GIS term paper

You are required to turn in a term paper. You must turn in a draft paper by Wednesday, April 28. Please click HERE to see the sample draft paper. Final version of the paper must be submitted by Thursday, June 3. Here are some possible ideas.

Paper Format: Please CLICK THIS SAMPLE PAPER for the paper format guideline. At least, your paper format MUST be similar to the sample paper format.

Paper References
For your paper references, you can use academic journals, magazines, books, and Internet sources. You need at least 20 references, and only half of references (10 references) can be from magazines, books, and Internet sources. That is, the other half (10) references must be from academic journals. However, if you can download a full-length academic journal article thru the Internet, it is OK to use it as a reference. The term paper must be typed, single-spaced, at least 5 pages, with one inch margins and use Times New Roman 12 point font. Remember that your paper must follow APA Citation Style. Please click Here for detail information about APA Citation Style. Also, you MUST comply with below guidelines.

The full list of all references cited in the paper should appear at the end of the text, in alphabetical order by author, and in ascending chronological order for each author. They should be formatted in the house style (click the link to see example references).
References must be cited in the text, and should be cited alphabetically in the format shown by the following examples: Batty, 2003; 2005a; Batty and Xie, 1994; Webster et al, 1999b.
Where more than one reference appears for the same year, labels a, b, c etc should be used, in the order in which the papers are cited.
All authors and editors should be listed for each citation.
Any unpublished material, or material published by an organization or department (such as conference proceedings) must be accompanied by full contact details of availability, as shown in the example references (it is not sufficient, for example, to provide the name and year of a conference and the place at which it was held).
A full contact address is required for any organizations.
Acts of Parliament, statutes, government publications, legal judgments, etc, must be fully referenced as shown in the example references.
First and last pages should be provided for all articles published in journals or books

A good introduction briefly describes the specific research question that will be answered in the paper. Feel free to hint as to what conclusions you will draw and any opposing arguments that you will address, but don’t spell it all out here. It is often helpful to go back and edit the introduction after you have finished writing the paper to ensure that it truly reflects what the paper is about.

The body of the paper should include everything that you want to say. Describe the issue in depth. Why is the issue important? What does prior research on the topic find? What evidence, theories, or reasoning do different researchers give to support their stances? What are the strengths/weaknesses of arguments made by researchers? What are your reactions to the ideas/materials you find? Someone reading your paper should be able to read only the first sentence of each paragraph and have a pretty good idea of what the paper is all about. The rest of each paragraph should be used to back up that topic sentence.

The conclusion should be used to briefly summarize the main points/arguments and spell out the conclusions that you have drawn from the research. Also, feel free to be adventurous. What couldn’t this paper cover? What are some related side issues that could be further explored? What are some solutions to a problem you analyzed?

Here are more sample papers from other sources. If your paper quality is as good as below samples, you will have no problem receiving highest score for the paper.