Grants and Writing Resources for Utah State University
Two USU undergraduates were named 2026 Goldwater Scholars in March, among 454 chosen from more than 1,485 nominees. A wildlife ecology and management student models potential encounters between black bears and people in Michigan's Baldwin bear management unit. An environmental science and sustainability student at the Uintah Basin campus builds low-cost snow-depth sensors to study how the Wasatch Mountains affect low snowfall in the Uinta Basin, and is the first Goldwater Scholar from one of USU's statewide campuses.
Research Money for Undergraduates
The Office of Research awards Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) grants of up to $1,000 for an independent project in any discipline, with a faculty mentor. Applications open once each for fall, spring and summer. Recipients attend an orientation, present the finished research and file a report. Geosciences students can also compete for the Evan Millsap Memorial URCO Grant.
Students who start early can apply to be Undergraduate Research Fellows. The fellowship pays $1,000 a year on top of other financial aid and is open to incoming freshmen and sophomores, or anyone with at least six semesters left before graduation.
Where Students Present
The Student Research Symposium is USU's largest showcase of student research, with fall and spring sessions of student displays. A separate statewide symposium holds oral and poster presentations at USU's statewide campus locations.
Graduate Grants and Fellowships
A Graduate Research and Creative Opportunities (GRCO) grant gives $1,000 for original research, scholarship or creative work done with a faculty member's guidance. It can pay for equipment, supplies, participant incentives, consulting services and research travel.
Doctoral applicants are nominated by their departments for Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowships, four-year packages of $10,000 a year in scholarship funds, a full tuition waiver, subsidized health insurance and a guaranteed departmental assistantship. About 50 fellows hold the award at any one time. For conference presentations, the School of Graduate Studies Graduate Student Travel Award pays $200 for a virtual conference, $300 regional, $400 national and $500 international under amounts in effect since July 1, 2026, and each award needs a dollar-for-dollar match from a department or other university source.
Sink Hollow and the Creative Writing Contest
Sink Hollow is USU's undergraduate literary journal. It comes out twice a year with fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art, accepts work from undergraduate writers anywhere, and uses student interns to vet, edit and market each issue. Once a year it prints a contest issue of winners from the English department's Creative Writing Contest, which takes poetry, short fiction, nonfiction essays and artwork from undergraduates on every USU campus. Judges read the entries blind.
Writing Centers and Thesis Rules
The Writing Center runs three locations: the Ray B. West Writing Center, the Library Writing Center and the Science Writing Center. It also offers online sessions and written feedback through WC Online. Engineering students can book the Engineering Writing Center in Merrill-Cazier Library for lab, design and research reports and proposals.
Theses and dissertations can follow a monograph or multiple-paper format, chosen with the major professor and committee and checked by a department format reviewer. The School of Graduate Studies thesis and dissertation page sets one rule for outside help: editing by anyone other than the major professor and supervisory committee should be limited to mechanics, such as spelling and grammar. Plan for at least three weeks of initial review once a thesis enters the School of Graduate Studies queue. Finished work goes to DigitalCommons@USU, where USU graduate theses and dissertations date to 1920.
USU keeps outside editing of theses to mechanics, and a final edit for spelling, grammar, punctuation and consistent format is the work we do. See our Utah State University dissertation and thesis editing and Utah State 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 Utah State University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your USU writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.