How to Write a Zoology Term Paper: Free Complete Guide

If you’re taking the course of Zoology, you’ll be there to agree that writing a term paper for this discipline is the toughest part. The point is that Zoology is a huge and serious subject and college students need to be too careful and attentive when they choose the topic for the paper. The problems here is that students usually do not get the idea of how huge the project is, which is why later they experience troubles and fail to submit their assignments within the set deadline. Without a doubt, Zoology is a huge area to write an academic paper on. For that reason, you have to pick the field of study first to produce a term paper on. This zoology term paper writing guide aims to explain you all the aspects of producing a top-notch Zoology term paper.

Choose the Topic for Your Zoology Term Paper: A Few Lifehacks from Our Writers

Commonly, the Zoology term paper comprises maximum 3500 words or from 8 to 10 pages. In order to craft a high-quality Zoology project, you have to follow some crucial steps. Picking the most suitable topic is the first one to take. If you’re struggling to come up with a good idea for your Zoology term paper writing, here are some themes you are free to use, or at least find some inspiration from:

Then here are 10 you can use, or at the very least get some inspiration from when writing your zoology term papers:

Ecology & Evolutionary Zoology. This is the area that specializes in studying how animals interact with the environment. You, as the author of the term paper, need to concentrate on how animals shape the environment, as well as use it to their advantages.
Epidemiology & Disease Transmission. If you’re interested in diseases and how to treat them, this topic could be the option. Use your Zoology term paper to see how diseases affect the population sizes of different species, as well as how this or that diseases has led to the decline of various species.
Urban Wildlife. It is not a secret that animals are being forced to live in an urban environment at the present moment. Many of them can adapt while the other have to somehow fight for their life. A term paper dedicated to how animals tend to survive in the modern world would be a thing of importance to every reader of yours.
Early Life History & Larval Ecology of Amphidromous Fish. If you’re particularly interested in the topics related to the freshwater ecology, check out the research options in the area of biology and ecology of freshwater fish.
Animal Behavior & Neurobiology. As the name suggests, this topic is a study of how animals behave, as well as why they act this or that way. There’s much space left for research within the area, which means you won’t experience any problems when conducting the research.
Cellular Mechanism. How the organisms of animals function at the cellular level is just as interesting as it is when it comes to human beings. Since this subject area has a bunch of links to many various branches, it is very diverse and easy to research.
Unusual Behaviors. At times, the ways the animals behave seem to be pretty counterintuitive. A complete project written on the strange behaviors of animals would make sense and be interesting to read no matter how bizarre.
Migration Patterns. Provide a Zoology term paper on how animals tend to migrate, as well as why they do that to the chosen areas and which areas they settle in.
The Zoo Life. A Zoology term paper on the life of animals at the zoo is something your target audience can relate to since this is where we all go when we’d like to see a lynx or an elephant in the flesh.
Exotic Animals. Why not write a Zoology term paper on the exotic animals? Use your college project to provide information on more exotic animals than the average individual in the street can even imagine. There are many animals out there that you can mention in your project to amaze your tutor, who is not even aware of their existence.
Hunting Of Animals. This topic provides you with an opportunity to do an in-depth research on how hunting impacts the population numbers, as well as the mortals behind hunting some species.

Continue with Drafts

Once you decide on which topic you’d like to work on, the process of real writing starts. It is recommended to create your outline in a separate file in order to be able to expand on every other point, adding information and correcting the details. Are you done with the first draft? Don’t even try to edit it! Don’t stop to pick a better word here or there to boost the sentence structure. You will have time to do it later! Instead, let your ideas and thoughts flow to compose a complete assignment.

The Title Page

There are different ways of crafting a title page for a Zoology term paper just like bibliographies such as APA or MLA. If you’re required to provide the title page of MLA format, remember that it needs double-spacing and that all letters should be centered. Then, provide the name of your college or university. Skip to about one-third of the title page and put down your term paper title, provide a subtitle if you have one. Now make sure to skip several lines down and write your name, the course number, and name, your tutor’s name and the due date of your Zoology project.

As for APA style, ensure to avoid contractions and abbreviations in your title that shouldn’t be more than 12 words in lengths. What is more, the author should also keep away from using words that serve no purpose. In other words, the title of the Zoology term paper of APA format should be concise and clearly inform your reader on what your project is about. Make sure to write the title beginning every word with a capital letter and don’t forget to center-align in. Then provide your name, the academic course that you take, the name of your tutor and the submission date.

