How to Write a Strong Term Paper

1. How to Writea Strong Term Paper Prof. Michael Gershowitz Rutgers University February 2013

2. First steps (already taken) • Select a topic that interests you. (You will enjoy working on it much more.) • Define the topic so that it is manageable. • The tendency is to make the topic too broad. The result is a shallow survey. • Narrow it down!

3. Narrow it down! Instead of Do this The cost of dune restoration in Ocean County after Hurricane Sandy. The conviction of Municipal Judge Joe Blow for bribe-taking: lessons learned. From 32% to 64%: can the graduation rate from XYZ HS be doubled with more effective administration? • The cost of cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy. • Corruption in New Jersey trial courts. • How to improve graduation rates in urban NJ school districts: an administrative approach.

4. Develop a logic model for your paper.Here is a good one: • What is your topic? Why is it important? • What has already been written about the topic? How does this paper build upon existing knowledge? • What new information or new data do you have to report? • What is the meaning or significance of these data? • What else is worth finding out?

5. 1. What is your topic? Why is it important? • Give a brief overview of your paper. Since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act became law in 1965, the federal government has awarded $N billion dollars of discretionary grant money to America’s K-12 school districts. The operating assumption has been that this money has led to an improvement in the quality of education. • Explain its importance to knowledge of PA. For decades, this assumption has been unchallenged. That status has changed. Some presidential candidates want to end federal funding of schools. To make the discussion useful, we need to know the extent to which discretionary grants have improved local K-12 education.

6. 2. What has already been written about the topic? How does this paper build upon existing knowledge? • Review the relevant literature. Much has been written about the amount of grant money awarded to local school districts by the U.S. Department of Education. For instance, Smith (2009) found that xmxmxmxmxmxxmxmxmxxmxmxxmxmx. (More citations.) Since passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, student achievement has been more rigorously examined than previously. Testing has become more standardized, enabling comparisons between states, districts and individual schools. Johnson (2010b) reported that wkwkwwkwwkwkwkwkwwkwkw. (More citations.)

7. 2. What has already been written about the topic? How does this paper build upon existing knowledge? • Show how your paper builds on work already done. Curiously, there appear to be no links between inputs (federal grants) and outcomes (student achievement). This paper attempts to connect these inputs and outcomes. In doing so, it provides data that can better inform the ongoing discussion about the federal government’s proper role in K-12 education. • Explain your methodology. To make the scope of work manageable, this study was limited to urban school districts in one state, New Jersey. Urban districts were defined as those coterminous with cities of 25,000 or more population. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was submitted to the Department of Education requesting the following data: for each discretionary grant awarded in New Jersey: (a) the name of the school and district; (b) the amount of the grant; (c) the grades to receive services; (d) the disciplines (e.g., math); and the amount of the grant. Information on student achievement in all of New Jersey’s urban districts was obtained from the department’s “Report Card”, which is public information. Data were entered into a database, and coefficients of correlation were calculated using SPSS software.

8. 3. What new information or new data do you have to report? • Present your findings. When we correlated grants with achievement, we found that the federal government’s spending was most productive in English language arts and social sciences, and less so in math and science. Correlations could not be obtained in English language learning because standardized tests are not given in that subject. Our findings are presented in the following table: (Use tables, charts, etc., to present data compactly.) • Explain any anomalies or problems with the data. The data for Messtown are reported but their accuracy is suspect. After the data had been analyzed, the New Jersey Commissioner of Education reported that 22 teachers had admitted changing student test responses in order to raise their class’ scores.

9. 4. What is the meaning or significance of these data? • Explain why your findings are important. In New Jersey, the large, urban school districts are among the lowest achieving districts in the state. In fact, eight of the ten districts with the lowest student achievement are large urban ones. Federal grant funding enabled students in urban district to close the achievement gap with suburban districts by N%. This supports the position of those who seek to continue the competitive grants process in its present form….

