The Steve Cahir (pronounced car) award is an early career award given to a Writing SIG member. It is given in memory of Steve Cahir who was the Dept. of Ed. program officer responsible for helping to fund the National Center for the Study of Writing. He died before the Center actually opened.

Criteria for the award: excellence on all fronts: theory, literature review, methods, findings, including importance of the piece and how well it's written. It's not the case that an award is given every year. It's only given if there's a deserving paper.

2008 Recipient: Anne Whitney, Pennsylvania State University