How to Write a Medicine Term Paper: Tips from Experts

The essential objectives of higher education are to prepare students for their professional career, teach them to think independently and install the skills necessary to perform scientific research. Therefore, at the end of an academic course, a professor might give the assignment to write a standard research paper. It is also called an academic term paper. However, this type of essay is not necessarily as large as scholarly papers or dissertations, as some high school or college students think. Writing a term paper is not a hard and monotonous task. On the contrary, writing can give an opportunity to delve deeper into the research topic and help develop essential skills needed for future scientific work in the academic field.

Certainly, writing a medicine essay may seem like a challenging task by itself, especially if a potential writer has problems with articulating or writing down thoughts. Some students who are writing their first term paper can be intimidated by the complex task ahead of them. However, even if a person thinks that he or she cannot do it or do not know where to start, following a simple guideline and several necessary medicine term paper writing tips and prompts will help develop some essential skills for academic writing, as well as the essential knowledge regarding a medicine term paper format of writing.

The Research Stage: Choosing a Suitable Topic

Generally, a topic for medicine term paper depends on students’ personal interests and must be relevant to the academic course. Sometimes, a professor can give suggestions for an appropriate research subject that will reflect students aspirations for a research paper. Moreover, the course curriculum might require the medicine term paper to cover a particular issue or a specific disease. There are several examples of general topics for medical term research:

Antidepressants – The history of discovery, research regarding antidepressant drugs, how they became commonly accepted way of depression treatment, or description of widely used types of antidepressants and their effectiveness. It is straightforward, but an interesting and extensive topic.
The Dangers of Substance Abuse – This issue is suitable for health-related research where an author can describe the dangers of drug or alcohol abuse and related medical conditions. Moreover, a term paper can be aimed at the analysis of the problem and present suitable alternatives for its solution.
Alzheimer’s Disease – Because this medical condition can be severely debilitating and large number of people have relatives suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, close examination of this topic will help understand etiology and symptoms of the disease.
Vaccination – Nowadays, it is a widely discussed topic in social media that becomes a significant dilemma for some parents. The medicine term paper focusing on this issue could discuss the benefits and dangers of vaccination, as well as reflect personal opinions and conclusions of the author.
Modern Diseases – Medical specialists consider several diseases to be specific to the modern community and connected to pollution and global warming. This topic can be explored by explaining how recent changes in environment and lifestyle affect the physical and mental health of an individual.

Also, it is possible to make a note of these examples of bad topics:

What to Do with Alcoholism?
The Cure for Cancer;
How to Prolong Human Life;
Telekinesis and Brain.

Defining a Topic and Developing a Research Question

After choosing a topic that fits the sphere of interests of a student, he or she needs to formulate a research question and the goals of the research. A medicine term paper should be focused on specific issues or aimed to find an answer to a particular question. This is a first essential step to writing an academic paper because it will be challenging, or even impossible, to perform and describe medical research without identified and understood objectives. Therefore, to write a comprehensive medical essay, a student should analyze the information and decide on a suitable research objective. Moreover, after formulating a research question, a writer will be able to plan an outline and define a title for a medicine term paper.

The list of research questions is based on previously presented examples of medical essay topics:

What are the advantages of SSRIs over other antidepressants in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder? – In this case, a term paper will be focused on the effects of specific types of antidepressants on the condition of OCD patients. For example, it can present a comparison between SSRI and Clomipramine treatment plans and its outcomes.
Based on the knowledge from the college course and information obtained during research what is students’ opinion on the problem of alcoholism? – In this essay, it is possible to analyze recent data regarding alcohol abuse in a particular region or country and reflect on issues it introduces in the society.
Is it possible to effectively predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease with the help of MRI? – A term research paper based on this narrow topic will analyze existing research aimed at the early diagnosis of the Alzheimer’s disease. It will also attempt to assess MRI’s efficiency in the diagnosis, prediction, and prognosis of this medical condition.
Can potential side-effects of vaccinations outweigh outcomes of life-threatening diseases that could have been prevented by the scheduled shots? – While this research topic might be controversial, the importance of immunization cannot be overstated. Therefore, an author could evaluate the benefits and possible hazards of vaccination in this medicine term paper.
How did an increase in CO2 emission in the last 20 years affect the health of the urban population in the USA? – This research question presents the author with an opportunity to address the impact of human-made environmental changes on population health in a specific country. A student could also provide his or her solutions to the problem in this medical term paper.

Reading Relevant Literature and Finding Sources for Medicine

At this stage, a writer should study primary literature and obtain general information relevant to the topic of the term paper. To answer the chosen research question, a researcher could use information from encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries, academic reviews, articles on the Internet. Thus, it will allow understanding the background and important nuances of the chosen research subject. Moreover, a writer will have an opportunity to investigate the conclusions of previous researches on the topic. This stage should not be ignored. Otherwise, it will be difficult to make a coherent plan.

