One of the goals of college education is to teach a student to independently think and instill in him the skills of scientific work. Each university class usually requires a small scientific work (some schools do not give any written works to freshmen). It is called a term paper and usually summaries all that has been studied during a semester. So what are the guidelines for a good college term paper?
Preparatory stage
1. Choose a topic. The choice is not always given to the student, but something can be done here. If you come to the supervisor not one week before the deadline, but at the beginning of the academic year (or at least at the beginning of the second semester) and demonstrate your sincere interest, adequacy and brains, a normal instructor will consider with you several variations. It is best to take a few topics from the teacher and a time-out for a week – to analyze the information and to think which is more simple, more complicated, more interesting.
2. Study of general information. Encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries, review articles on the Internet (or at least Wikipedia) will allow you to understand in general terms what the course is going to be about.
Do not ignore this stage, otherwise it will not be easy to make a clear plan. It is not worthwhile, though, to dig into the materials to the ears - perhaps the teacher will make corrections to your plan, will require focusing on some issues and omit others.
3. Planning. When you get a general idea of the topic of the course work, begin to draw up a plan. More precisely, the plan should have two parts: a brief and an abstract. First, make a short plan for writing a term paper, discuss it with your instructor. Then write out the plan in the theses: for each paragraph – by paragraph or at least on the proposal: what are you going to write about, what issue will you disclose. And again – to your favorite science. It is better to rewrite the plan five times than rewrite all the course work once!
4. Compiling a list of literature. Most college instructors suggest the main works that you need to rely on when writing a course (this is another reason to come to a consultation, and not immediately hand over the finished course to a scientific leader).
As a rule, books that the instuctors advised are not enough. The student has to find the right books himself. The list of textbooks and encyclopedias will not be available (although they can also be indicated), the list should include studies – articles in scientific journals and collections, monographs.
Some departments require that the list of literature include works in foreign languages. Do not try to stupidly put a hundred foreign names on the list, ripping them from notes to some monograph – it's better to have several books and articles, but those that you can at least scroll through. Teachers are not mugs. You may well be asked: "And where are you, dear fellow, found this rare edition in Italian, to which Zanoza-Lapukhovskiy refers? And what color is the cover?"
5. Search for sources. This item is not required for all faculties. For example, historians use chronicles, memoirs, diplomatic documents, archival materials as sources. Philosophers take the works of antiquity and modernity - from Aristotle and Kant to Sartre and Kierkegaard. Lawyers operate with sources of law - laws, decrees, constitutions, materials of judicial practice. Philologists - artistic texts.
Do not confuse sources with bibliography! When writing a college paper these two things are allocated separately.
6. Do I need to write a practical part, do calculations and drawings? Not all faculties have this requirement, but if yours does, then this part is the most important. And the most problematic.
Many problems arise when writing the practical part for the future teachers, psychologists, lawyers, economists, managers. Practical parts need to be written on the basis of case studies, experiments, interviews or practice at a particular enterprise.
Memo to students who use college ghostwriting service: if you want a well-written practical part, order work early!
7. Special requirements of the department and/or instructor. Be sure to find out if your supervisor has special requirements for writing a course work.
Collection of materials
9. The strategy of searching for materials. So, the plan is approved, some of the literature has been advised by the supervisor. What now?
First, revise the plan and abstracts - to represent what information you need to find. Then analyze the list of sources and literature. Divide it into parts:
1) "flags", from which you will take most of the information;
2) auxiliary materials, from which you will take a couple of quotes.
10. Work in libraries and archives. Not all books and magazines can be found on the web. For example, to protect the intellectual rights of the authors, some new books can only be bought. And the old ones can still be unencrypted. And, of course, the "good" instructor will necessarily require that these materials are included in your course.
So do not forget about the existence of university library - it, oddly enough, still works and its main visitors are students.
Writing
11. Structuring and compiling the material. So, the material is collected. Now it needs to be divided into chapters and paragraphs. This stage seems simple, but it has its difficulties. Some students, especially junior ones, believe that the more information is available, the better. No, ladies and gentlemen, this is an erroneous approach.
12. Footnotes. Do not leave the procedure for affixing footnotes at the last minute - you can get confused and spend much more time as a result. It is better to put footnotes at once: if you took a piece of text from a book or article - put a footnote.
13. Text Originality. Whatever is found on the Internet should be carefully documented, otherwise one can be easily accused of plagiarism. Most instructors use plagiarism checkers and students who fail to pass this check can get in serious trouble.
Standard plagiarism requirements - 70% uniqueness of text (30% of the non-quotation - for quotes and terminology). Some instructors can have personal requirements for uniqueness, which must be taken into account.
14. Conclusions, personal opinion. Most students write course papers the same way as abstracts. Therefore, those who want to write an excellent academic paper, should either move their brains, reflect, analyze the material or use college ghostwriting service. Each paragraph and each chapter should end with a personal conclusion on the topic. You can and even need to discuss with the authors who have already written something about your topic (within the limits of adequacy, of course).
In general, the more independent the conclusions, the more original the course work - the higher the chance to get "excellent."
15. Providing a rough draft copy to the instructor and making corrections. It is better to hand over work in parts or even paragraphs. First, the teacher will see that you really worked on this paper. Secondly, you will have a chance to make necessary corrections on time if you mess up. Although some instructors do not like to bothered too much, most of them welcome student activity.
Writing a practical part
These steps may not be necessary - if you study at the faculty, where the coursework is written without a practical part. If the practical part is mandatory, shake your head.
16. Arrangement with the company where you will conduct practical events. It can be a school, if you are a teacher or a psychologist, a hotel - if you are a student of the "Hotel Service and Tourism", the plant - if you are an economist, etc. Naturalists work in laboratories. Students who comprehend the exact sciences, too, may need to be tested in the laboratory.
17. Preparation of a set of practical measures. Before you go to the site, prepare a plan for practical activities, experiments, or questions to management. And it is highly desirable that the scientific supervisor approve all this. You do not want to conduct practical research for the second time?
18. Processing of materials. At this stage, you process everything that you got at the site where you conducted practical experiments, surveys, or other scientific / near-scientific work. Now it's time to calculate all this, create charts, tables, drawings or, perhaps, to shake up a business plan with recommendations ...
Most importantly: the conclusions in the practical part must confirm your hypothesis which has been put forward in the introduction.
The final stage of writing the course
19. Introduction and conclusion. Yes, these parts of the course are written last. The conclusion is clear - this is the conclusion. And why the introduction should also be written at the very end? But because at the time of writing a course (and especially in the process of working on a practical part) your hypothesis can be refuted. In this case, you will put forward a new hypothesis, corresponding to the conclusions.
Goals, tasks - everything should be linked with conclusions in the conclusion. Therefore, these two parts of the course, its "frame", are written in parallel. Since the coursework can be researched several times, it makes no sense to immediately write an introduction. It is interesting that for most students the introduction and conclusion are the hardest pieces of work, whereas for essay ghostwriters they are the easiest.
20. References, footnotes, table of contents, annexes, numbering. Now accurately arrange books and articles alphabetically (by last names), taking into account the requirements of your given citation style. The applications are brought to the end of the work (these pages are not numbered). Do not forget about the table of contents. Create a cover page. Almost done!
21. Proofread, check footnotes. The fewer mistakes and typos there are in your coursework – the happier your instructor will be with with it.
