Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Waterloo
Waterloo students won first, second and third place in the 25th CISC Architectural Student Design Competition, the School of Architecture reported in September 2026. The Canadian Institute of Steel Construction recognized the winning 2025-2026 projects for their creative use of exposed structural steel. Three two-person Waterloo teams took the national prizes, and the Award of Excellence, the competition's top honour, went to a design titled Resonance.
Essay Prizes and Student Journals
The Department of Philosophy rewards writing directly. Its Lawrence Haworth Prize in Philosophy, valued at $2,000, goes each year to a full-time undergraduate Philosophy major or minor for excellence in writing, judged on an essay related to public philosophy. Faculty submit the student work, so there is no application. The Angus Kerr-Lawson prize, worth at least $500, is open to full-time graduate and undergraduate students in any program for faculty-nominated essays in American philosophy or philosophical naturalism, with a preference for work bearing on Santayana. The department also gives up to three undergraduate essay prizes, gold, silver and bronze, for papers written in Philosophy courses.
The University of Waterloo Library hosts student journals on its journal publishing service. The Waterloo Historical Review, published with the History Society, anonymizes each submission, gives it a first round of edits from the editorial team and then sends it to blind peer review, and authors may revise before publication. The Legal Studies Undergraduate Journal appears once a year under a board of professors, graduate students and undergraduates. Two Health Studies undergraduates founded the UW Journal of Undergraduate Health Research in 2021; it takes peer-reviewed health research from undergraduates in every faculty.
Graduate Awards and Conference Funding
Most internal graduate awards at Waterloo need no application, because departments nominate their students. At the university level, students can receive the President's Graduate Scholarship, valued at up to $10,000, for students who hold a major federal or provincial scholarship such as a CGRS or an OGS. Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA) pays up to $5,000 of it over three terms, and the department or faculty adds up to $5,000 for doctoral students.
Presenting at a conference brings a smaller award. The Graduate Student Research Dissemination Award pays $500 for an in-person conference or $250 for a virtual one to students in thesis or Master's Research Paper programs who present their research there, one award per fiscal year. Full-time graduate students planning an exchange, field research or a minimally paid placement abroad can apply for the international experience awards, which include the David Johnston International Experience Awards. Most of them require a stay of at least eight weeks.
The Writing and Communication Centre
Undergraduates and graduate students use the Writing and Communication Centre (WCC) at no extra cost, since its services are included in tuition. Appointments with writing advisors or peer tutors happen in South Campus Hall or online, and some advisors take email appointments with 50 minutes of review time on a draft. Advisors and tutors work from the writer's questions and priorities and do not copyedit.
Thesis writers can apply for Dissertation Boost Camp, four full days of quiet writing time, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for master's and PhD students, with short workshops and one-on-one meetings with Writing and Communication Advisors. The WCC's graduate programs also include Rock Your Thesis, a Multilingual Writers' Studio and help with scholarship applications.
Thesis Rules and Outside Editing
The thesis formatting page points students to the LaTeX and Word templates from Information Systems & Technology. A manuscript-based thesis may keep references after each article, and a thesis that is not sole-authored needs a Statement of Contributions. After the examining committee approves the thesis, the student submits a PDF to GSPA through UWSpace. GSPA reviews it within three to five business days of receiving the Thesis Acceptance form, and approved theses are indexed by the University Library and by Library and Archives Canada. Publication can be delayed four months, one year or two years when it would put a student's interests, such as patent rights, at risk.
Waterloo's thesis editing rules put the main responsibility for clear, correct language on the student. A supervisor may recommend professional editing but may not require it, and may refuse it. Using an editor requires the supervisor's written permission, and unauthorized editing at any stage is an academic offence. The editing may not exceed the Editors' Association of Canada guidelines, and supervisors can set tighter limits. The editor must be named in the thesis Acknowledgements with a brief description of the services, which the editor should supply, and a faculty, department or supervisor may ask for a marked-up copy. The rules count unpaid help from a friend or relative as professional editing if that person has been paid to edit before.
Once a supervisor gives written permission, our editors can give a Waterloo thesis a final edit for grammar, consistency and format within the Editors' Association of Canada guidelines, and we supply the short description of our services for the Acknowledgements. See our University of Waterloo dissertation and thesis editing and University of Waterloo 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 the University of Waterloo, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Waterloo writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.