How to Write a Great Term Paper

I am sure that different teachers look for different things in a term paper, term project, literacy project, or whatever a long essay with references might be called. This guide is only a description of what I have found I like to see in a term paper -- what I would consider a great term paper.

Make it interesting. Say something new.

I agree with what Kierkegaard said, perhaps tongue in cheek, that "Boredom is the root of all evil". I bring a book with me always just in case there is a moment when I might find myself stuck doing nothing. If absolutely stuck I can always recite a poem to myself -- it is a good idea to have a few memorized for such occasions! So a term paper that is boring would not be a great term paper. What would make a term paper boring (and see Boring)? What does it mean to say something is boring? "The people you find interesting are those who are similar to you but different enough to keep you intrigued." (Ibid.)

There are only so many ways you can say that a philosopher was born, grew up, wrote books (or not) and died. I have read lots of those and they are now boring! If you were writing a paper on Descartes, for example, you can look at hundreds of essays available on the Internet, some that seem well written and researched, some that are clearly not. Some say they are written by experts! But let’s think a moment about what the purpose of writing an essay or term paper is for. It is suppose to show how transformed you are from the readings you have been doing on the subject. Each of us has an individual voice. Yes, I know, at times it might seem that there is nothing new under the sun, and that everything we might say has been said before, but there remains an infinite amount of things that can be said though many of those things might be nonsense. If you quote from someone else for the sheer fact of adding words to your term paper then the paper will be boring. What makes it interesting is when you use your own voice to say something you think about the quote. "What's needed is selectivity of some kind, to decide what's important." While this quote is in an article about recognizing fear, I found it appropriate to apply to the issue of writing a great term paper as well. We are over whelmed with information today -- as we say -- "information overload" and we need some way to select what is important so we can ignore the rest. I find that is what I am doing as I read term papers. If what I see as I scan through the paper is something that I have seen before -- a zillion times -- or a gazillion, I can't remember which -- I tend not to even really read it. It is boring. What I notice is something new and it virtually leaps off the page at me when I see it. As an individual person you have had individual experiences and will have a unique (not eunuch!) point of view. 

Why is this good for you? Why is it good for Team Humanity? 

You could certainly buy a paper already done by someone else and you might even be able to fool me into thinking you wrote it, but what does it mean for you if you choose to do that? Your essays are a demonstration of your ability to understand the thought of others and to think about what they say, and then elaborate or critique their arguments. At a time when we are actively trying to construct a democracy in Iraq, and we are faced with the difficulty of transforming a culture into one that can sustain a republic, we see that the most difficult part of that is educating the members of that society to become critical thinkers. They live for the most part in a culture of authoritarianism. The Imams tell them what they should do and what they should believe and they consider that good enough for them. This is a strong argument. It is the argument that there is a best class of people and that the best class of people should rule. Everyone else should obey. Through out history this form of government has been strongest up until the great experiment of the founders of the United States. Our republic is still a great experiment depending on our as yet unproven ability to sustain ourselves as a capable government of the people.

“We can get some idea of how the Founders might have thought about the problem of Iraq or Afghanistan by considering their reaction to the French Revolution. Here was an attempt to create a republican government in a society that was quite different from England or British North America. It was a Catholic monarchy (and the Founders thought the religious difference pertinent) in which the people had no experience in self-government, no habits of self-government – e.g., of electing local sheriffs or town councils or magistrates – such as people in England and in the American colonies had had time out of mind. John Adams, in one of his famous bursts of purple prose, wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

I was as well persuaded in my view that a project of such a government over five and twenty millions people, when four and twenty millions and five hundred thousands of them could neither write nor read, was as unnatural, irrational and impracticable as it would be over the elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, and bears in the royal menagerie at Versailles.

In other words, extremely unlikely to succeed.” Charles R. Kesler Imprimis December 2004

Formatting: I hate this issue! Of course your paper must have some format. I believe there are lots of different formats required by different professors on campus and I think the best advice here is to recognize that the correct way to format a paper depends on who it is for and what format they require. You should always use the format required by the intended recipient. The one aspect of this that does concern me is that I like being able to recommend that a great paper be submitted for the annual UAA Student Showcase.and so they should be written with this in mind. Otherwise, I have no preference for MLA. I find it interesting that such formats may be based on the subject: Research and Documentation Online, is billed as an excellent online guide to research and documentation in the Humanities (MLA style), the Social Sciences (APA style), History (CMS style), and the Natural Sciences (CBE style).  (see http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/docprimer.htm ). If you are used to one particular style that is fine with me. The main concern is that you title the paper, that the paper be coherent, words spelled correctly and mean the right thing in context, that I be able to find the sources used and that all sources are acknowledged. Clearly the changes in the Internet web environment are changing rapidly but I love how handy it is to be able to just click on a link and go to the source you have used for a quotation or reference.  The Bibliography can also contain or be completely made up of such links as far as I am concerned. But keep in mind that a submission to the Student Showcase will also need to be in MLA style and follow that approach to handling web resources.