Grants and Writing Resources for Louisiana Tech University
In October 2026 a Louisiana Tech senior majoring in biology, with a minor in technical writing, became one of 50 students nationwide to receive the Pioneer Award from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. The $1,000 award is the society's undergraduate-only prize. Her record includes papers on myocardial tissue regeneration using stem cells and on Staphylococcus aureus, and a research proposal published in the university's Technical Writing Course Manual for 2025-2026.
Where Students Present
The Honors College hosts the annual Undergraduate Research and Service-Learning Symposium, and participation in 2025 was up from the year before. The Undergraduate Research Symposium's Digital Commons collection, which holds the 2020 and 2021 events, describes a university-wide event that selects about 25 poster presentations and 10 oral presentations, with the aim of choosing undergraduates to represent Louisiana Tech at the University of Louisiana Academic Summit.
Engineering and science students show their projects at the College of Engineering and Science's Annual Design & Research Conference. In May 2025 it drew 110 freshman teams with 352 first-year students, plus 56 senior capstone teams with 212 seniors. Doctoral students compete in the Three Minute Thesis competition, held at Louisiana Tech since 2017, which asks each Ph.D. student to explain a research project to a general audience in three minutes. In 2025 a Louisiana Tech doctoral student represented the university at the regional round, held during the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools in Dallas.
Prizes and Journals
The School of Literature and Language runs an Annual Writing Contest for essays written for course credit in English classes. The 2026-2027 contest pays $100, $50 and $25 for first, second and third place in each of eight categories. The categories run from first-year rhetorical analysis and research essays to short technical assignments, 4000-level literary essays and a condensed graduate essay of 2,200 to 2,500 words for ENGL 5000 students. Winners are recognized at the school's annual Shakespeare Festival.
The Quatrain is a print and electronic journal of undergraduate writing and art. It takes research-based academic essays, cultural criticism, life-writing and creative writing alongside photography and sculpture, and its eighth volume is dated 2026.
Fellowships and Graduate Funding
Research and teaching assistantships are awarded competitively and may be paid from university budgets or outside grants. The Graduate Assistantship Policy sets three roles: research assistants work on faculty projects, teaching assistants serve as instructor of record, and graduate assistants handle academic or administrative support. The limit is 20 hours a week. An appointment of at least 10 hours a week for four consecutive weeks carries a non-resident tuition waiver.
In September 2026 the university announced a $954,000 National Science Foundation grant for the NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program. Six doctoral students in the College of Engineering and Science will do advanced research with leadership training and mentoring from March 2027 through February 2030. Undergraduates and graduate students also take part in the Air Force Global Strike Command National Security Fellowship, run with the Louisiana Tech Applied Research Corporation and the Cyber Innovation Center. Starting in 2026-2027, Louisiana Tech fellows work with Barksdale Air Force Base on research and product development and get the chance to brief senior command officials.
Help With Writing and Theses
The Writing Center is in Room 325 of Wyly Tower. Learning assistants meet students one on one about brainstorming, organization, thesis statements, arguments, grammar and style. Online students call to schedule an online appointment. Quick questions go to the grammar hotline at 318.257.4477.
The Graduate School's thesis and dissertation page holds the thesis guidelines, a self-check checklist and optional Word templates by college. The College of Education and Human Sciences publishes separate guidelines and an APA template, and reference style is left to the student, advisor or college. Approved copies go to Prescott Memorial Library, where binding costs $40 per copy, and doctoral students also file a ProQuest Publication Agreement. Completed work appears in the Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses collections on Digital Commons.
A thesis bound for Prescott Memorial Library, or an essay headed for the Annual Writing Contest, can come to our editors first for a final check of grammar, consistency and format. See our Louisiana Tech University dissertation and thesis editing and Louisiana Tech University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Louisiana Tech University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Louisiana Tech writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.