to the first place winner. In such a case, the scholarship that has been ranked second highest will be awarded to you.

4. EVALUATION

Each essay will be judged by a panel of four judges.  All essays will be evaluated using the contest’s Evaluation Grid.  Each essay will receive a score from the judging panel, which will be the average of the scores given to the essay by each judge.  In each category, the 30 essays with the highest scores will be selected as potential winners for the category. The essay with the highest score in each category will be the first place winner, the essay with the second highest average score will be the second place winner and so on to the thirtieth place winner.

5. TIMELINE

Date	Activity
September 26, 2011	Contest launch
January 9, 2012 at 11:59pm EST	Deadline to enter the contest
January 16 - February 23, 2012	Essays are read and judged by the selected judges
February 24-28, 2012	The 30 winners in each category are notified by email or by telephone
March 12, 2012	Formal announcement of the winners on the French for the Future Web site

Click here for the official rules and regulations.
    

Bonne chance!