There is really no need for an explanation for “College Term Papers” because it’s already obvious. Students of College level are given assignment each term related to the subject/course they are studying, and thus the mystery is solved. College Term papers are mostly for students of graduate and postgraduate level. Its grading is heavily weighted and is usually given at the end of the term; it can be termed as a final project. Most students confuse it with “research paper” and vice versa when actually they both are different slightly only by research methodology and topic wise. Research papers are usually for PhD levels, and College term Papers are well for graduation level. Research paper is not just one methodology, in fact it has three further branches, and they are:
1) Academic Paper
2) College Term Paper
3) Thesis
We will only discuss the College Term Papers.
College Term papers can be of any field, whether its science, arts, dramatics, sociology etc. The purpose of writing College Term Paper is to give a student in jumping another level up, in critical thinking, evaluation and gaining open mindedness of the mentality of the individual. Students cannot be treated as mere children anymore, because it’s almost high time, where they will become part of the society and help in contribution of the nation itself; and for that reading researching is required to enhance the mind, then writing of the College Term Paper to help in organizing and summarizing their thoughts. Whether they learn from it or not is another matter but at least practice is done by them from the institutions.
Writing a College Term paper isn’t like essay writing at all. It requires a lot of facts, figures, research papers from other scholars, etc; and that is why various writing format and styles have been introduced, though those styles are restricted to certain fields, but a standard is used by all. Following is the list:
Social Sciences Field:
1) APA (American Psychological Association) {Standard}
2) AAA (American Anthropological Association)
3) ASA (American Sociological Association)
4) APSA(American Political Science Association)
Humanities Field:
1) CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) {Also known by the Turabian Style}
2) MLA (Modern Language Association)
3) Harvard Referencing
4) MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association)
5) Columbia Style
Law Field:
1) Bluebook Style
2) Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (shortly know as McGill Guide) {Its used in Canada)
3) Maroonbook Style
4) Tanbook style
5) ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors)
Other Fields:
1) ACS (American Chemical Society)
2) AIP (American Institute of Physics)
3) AMS (American Mathematical Society)
4) The Vancouver System
5) IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Even though they are College Term papers writing styles, they have another meaning in the background which is citation. Writing a college term paper, is no child’s play, so institutions have developed such styles so that the student is able to write the term paper easily, because the word limit is more than 2000, and even below 5000, sometimes page limits are given and so the word limit varies. The point is that the student can use other materials in his/her college term papers without being penalized for plagiarism.
