This award started with the name Best Writing, Adaptation
  • 1927/28 Seventh Heaven - Benjamin Glazer from a play by Austin Stong
    • Glorious Betsy - Anthony Coldeway from a play by Rida Johnson Young
    • The Jazz Singer - Alfred A. Cohn from the play Day of Atonement by Samson Raphaelson
In the 2nd and 3rd years there was only a single writing award for Writing Achievement with no distinction between original works and adaptations.
  • 1928/29 The Patriot - Hanns Kräly from a play by Ashley Dukes translated from the play Der Patriot by Alfred Neumann derived from the story Paul I by Dmitri Merezhkovsky
    • The Cop - William Taylor Garnett from a story by Elliott Judd Clawson
    • In Old Arizona - Tom Barry from the story The Caballero's Way by O. Henry
    • The Last of Mrs. Cheyney - Hanns Kräly from a play by Frederick Lonsdale
    • The Leatherneck - Elliott Judd Clawson original
    • Our Dancing Daughters - Josephine Lovett original
    • Sal of Singapore - Elliott Judd Clawson from the story The Sentimentalists by Dale Collins
    • Skyscraper - Elliott Judd Clawson, William Taylor Garnett from a story by Dudley Murphy
    • The Valiant - Tom Barry, John Hunter Booth from a play by Halworthy Hall and Robert Middlemass
    • A Woman of Affairs - Bess Meredyth fom the novel The Green Hat by Michael Arlen
    • Wonder of Women - Bess Meredyth from the novel Die Frau des Steffen Tromholt by Hermann Sudermann
  • 1929/30 The Big House - Joseph Farnham, Martin Flavin, Frances Marion, Lennox Marion original
For the 1930/31 production year the award was again subdivided, and this one was once again Best Writing, Adaptation. For 1935 the award became Best Writing, Screenplay