wpe41.gif (23084 bytes)CIS5394: Decision Making and Expert Systems
(Current Issues in CIS)
Spring 2004

Research Paper Requirements

In addition to adhering to the general format given in the Paper Components Page, your (Final) research paper MUST adhere to the following requirements:

It Must be between 15 and 30 pages in length
It Must be double spaced (at least that will make meeting the length requirement easier)
It Must have 1" margins all around (we all know about increasing margins to increase length)
It Must be typed in a twelve (12) point font (we all know about increasing font size to increase length)
It Must have no spelling errors (that is what spell checkers are for)
It should have no grammatical errors (That is one of the functions of the referees (helping you with your sentence structure). It's also a good idea to have a friend proof read your paper)
It Must have a MINIMUM of 12 REFEREED JOURNAL citations

The last requirement is the only one which is not self-explanatory. Magazines are NOT generally refereed (I love reading Time, Mad Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, but they don't meet the requirement stated above). If you are going to develop a research paper, you must do it by building on research published in refereed journals (as indicated in the Refereeing Page, that is why we have a refereeing process).

I have provided you with a (fair) list of refereed journals in the IS Journals Page. There are many others (a good tip-off that the journal is refereed is that it contains the word "Journal" in it (although, trust me, The Ladies Home Journal is not refereed)). Obviously, the Library (NOT necessarily the Internet) is a good source of refereed Journals.

By the way, I DO NOT mean to imply that you should not cite any non-refereed journals in your paper (these are often extremely good sources to help you support your ideas). I am merely saying that you must form your ideas around ideas which have followed the traditional process of producing research, and that means finding a MINIMUM of 12 refereed journal articles.

 

This page was last updated on 04/08/04.