To recognize excellent scholarship in the field, SEL presents four awards: the Elizabeth Dietz Memorial Award, the Robert Lowry Patten Award, the Monroe Kirk Spears Award, and the Monroe Kirk Early Career Scholar Essay Award. 

The Elizabeth Dietz Memorial Award is presented annually in memory of the late Professor Elizabeth Dietz of Rice University. 

The Robert Lowry Patten Award is presented annually in honor of the distinguished scholarly and editorial career of Bob Patten of Rice University and SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 

The Monroe Kirk Spears Award is presented annually to honor the distinguished and humane career of the late Professor Monroe K. Spears, sometime editor of the Sewanee Review and Libbie Shearn Moody Professor Emeritus at Rice University. Because everything Professor Spears wrote is marked by clarity, economy, and felicity of expression and by elegant and discerning interpretation, the award recognizes the essay published in each volume of SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 that most nearly achieves these qualities and that has given the editors the greatest pleasure to read. 

SEL’s Monroe Kirk Spears Early Career Scholar Essay Award is presented annually to celebrate the best essay published in each volume authored by a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, non-tenure track faculty or staff member, or pre-tenure track faculty member. 

Essays are judged on their clarity of prose, contribution to scholarship, and originality.