Format for Term Papers

Below are some links and a general outline on how to write your term papers.   Depending on your topic you may want to rely on the scientific report style or literature review styles, or a combination of the two.  The choice is yours.   Links to these styles can be accessed by the buttons below.  I have chosen to outline the scientific report style.

Click here for how to write a reseach paper

Click here to gain a more detailed view of the scientific report format described below

or, Click here to gain a description of how to write a literature review

Abstract

    Short (three-quarters of a page) description of the paper.   Describe what the issue or problem is, why it is important or interesting, and your findings.

Introduction

• What is the issue or problem?
• Literature review: what is current thinking, findings, and approaches on the problem?
• What is the significance of the problem?
• How do you plan to deal with the problem? What is your solution?

Methods

• How did you search for information or data on the topic?
• What is your impression of the ulility, relevance, or quality of the data you collected?
• What special steps did you take to select or utilize the data?

Results

• What are your findings?
• Are their problems with your findings in terms of answering the questions posed in the introduction?

Discussion

• What do your observations mean?
• Summarize the most important findings.
• What conclusions can you draw?
• How do your results fit into abroader context?