Term Paper Description

Term Paper - Students will be required to write a scholarly paper on one of four topics covered in the course. The paper is to be independently developed, contain original thought, and include appropriate scholarly references that support the student's thoughts and ideas. The goal for this paper is to produce a journal quality paper for submission to a peer-reviewed journal on systems engineering. The paper will be no longer than 10 double-spaced pages, independent of the cover page, table of contents and references. All citations and references in the paper must conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). Students will be required to use the paper template provided by the course instructor.

1. Construction - They shall be: (1) properly organized with section headings, (2) contain formal captions for figures, tables and equations, (3) use APA citations in the text, (4) use end-of-paper APA style references, and (5) be grammatically correct. Students should be warned that the instructor is highly critical of improperly formatted references and poorly constructed or supported thoughts.

2. Format - The paper will have 1 inch margins on all sides and use double-spaced Times New Roman 12 point font. Tables will be single spaced in Times New Roman 10 point font. All Tables, Figures, and Equations will have captions (use the caption feature). They are to be located in the body of the paper closest to the point where they are addressed (use the cross reference feature) in the text.

3. Topic List - There are four topics that may be the focus of the term paper:

a. Systems Theory - discuss one proposition or principle contained within any of the seven axioms of systems theory. The discussion should focus on the both the meaning and utility of the proposition or principle and how it may be utilized in systems engineering.

b. Complexity and Systems - discuss a method for characterizing the complexity in a system. The discussion should focus on the both the definition and utility of understanding the complexity of a system how this may be utilized in systems engineering.

c. Systems Approaches - discuss one of the three systems approaches presented during Week 4. The focus discussion should focus on the elements of the method, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it may be used to address complex problems in systems engineering.

d. Observation, bias, and errors in systems analysis - discuss the application of observation, bias and/or errors in systems analysis. You might consider application of a case study using systems analysis reflecting how observation, bias and errors in analysis contribute to a faulty analysis.