LI Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at Stony Brook University

Research Paper Procedure & Guidelines

Deadlines
Research Paper Due: January 13, 2010

Availability on Presentation Date
Prior to submission of the research paper, each student must make sure that he/she is available to present the work, if selected, on the Symposium date, March 5, 2010. Withdrawals from the Symposium once selected deprive opportunities of other students to present their works. LI-JSHS will only accept withdrawals in case of illness or emergency.

Paper Submission Form & Research Paper
Prior to submitting papers, a school teacher/official must download the School Paper Submission Form. This form is filled out by the school teacher/official. In addition, if a student’s work is performed under the supervision of an outside scientist, the Supervising Scientist Form must be submitted. This form is filled out by the student’s supervisor/mentor. These forms require signatures and must be scanned and emailed, or faxed to LI-JSHS (631-632-8544). If emailed (preferred method), please name the file as described below. These forms will not be accepted if not signed, and the corresponding school or student papers associated will not be reviewed.

To accompany each student’s Research Paper, download the Paper Information Form and fill out the required information. The file must be renamed as described below.

The research paper must be submitted as either an MS Word or PDF file. Name the file as described below. The size of file must be less than 2MB. Submit the paper information form and the research paper files of each student together as attachments to JSHS@stonybrook.edu by the nominating teacher/school official no later than January 13, 2010. A separate email can be sent for each student. Files will not be accepted if sent directly from the student. Note only the Teacher Award Form may be sent by a student to JSHS@stonybrook.edu.

Naming of Submission Files
Follow the instructions given in the Application & Abstract page to name the submission files.

Sample Procedure

Suppose "FLH" is the school code and a student is listed B in the School Paper Submission Form.
Rename Paper information Form from "XXX-X-paperinformation" to "FLH-B-paperinformation."
Name the research paper as "FLH-B-paper."

Finally, the school teacher should e-mail them as attachments to JSHS@stonybrook.edu.

Research Paper Format

General

Submit in MS Word or PDF file with double or 1.5 line spaced text on 8 1/2" by 11" paper format with one-inch margins. Use 12 point fonts. The size of file must be less than 2 MB.
The maximum number of pages is twenty (20) which includes cover page, abstract, body of paper, illustrations, references, appendices.
Illustrations must be of high quality, neat, and legible. All figures and tables must be clearly referenced in the paper (e.g., Fig. 2, etc.) and should include descriptive captions.

Order of Content

Cover page (required) must include the title of paper, student’s name, and high school (paper without the cover page will not be reviewed.)

Acknowledgement of assistances (required) – statement on where, when and how the research was conducted and persons (e.g., research mentor) who assisted in your work. If the work is solely conducted by the student, such statement should be given. This must come as the first section after the cover page.
Abstract – concise descriptive overview of the paper (200 words or less)
Introduction - a clear and concise statement of the purpose or objective, and background information and previously carried out related work.
Procedure/Materials and Methods - describe in sufficient detail to conduct the research in step-by-step manner. Explain how the results and data were obtained.
Results (data/findings) - state clearly and concisely. This section should state what you observed (facts). Describe the important features of each result in figures, tables, etc.
Discussion and Conclusions – interpret your results with clearly and concisely statements. Discuss your results to what is already known and limitation of your work. May want to include possible future work/plans and directions for continued research.
References – clearly state the authors, title, journal name, page numbers of referenced papers or books. Use in-line citations — e.g., [3] — throughout the paper to correspond to literature.
Appendices – in some cases, you may want to put detailed calculations or raw data in a separate section.

While the organization is flexible, each paper must have the title page and acknowledgement of assistances. Note, for instance, research that creates a novel design for a system should spend more time detailing and evaluating design decisions. Overall, clarity and a logical argument should be your overriding goals.

Judging Procedure
See Judging Criteria »