To whom do I address questions regarding The Idea of America Essay Contest?

Call NEH at 1-800-NEH-1121 (TDD 1-866-372-2930) or send e-mail inquiries to ideaofamerica@neh.gov.

I attend a private school. Am I eligible to enter the contest?

Yes. Students enrolled in private, parochial, and public schools are eligible to participate in the contest.

I am home-schooled. Am I eligible to enter the contest?

Yes.

I am an American citizen who attends school overseas. Am I eligible to enter the contest?

Yes.

I am a U.S. citizen, but I am currently living in another country. How do I enter my mailing address into your web form?

In the "City" field, put the city and country in which you live ("Oslo, Norway" or "Tokyo, Japan"). In the "state" field, choose "Overseas."

I am a permanent resident of the United States. Am I eligible to enter the contest?

Yes.

I just entered my essay on the Web site. My sister is also planning on entering. Can I click my "back" button and allow her to modify my contact information so she does not have to retype it?

No. She needs to fill out a separate application.

May I submit a picture, photo, or another type of image file with my essay?

No. You may only submit the text of the essay.

May I submit fiction, poetry, or any other creative work instead of an expository essay?

No.

Is April 19, 2006, a postmark or receipt deadline?

It is the receipt deadline.

If I am one of the contest winners, will I have to pay my own way to Washington, D.C.?

No. NEH will pay for transportation and accommodation for you and a parent or guardian.

What is the best way to prepare my application?

We recommend that you prepare your application in a word processing program and paste your text into the online form.

What is included in the character limitation?

ALL characters are included in the character counts. This includes spaces and punctuation.

I am having a hard time meeting the character limit. My word processing program says I am within the character limit, but when I paste my text into the form, I am told that I have too many characters. Why?

There are two possibilities. First, NEH's application system might count characters in a different way from the word processing program you are using. NEH's system counts spaces as characters--your word processing program may not.

Second, the online application system might be counting invisible coding. Word processing programs often embed invisible codes that tell your computer how to display text. When you paste text into the application form, these invisible characters may be included. NEH's system strips out most of these invisible characters (i.e. page breaks), but uncommon characters might not be removed. The easiest solution is to save your work as plain text (.txt) before copying to minimize formatting codes.

If you find that you are only over by a few characters, you can replace the double spaces after periods with single spaces. Spaces count as characters.

What formatting issues should I be aware of?

Your application will be saved as plain text. Special formatting such as italics, underlines, and "curly quotes" will not be saved. You should plan accordingly by using alternatives to such formatting, i.e., putting book titles in quotations marks or all uppercase letters. You should not, however, use angle brackets ("<" and ">"). Brackets are commonly used in HTML, the code that drives the web-based online application system. If you use brackets, the system will interpret it as faulty HTML code and generate an error message.