When writing nutrition and dietetics term paper, you should concentrate on the issues related to food safety, diet therapy, good hygiene, principles of community health, nutrition assessment, and so on. Your tutor may provide you with an opportunity to select the topics. Also, you may be required to address specific topics related to nutrition, such as animal physiology. The success of your term paper depends on your ability to state and prove your position, the way you articulate your arguments, the way you adhere to stipulated guidelines, and the way you observe term paper writing procedure. Writing a term paper on nutrition is a tedious process, especially when you lack necessary skills and some level of understanding of the basic term paper elements. Regardless of your academic level, writing term papers is a part of the evaluation process that professors use to test your understanding of concepts, your ability to apply them, and think critically. This nutrition & dietary term paper guide provides you with the necessary tips that will help with your paper.
How to Formulate the Term Paper Topic that Works
Even the best writers find it hard to choose an original topic. Finding a topic for your term paper is the most common part of any writing process. Different strategies can be used to come up with an original topic. Some of them are described below:
- Brainstorming. The brainstorming process involves thinking and developing ideas about the nutrition concept you explore. Idea development is a common thing at the beginning of the writing process, and it slows down as you go through the process. When brainstorming, note down any ideas you come up with regardless of how irrelevant you think they are to the term paper.
- Freewriting. For proficient writers, freewriting is like a warm-up that occurs when they first begin to write. It involves sitting and writing whatever comes to mind for the first ten to twenty minutes. It will help you to make your ideas pour out onto the page. Since freewriting is spontaneous, there are plenty of opportunities presenting themselves. Thus, it is likely that you will grab some original topic ideas from there. You do not need to worry about the grammar, the sentence structure, or the viability of ideas at the freewriting phase. Once you are done with freewriting, you can engage in reviewing your writing afterward to come up with original topic ideas.
- Research. Commonly students think that by starting to read the material they are writing about they can reach to the core of the topic. The problem occurs when the reading keeps the mind too busy to focus on the topic itself. Once you have a potential topic in your head, you can focus on or conduct research to set different angles you can use to approach the topic. Moreover, thorough research helps to find out if a sufficient amount of information is there at your disposal to write a logical term paper.
When selecting a topic for your nutrition term paper, ensure you:
- Pick a topic that will arouse the readers’ emotions;
- Avoid the topics that have been discussed repeatedly;
- Select the topics that are not too broad or too specific;
- Select a topic that makes the audience passionate about it and willing to make a change;
- Select the topics that are based on current events and trends in nutrition and dietary studies;
- Choose a topic that states a problem and offers solutions to resolve it;
- Select a topic that is of great interest to you and the audience.
Examples of the topics for nutrition and dietary term paper are the following:
- The Interrelation Between Blood Lipids and Human Atherosclerosis;
- The Effects of Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension-Style Diet on Nonfatal Cardiovascular Disease;
- The Effects of Dietary Ghee;
- Poor Nutrition as the Main Cause for Child Obesity;
- The Effects of Dietary Arachidonic Acid on the Humans’ Immune Response System.
Pre-Writing Tips for Your Term Paper: Steps Our Writers Take
Prewriting is a form of preparation done before starting the paper writing process. It involves thinking about your topic, gathering ideas, and making a plan for your project. Using appropriate pre-writing tips can help you complete your paper and put you on the right track when you start writing. You can view this as preparing for your research paper in stages that include selecting a topic, brainstorming, making a list of questions your paper will tackle, and making an outline to help you conduct research and organize findings. The following points offer a few tips to help you start developing your prewriting plan.
Select a topic through brainstorming or review a list of topic suggestions.
Think about your topic before you start writing. Although you may have an idea of a topic, deliberate about it to understand what you want to write about. Brainstorming will help you to break up ideas into potential topics. Moreover, you are likely to find an original topic you can tackle without writing about a common topic. Once you’re done with that, visualize yourself writing through exploring the things you want to mention about your topic and the way you will collect information about your topic. It is recommended to write brief notes to understand what your topic needs, to think about the sources you will use, and consider when you will work on your content.
Engage in free writing and consider answering basic questions about your topic.