Making a Plan or an Outline of a Research Paper

When a student gets a general idea regarding the topic of the term paper, it is time to begin drafting an outline. More precisely, the plan of the essay should represent a brief outline of the paper’s structure and help guide the research. However, there are no strict rules regarding an outline, and an approach depends on writers preferences and chosen topic. The general suggestions include breaking up the main question into several subtopics, developing sections within the larger framework, and ensuring logical connections between paragraphs.

Furthermore, a brief outline of the medical term paper may be later used in the table of contents. There should be at least one sentence for each paragraph in the outline. Also, this part of the paper should include a brief description of the main idea and issues that must be stated in the particular paragraph. Therefore, an outline should give the reader a clear understanding of the paper’s structure and its central ideas. It is easier to rewrite an outline several times than revise the entire term paper later.

Structuring and Compiling the Medical Material

After collecting the material and completing research, a student needs to structure information into chapters and paragraphs. Although this stage seems straightforward, there are several pitfalls. Some students, especially in high school, believe that the best approach is to write a large research paper with extensive information. As a result, their medicine term paper can contain 40 pages instead of the required 10.

However, this is an erroneous approach because writers are required to emphasize the essential arguments and points of the research. The information that ends up in a term paper should support the conclusions. Therefore, individual chapters with corresponding titles, as stated in the table of contents, comprise the body of the essay. Each chapter, or section, supports a particular part of the thesis or an argument and preserves the integrity of the paper in general.

Avoiding Plagiarism in Your Medicine Term Paper

Nowadays, finding sources for term papers is relatively easy because of the Internet. However, for the same reason, students should be careful to avoid plagiarism. Most professors accept term papers not just in print, but also in electronic form to examine it through anti-plagiarism software. Therefore, it is necessary to make sure that the term paper is unique by citing every direct quote and adequately paraphrasing any other utilized information. Importance of citing every alien thought or idea cannot be overstated. Plagiarism is not only frowned upon in the academic environment, but it may also lead to expulsion from high school or college in the USA.

Providing Arguments and Personal Opinion

The goal of writing a term paper is to learn the main academic principles and perform research concluded with arguments and reflections of the student. For this reason, each subject or subtopic should be presented in a separate paragraph. While the first sentence of a paragraph indicates what it is going to be about, each section usually ends with a personal conclusion on the topic. Moreover, although it is important for author’s statements and arguments to be supported by secondary resources, term paper should present the results of personal research and consequent reflections on it. In conclusion, a student is allowed and encouraged to enter in discussion with cited authors by either agreeing or disagreeing with them.

Final Stages of Writing a Medicine Term Paper

Generally, students should write an introduction and conclusion of the term paper after completing other parts of the research. Although it is clear that the conclusion is added last, the introduction should also be written at the very end. That is because during the research the proposed hypothesis can be refuted, or a student can decide to change the thesis statement. In this case, it is possible to put forward a new hypothesis, corresponding to the conclusions of the performed research.

In the final stage of the medical term paper, a student should present a summary of the essay. Moreover, a conclusion of outstanding research should include analysis of the discussed subject and personal reflections of the author regarding its validity and implications. Goals, tasks, and thesis should be logically connected with research results in conclusion. Therefore, these two parts of the term paper, its framework, are written simultaneously. Since the contents of the essay can change several times during the research, it makes no sense to start writing with an introduction.

Formatting and Style: Tips from Our Writers

Students should adhere to the formatting style specified by their professor or academic guidelines for the type of an essay. There are two commonly used formatting styles for medical term papers – AMA and APA. The main difference between them is that AMA style uses superscript numbers for in-text citations. In contrast, APA papers use the author’s name and publication year enclosed in parenthesis. Although most colleges provide guidelines for their preferred style, there are basic rules used in academic writing such as Times New Roman 12 point font and double line spacing.

The integral components of the medical term paper include a cover page, references, outline, table of contents, and others as specified by course instructions. Generally, a cover page includes paper title, author’s name, course name, and header with a running title. Another important part of the term paper is a references page which includes all of the sources used by the author with appropriate formatting and in-text citations. Entries in the references should be listed in alphabetical order. After completing all of the stages, it is necessary to proofread and check all the references.

Feel how less nervous you are now? Hopefully, our medicine term paper writing guide will be within the close reach at any time you need some useful help with term paper writing in Medicine. The job is as good as done when you’re well-prepared for academic writing. Have a safe trip to the exciting academic writing world!

The Writing Guide for a Proper Medicine Term Paper