Term Paper Format
TPFormatV07
TERM PAPER FORMAT
2003 11 03
INTRODUCTION The preparation of a research paper -- be it for a class term paper, a professional journal article, a technical report at a job, or a graduate thesis -- may generally be divided into five tasks: (1) identifying the problem or question to be dealt with; (2) collecting data (measured observations and/or bibliographic references) about the problem or question; (3) analyzing the data, either by statistical examination of the observations, or by reading, thinking about and organizing the literature; (4) describing in an organized and clearly understandable fashion what you did and what you found out; (5) putting the results of the research into the required finished format. Often the constraints of the format are rather rigid, requiring a great deal of attention to detail. The plus side of this is that you know exactly what is expected; there is little room for subjective evaluation, and you either get it right or you get it wrong. This write-up describes the rules of the research paper format for this course. A number of the "rules" are really warnings of common errors that students make in preparing papers; a careful reading of these instructions will hopefully keep you from making the same errors. Failure to follow one or more of the instructions in this description will result in a substantial lowering of your grade on the paper.
ORGANIZATION The text of the paper may be organized / structured in a variety of ways. However, the critical organizational elements are that: (a) there be an organization, and (b) the organization be apparent to the reader. In most cases, the easiest and clearest way to insure structure is to divide the paper into sections, each having a descriptive title. In general, a paper may be grouped into four main sections, as described in the following paragraphs. More sections are possible, depending on the paper length and topic. In each case a figure is presented for how much
TERM PAPER FORMAT
2003 11 03
INTRODUCTION The preparation of a research paper -- be it for a class term paper, a professional journal article, a technical report at a job, or a graduate thesis -- may generally be divided into five tasks: (1) identifying the problem or question to be dealt with; (2) collecting data (measured observations and/or bibliographic references) about the problem or question; (3) analyzing the data, either by statistical examination of the observations, or by reading, thinking about and organizing the literature; (4) describing in an organized and clearly understandable fashion what you did and what you found out; (5) putting the results of the research into the required finished format. Often the constraints of the format are rather rigid, requiring a great deal of attention to detail. The plus side of this is that you know exactly what is expected; there is little room for subjective evaluation, and you either get it right or you get it wrong. This write-up describes the rules of the research paper format for this course. A number of the "rules" are really warnings of common errors that students make in preparing papers; a careful reading of these instructions will hopefully keep you from making the same errors. Failure to follow one or more of the instructions in this description will result in a substantial lowering of your grade on the paper.
ORGANIZATION The text of the paper may be organized / structured in a variety of ways. However, the critical organizational elements are that: (a) there be an organization, and (b) the organization be apparent to the reader. In most cases, the easiest and clearest way to insure structure is to divide the paper into sections, each having a descriptive title. In general, a paper may be grouped into four main sections, as described in the following paragraphs. More sections are possible, depending on the paper length and topic. In each case a figure is presented for how much