Submissions

The submission deadline for the Texas Student Research Showdown is 11:59 p.m. Friday, March 14, 2025. Learn more and submit your video entry.

View the 2024 submissions here.

Videos have a strict time limit of two minutes and must be publicly accessible via YouTube. 

This video should include the following (in no particular order):

  • Name, major(s), and college (College of Liberal Arts; the College of Fine Arts, etc.) within the University of Texas.
  • Identify your research project. If its formal title is too technical (that is, something that only someone within a subfield would understand), this is the time to translate it into everyday English. Example: “My thesis research takes up Orson Welles’ 1941 film, Citizen Kane.”
  • Describe, in simple terms, what the project is about. Your description might take a variety of forms, but some of the things you might seek to touch on:
    • The problem or question your research addresses. 
    • What’s the status quo on your topic, and where do you diverge from it?
    • Your personal investment in the research: How and why did you come to do this? How did it push you to grow as a scholar?
    • What you hope or foresee the research doing in the world.
  • Creative projects may require a slightly different approach. You may wish to emphasize the genre in and from which your creation arises, the freedoms typically associated with that genre, and your solutions to any constraints or challenges encountered by the project or inherent in the medium.

Remember that these presentations are you speaking to non-specialists. So explain things clearly and in terms everyone can understand. Think of the videos as both a teaching tool (you are educating the viewer) and an advertisement for the value of your field (you are showing the viewer that achievement in your field matters). You are not required to be on the screen the entire time, you are permitted to include any visuals that are pertinent to explaining your project. 

Our judges consider the following characteristics when rating videos:

  • The hook: Does the student capture the audience’s attention and make them interested in hearing more?
  • The narrative: Does the student tell a story of their methods or their trajectory as a researcher?
  • Merit and quality: Do the research methods suggest rigorous scholarly or creative activity?
  • Accessibility: Is the student targeting a general, rather than expert, audience?

The judges’ top two videos in two categories (arts, humanities, and social sciences; science, technology, and engineering) will receive $1500 and $500 awards, and an “audience choice” winner selected by UT students will receive $1000.

Audience award voting takes place through a Qualtrics form; votes will only be counted from currently enrolled undergraduate students who provide an EID. Submitters are encouraged to spread the word about voting to friends; they are not permitted to unduly pressure or entice students to vote for them.

Resources

The Office of Undergraduate Research provides resources and workshops to help students make a knockout video submission to the Showdown. See the following tips for creating and editing a short research video.

High-quality audio is key to a good video. Students can make an appointment with the Public Speaking Center in order to both practice their audio script, record it, and receive feedback from a trained consultant.

Here are some other resources that can help you identify strategies to use in communicating your work