10. 5. What else is worth finding out? • Show how additional research (to be conducted by you or others) can add to your contribution. This paper showed that federal grants were more effective in improving achievement in English language arts and in social sciences than in math and science. It did not explore the reasons for this disparity. There are several possible explanations: (1) sjsjsjsjsjsjsjssjsjsjsjsjsjs. (2) rorororororororororororororororororo. (3) qyqyqqyqyqyqyqyqyqyqyqyqyqyqyq. These hypotheses are worthy of study because the findings have the potential to make the federal investment in math and science education more effective.

11. Do your research • Primary research: original field work. • Interviews. • Surveys. • Empirical observations. • Secondary research: reporting field work by other scholars. • Books. • Journals. • Online sources. • Selected periodicals. • As you gather material, carefully note its source. • You should have more data than you can use – best safeguard against padding.

12. Be on guard against plagiarism – credit your sources! • All secondary sources must be cited whether quoted or paraphrased. • Your own research (primary) does not need citations. • There are several different styles for citing sources (footnotes). The convention in PA is to use the APA style. (American Psychological Association). • Note: The Turabian style (superscripted numbering) is considered obsolete.

13. Guides to APA style(thanks to Roberta Tipton, Dana Library) • The stylebook itself: http://www.apastyle.org/ • Explanations and discussions: • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01// • http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c09_o.html • http://www2.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citapa.htm

14. Write a draft • Don’t get writer’s block – just get your thoughts down in writing in any form whatsoever. • Let it sit for a day or two so when you pick it up again it’s fresh. • Revise, revise, revise. • Have a classmate, friend or family member read and critique it as a “friendly critic.” • Revise again. • Make sure all necessary source citations are there.

15. A suggestion for keeping organized: use the same document for notes and text of the paper. • Create subheads. • Fill in the spaces between the subheads with your notes. • Later on, refer to the notes as you write the paper. Delete the notes as you go. • Use different fonts/styles for notes and paper. E.g., left-justified italics for notes, and fully-justified Roman for the paper.

16. Sample unfinished page ESEA became law in 1965. No overall eval. Assumption has always been -- spending money improves achievement. Not a performance based approach. No data. What data are available? What do data show? Gov’t spending on ed under attack – Santorum. Since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act became law in 1965, the federal government has awarded $N billion dollars of discretionary grant money to America’s K-12 school districts. The operating assumption has been that this money has led to an improvement in the quality of education. This assumption has never been tested. All ESEA-funded programs have been evaluated, but there has never been a comprehensive assessment. Until recently, there has been a consensus that federal spending on education is at least acceptable if not desirable. This consensus is diminishing. In the 2012 presidential campaign, Rick Santorum, one of the Republican frontrunners, has argued for an end to all federal involvement in K-12 education. This idea has received significant support from conservatives. The extent to which such a proposal should be taken seriously ought to depend on the effectiveness of federal funding.

17. Give your paper a descriptive title • Not too long, but not too glib. Make it sound serious. • Many papers have a title and a subtitle. General title, more specific subtitle. • E.g., “Education Grants and Student Achievement: Does Federal Money Lead to More Learning?” • Longer papers (25 pages and up) should also have an abstract or executive summary.

18. Can it all fit in 10 pages? YES!* • What is your topic? Why is it important? • What has already been written about the topic? How does this paper build upon existing knowledge? • What new information or new data do you have to report? • What is the meaning or significance of these data? • What else is worth finding out? _______________ * Plus footnotes and bibliography. Pages 1 1 5 2 1

19. The Tone of Writing • Do you want to engage the reader or put him to sleep? • Tons of data are tedious. • Stories about people (“human interest”) are more interesting. • Use active voice (“we studied traffic….”), not passive voice (“traffic was studied….”). • Good academic writing need not be “academic”. (See: “Performance, Corporate Style.”) • Present both sides of an argument. You can support or favor one side, but be fair. You’re not a blogger, newspaper columnist or radio talk show host.

20. The writing style • Short words. • Short sentences. • Short paragraphs. • No filler words. • Conversational style. • No slang. • No email shortcuts (lol, ttyl, imho, lmao, etc.)

21. Avoid plagiarism • Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit in text or note. • Research papers build on other people’s work; do not try to avoid the need for citing sources. • Credit must be given not only for quotations but for paraphrases and discussions. • APA style is the norm in public administration. • No citations needed for original research.