A quality paper will meet or exceed all of the above requirements.
Best Practices
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Begin by getting an overall view of your subject. Do some general reading on hydraulic fracturing; learn what it is and why it is important. Understand the process and its impact on energy issues and environmental issues.
Pay attention to the weekly deliverables. They will not only help you to learn about the subject in an organized way, they will also help to form a foundation for your paper.
Before you begin to write, think about how you want to organize your paper. Many students prepare an outline; you should at least jot down the important points you plan to cover. If you are having trouble getting started, begin by writing the section you find easiest or most interesting—you can organize and assemble the sections of the paper into their proper order later.
After you’ve completed your first draft, put the paper aside for a day—or at least a few hours. Then go back and read your material—is it well-organized? Have you covered all the important points? Does the work flow? Are transitions smooth? Do sections need editing? Are they clear? Are they too short; too long? Once you feel that content is okay, go back and proofread the paper; look carefully for spelling and grammar errors. Do not depend on spell-check to find all spelling errors—if you don’t believe me, run this sentence through spell-check: “ If yew us only spell-check, yew can never no for sure that their r know spelling miss takes.”
Finally, cite-check your paper. Don’t try to revise, edit, proofread, and cite-check all at one time. You will miss something. Your introduction should get the reader’s attention. Introduce the subject and say why it’s important. (“Hydraulic fracturing could yield a natural gas supply to meet all U.S. needs for the next 100 years.”) In this first paragraph or two, preview the main ideas—give a map of your paper to the reader. (“In this paper I will discuss A and B and show how C will play an important role in the future.”) Be sure to maintain an academic tone. Don’t use slang. Don’t use familiar terms. (Don’t write: “It was completely stupid of XYZ not to follow the rules.” Do write: “XYZ Corporation made a fatally careless move in failing to follow EPA regulations.”)
Make the body of your paper readable by using subheads. Organize the body of the paper to conform to the map you used in the introduction. As you shift sub-topics, be sure to let the reader know where you’re headed. Remember to give credit if you use photos, graphs, maps, etc. Your summary should recapitulate the main ideas and main points in the paper.
If you’ve included a personal viewpoint, the last part of the summary should briefly recapitulate your opinion. (“We can only hope that future regulation will neither inhibit the industry nor fail to protect our natural resources.”)
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