Grants and Writing Resources for Sam Houston State University

In May 2026 Sam Houston State reported that an English and education double major took third place in the national children's literature competition at the 41st Annual Teach Tomorrow event. Her entry was a children's book for a third-grade audience, with illustrations she drew by hand. She was also the first SHSU student to represent the university at the state level of the Texas Association of Future Educators' annual meeting.

Where Undergraduates Present and Publish

Honors College student ambassadors started the Undergraduate Research Symposium in 2008, and the Elliott T. Bowers Honors College supports it today. Any SHSU undergraduate may present, with a poster or an oral-media talk. The Assam Scholarship for Honors Research Award carries $500, as do the Honors College awards for best overall poster and best overall oral-media presentation. Honorable mentions are also awarded.

Course papers in the humanities and social sciences can be submitted to The Measure: A Journal of Undergraduate Research, published once a year in print and digital form by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Writers don't have to be CHSS majors. The research must come from a CHSS class, independent study, honors contract or special project, and the journal takes research-based and theoretical papers, along with posters that carry a critical introduction.

Graduate Scholarships and Research Money

Each semester the Graduate and Professional School offers a competitive $1,000 GPS General Scholarship to new and continuing graduate students who show academic excellence. Travel funding of $1,000 helps students present research papers or posters at professional events. Research funding, also $1,000, pays for equipment, software or datasets needed for a supervised project.

Two $250 scholarships reward participation. One goes to active members of the GPS Graduate Writing and Accountability Study Groups, the other to students who take part in GPS career and professional development activities. Doctoral students in the Road to Ph.D. Graduate Scholars program receive mentoring and a stipend while they complete an individualized development plan.

Graduate Talks and Showcase Prizes

The Three Minute Thesis competition is open to students enrolled in doctoral-level classes whose thesis, dissertation, capstone or major project has some preliminary data. Each speaker gets one static slide and three minutes. The 2026 prizes were $1,000 for the grand champion, $750 for the runner-up and $500 for People's Choice, paid as scholarships to the student's SHSU account.

Longer work goes to the Graduate Scholarly and Creative Showcase, which takes enrolled graduate students from any discipline with research that is finished, in progress or proposed. Oral presenters have 12 to 15 minutes plus questions. The 2027 showcase, set for the Newton Gresham Library, will award four $1,000 scholarships, two for posters and two for oral presentations.

Tutoring, Boot Camps and Thesis Review

The Academic Success Center's writing tutoring serves undergraduates in 30- and 60-minute sessions, one-on-one or in groups, on the second floor of Newton Gresham Library in Huntsville and in Room 218 of The Woodlands Center. Graduate students use the center's separate Advanced Support writing service.

At the Graduate and Professional School, a Thesis/Dissertation Specialist reviews each first draft for format and style. That draft must include every required section and at least three chapters. The school strongly recommends its pre-formatted templates, and its formatting guidelines take precedence over any style manual. After the defense comes a final draft review, and once GPS approves the PDF, no further edits can be made.

Doctoral students in a proposal or dissertation course can apply for the free two-day Dissertation Boot Camp on Zoom, which mixes group sessions with one-to-one consultations; master's students have a two-day Thesis Boot Camp, also on Zoom. Approved documents are submitted through Vireo and collected in Scholarly Works @ SHSU, the university's institutional repository.

Since an approved SHSU thesis can't be changed, the time for a final edit of grammar, consistency and format is before the last review, and the same goes for a paper headed to The Measure. See our Sam Houston State University dissertation and thesis editing and Sam Houston State University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write a Literature Essay: Mastering Close Reading
• Writing the Abstract and Title: First Impressions Matter
• The Literature Review: Avoiding Intellectual Overwhelm