Useful Term Paper Proposal Writing Guidelines From An Expert

Writing a term paper involves more steps that most people think it does. You will need to write the term paper along with a proposal, a bibliography, an appendix, and other sections, too. Each section has specific requirements that must be met in order to avoid low scores and possible plagiarism accusations. By the time that students get to the point in their academic careers where they write a term paper, they know quite a bit about the bibliography and appendix sections, but the proposal tends to be new. Here are some tips to make that section flawless:

1. Know your word count. The term paper proposal has a limited number of words. It is in your best interest to get as close to the exact number as possible. You certainly do not want to go over and you do not want to write a significantly lower number than the maximum.
2. Be precise with your word usage. In order to reach the desired word count, it is important to use precise language in the proposal. To ensure that your proposal is accepted, you want to write clearly. If your instructor does not understand what you are trying to do in the proposal, then you will need to rewrite the piece. By using precise language the first time, your proposal should be readily understood.
3. Include the correct components. Each proposal requires three components. They include the thesis, a title, and an annotated bibliography. The title should explain the content of the proposed term paper. The thesis should show what you plan to prove. The annotated bibliography is a list of your sources with explanations of how you are going to use them in the paper. Your instructor will give you a required number of sources for the bibliography page; be sure to have at least that many sources.
4. Understand your audience. Even though your instructor will be the person that will read your paper, you should think about who could actually benefit from the information you plan to present in your paper. Write for that audience so your language is specific to their needs. Your instructor will understand what you are attempting when you use precise language just for that audience.
5. See a sample. One of the best ways to be successful on any type of paper is to see an example. You can write your own proposal by rewriting the examples using language for your project.