Term Paper
Do not exceed 20 pages including the cover page and bibliography. (Note: 20 pages is the limit not the requirement. Do not try to write 20 pages. Write as much as it takes to complete the assignment.) Follow standard operating procedures: 12 point business fonts, double spaced, one inch margin on all four sides. Submit your final draft on or before Friday, 30 April 2010.
- Option 1 (for students currently working with a mentor): Formal Research Paper
Write a research paper in a style that would be acceptable for Siemens, Intel, NYCSEF, etc. Write about what you have accomplished so far and what you hope to accomplish over the next 6 months.
- Introduction
- Begin by doing a literature review.
- textbooks recommended by your mentor
- journal articles recommended by your mentor
- journal articles written by your mentor and others working in the same lab
- Present your findings in a logical sequence
- Start general. Define the important terms in your field.
- Get more specific. Eventually direct your writing towards your area of specialization.
- Include a bibliography
- Materials and Methods
- Describe the work that you are doing or the work that you hope to begin doing. Discuss data collection. Do not discuss analysis.
- Tell me all kinds of things about this work. It is better to write too much now and then trim it back later.
- Analysis
- Explain how to extract meaning from the observations you have made.
- You do not need to actually perform any analysis at this point.
- Conclusion and Discussion
- Make a conclusion based on the work you have done or state a possible conclusion if you are not done.
- What use is this knowledge you are generating?
- What further work could be done in this field?
- Speculate. For example …
- If we find A, then this means B has happened.
- If we find C, then this means we should have done D
- If we find E, then F is the reason
- Option 2 (for students NOT currently working with a mentor): Literature Review
- Introduction
- Paper 1
- Paper 2
- Paper 3
- Conclusion and Discussion
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