When freewriting, think about questions your readers would have and check if you can answer them on your own. Thus, you’ll get the idea of how complex your research will be. If you can answer most questions, consider adding unique information to make your term paper interesting. You should also check your tutor’s instructions regularly and take notes on additional actions you may need to take to ensure your paper meets academic requirements.
Make an outline.
Based on what your term paper requirements are, you should make an outline that features sections your research paper will highlight. You may break up your term paper into three sections and work on each section when you are ready to do your research. When you’ve got the full scope of ideas, you can outline the information you will present in the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion.
How to Craft a Thesis Statement for Your Paper
The thesis statement should present the summary of your term paper topic in one or a few sentences. It should also inform the readers about your argument and what to expect. In this case, craft a thesis statement that informs your readers about the subject of your paper and the position you will take in the discussion. Your nutrition research paper should have a strong thesis statement that articulates the unifying theme of your paper. When creating a thesis statement, ensure:
- It presents the research paper main argument;
- It provides your position on the argument;
- It makes a connection between the major argument of your paper and evidence provided in the research paper paragraphs;
- It provides room for the intended audience to refute the articulated claims. In this case, your thesis statement should present a viewpoint that the readers and the other writers can agree or disagree with. It should also provide reasons for choosing specific claims over the others;
- It makes a limited, clear, and accurate assertion that should be explained and supported through scholarly evidence;
- It has a specific point that provides the direction of your paper’s argument;
- It is not too big for your paper such that it would be impossible to explore every aspect of your claim;
- It presents an argument that can be proven or argued against. Ensure your intended audience does not instantly accept your thesis statement;
- It refers to the methods you will use to provide evidence to support your arguments.
Recommended Structure of Your Nutrition Term Paper
A paper in nutrition and dietetics should consist of at least three parts, namely the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The body segment has further divisions that can be presented in the form of paragraphs. These divisions focus on the presentation of arguments and counter-arguments, and a response to the raised objections.
Introduction. The opening paragraph of your term paper serves as an introduction to it. The introduction should present your topic, the arguments discussed in the paper, your intended objective, and should contain a thesis statement and an explanation of it. If you do not have a clear picture of your paper’s organization at this stage, write the entire paper and compose the introduction once you finish the main body. In this case, compose the other sections of the paper first, and come back to (re) write the introduction so that it reflects what your term paper is all about. Where necessary, define the key terms in your thesis statement. These terms should define your paper and provide the scope of it.
Body. The body of the term paper should present your argument as stipulated in your introduction. The arguments should be given in paragraph form. This implies that each paragraph should focus on one main argument. Moreover, each paragraph should have a topic sentence that makes a claim for the paragraph. The topic sentence should be in-line with the term paper’s topic and the thesis statement. The subsequent sentences in the paragraph should provide evidence that supports the noted claim. In cases where the body section should contain subheadings, it is important to group themes in a way that ensures they provide a systematic analysis of appropriate content for each subheading.
The body should also have paragraphs that present arguments that support the thesis. The arguments constitute the greater part of the term paper. In presenting your term paper arguments ensure to:
- Use compelling premises logically;
- Present the possible arguments in paragraphs;
- Discuss each argument in its own paragraph along with evidence that supports the argument;
- Ensure your paragraphs demonstrate your understanding of the nutrition topic you are tackling;
- Provide empirical and theoretical support for the presented arguments and do not repeat them.
A recommended structure for your term paper body section can appear as indicated below:
- Heading 1: History of the nutrition issue. You may include past attempts and solutions.
- Heading 2: Extent of the problem. Who is affected? What impact did it have?
- Heading 3: Effects of the problem.
- Heading 4: Possible future solutions.
Conclusion. This part of the term paper should present your concluding remarks. Restate your thesis statement and summarize the major points of your research paper.
An appropriate outline for your term paper should appear like this:
- I. Introduction
- II. Body:
- Paragraph 1
- Paragraph 2
- Paragraph 3
- Paragraph 4
- III. Conclusion
Post-Writing Tips for a Triumphal End
Once you are done with writing part, take a break, preferably one day before engaging in the research paper review. This will provide you with a new outlook once you go through your paper. If you don’t have a day, take at least a one hour break. You should review paragraph issues, sentence-level issues, and content coherence.