Criteria
Write a 9-10 page research paper based on scientific literature. About 6-8 pages of text and 2-4 pages of figures and references.
You must use a minimum of 10 citations of which, at least 7 should be primary literature articles and 2-3 review papers for deeper understanding. Your final submission will include the paper (properly referenced within the text) and a list of references.
Your review paper should contain the following elements:
- Title--The title should inform the reader about the subject and what aspect of the subject was studied. The title should also sound interesting so that the reader would want to read the entire paper. This may be the last thing you write or rewrite in your paper. After writing the body of the paper, come back to the title and adjust it so that it clearly reflects the main point of your paper.
- Abstract--summary of paper: The main reason for the study, the primary findings, the main conclusions. You will also need to readjust your abstract after completing the paper to ensure that the main point from your paper and the scope are still reflected on the abstract.
- Introduction--why the study was undertaken. The introduction should give background information needed for your audience to understand the main body of your paper and also provide context for why this paper is interesting and relevant. The final paragraph of the introduction should state the thesis, hypothesis, or question that the paper is addressing, the main goal of your paper, and summarize your main finding.
- Three sections (Main Body) --what was found. This part should have at least three (3) separate sections. You won't name this Main Body, instead, each section should have it's own heading. The heading for each section should describe what main topic of that section is. You need to think carefully about how to best organize the information into these sections and within each section. You need to think which order would make the most sense for your readers. Usually, a good flow starts with information that is more familiar to the reader or more general and then goes into more specific. You also need to organize the paragraphs so that each paragraph covers only one subtopic. Organize the information in each paragraph also from broad to specific.
- Conclusion--why these findings are interesting and what are the implications for the field (what the reasons might be for the patterns found or not found). You can also indicate where is the field going from here, what future research in this field is heading to.
- References--where the information from your paper came from. Every reference listed here must be also cited in-text and every citation in the text needs to be listed here.
- Figures & tables--show us the data. You can have all the figures and tables listed at the end or embedded throughout the text. Either way, each figure and table needs to be numbered, the number sequence is separate for figures and tables (Fig.1, Fig. 2, Table 1, Table 2). They each need a caption. Every figure and table needs to be referenced in-text by their number. This is how you tell the reader when to look at each figure or table. (just take a look at the Boise et al 2013 or the O'Dowd et al 2003 or any of your primary literature papers you did reading notes for to see how they cite and include legends for figures and tables.
- Figure & tables captions--describe what each figure or table is showing. At the bottom of each figure or table you need to have a caption. The caption starts with the label and number (Fig. 1, Table 1) followed by a short title describing the figure or table. Then, you need to explain in your own words what the figure/table shows (copying the caption from the original figure/paper is plagiarism). The caption needs to have enough information that your reader should be able to understand what the figure is about without having to read the main text. You also need to include the reference to where you obtained the figure/table from, example: (Adapted from Smith & Adams, 2011).
- Page numbers-- A good rule of thumb is if a document has more than 3 pages you should number the pages.
Attached is the rubric and a detailed outline of the research paper. Topic, format of paper, and all 10 references are all set.
Topic is Effects of Microplastics on Human Renal Health