The table of contents is an organized listing of the key sections and headings, as well as sub-sections and sub-headings of the document. Thus, your readers will immediately see how your paper is organized and then skip down to the term paper sections that are the most interesting to them. It is important to mention that a concise and clear table of contents is the first proof your term paper is a good one.

Checklist for the table of contents:

Properly formatted;
Highlights the key sections of the term paper starting with the Dedications page. If you do not provide the Dedicate page, the Abstract page is the starting point;
All headings and titles match exactly what is provided within the paper content;
List the titles of every chapter together (do not provide any subsections!);
All page numbers must be correct.

Introduction

In the introduction of the Zoology academic project, you are supposed to make your readers familiar with the paper topic and create interest in reading your piece further. The introductive section precisely describes the main purpose of your research and informs your target audience on why you’ve conducted one. Make sure to briefly review the previous research on the issue with enough background info in order to guide your reader (this can be done by a literature search of peer-viewed, published and primary materials). It is highly important to properly reference the background information.

Imagine your introductive section as a sort of a funnel. Begin with stating a very broad topic, field of study, problem and so on. If your term paper is dedicated to the life of aged animals in zoos, feel free to start your introduction by providing the fact that “Multiple improvements in nutrition and veterinary care of animals that live in zoos have led to an increase in the longevity of these animals over the past 30 years.” From this broad intro, you may switch to a more specific research issue.

The final part of the introductive section should also include a statement of the hypothesis you’ve studied and your predictions. When it comes to the hypothesis, the question is about a general statement of casualty for a Zoology observation or pattern. It is recommended to start this paragraph with “It was hypothesized that A affects B…”, “We hypothesized that A affects B…”, etc. The hypothesis usually provides a general “effect” and some specific prediction statements.

Provide the specific questions that you’re going to answer, a short introduction of the general method used, as well as how your project will help expand the knowledge in a particular area.

Main Body

The body of the Zoology term paper is the longest part. It comprises sections and sub-sections. You, as the term paper author, must state a main point or argument in every section and support it with appropriate information. Each argument should be developed in an ineligible way. If you need to quote some text from journals or books, make use of the so-called in-text citation. For every in-text citation, there must be provided the corresponding entry in the reference list.

Example paragraph with an in-text citation:
‘Zoos are required to maintain a high standard of animal welfare, and this can be assessed using a combination of resource-based and animal-based indices usually divided into behavioral indicators, physiological indicators and clinical/pathological signs (Wolfensohn, Shotton, Bowley, Davies and Thompson, 2018).
References:

Wolfensohn, S.; Shotton, J.; Bowley, H.; Davies, S.; Thompson, S.; Justice, W.S.M. Assessment of Welfare in Zoo Animals: Towards Optimum Quality of Life. Animals 2018, 8, 110.’

If you deal with the online information sources, it is important to keep in mind that cyber sources may not be cited (with a couple of exceptions!) unless they’re internet peer-reviewed materials. In case a college student has an item (an online government publication for example), it is recommended to approach academic tutor to know more details about the specific requirements for the citation part.

However, if this or that article can be found only on the web, the author of the Zoology term paper must cite the reference as provided below:

‘Higginbotham, S., W.R. Wong, R.G. Linington, C. Spadafora, L. Iturrado, and A.E. Arnold. 2014. Sloth hair as a novel source of fungi with potent anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial bioactivity. PLoS ONE 9: e84549. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084549.’

Conclusion

Use the conclusive section of your Zoology term paper to state the problem that you have posted, as well as provide an explanation of the results that you have revealed during the research. Produce a brief summary of your observations and interpretations, as well as write a brief description of the results (don’t go into too much details about this!).
For instance:

‘The oscillation in the abundance of different groups of prey at different periods maintained the overall prey abundance at a relatively constant level throughout the year, mitigating the effects of prey availability on the abundance and reproductive period of the scorpions. These results suggest that microhabitat exploitation is a key factor to sustain litter-dwelling scorpions in disturbed forest remnants and that T. pusillus can be an ecological indicator of edge effects. (WeltonDionisio-da-SilvaAndré Felipe de AraujoLiraCleide Maria Ribeiro deAlbuquerque, Zoology. Volume 129, August 2018, Pages 17-24)’

Besides, you should also highlight the limitations and strengths of your research. What is more, you have an opportunity to provide any suggestions for future work in a particular field of study.

References / Bibliography

In the bibliography section of your Zoology term paper, you’re required to provide each information source in the proper citation style.

Appendices

Appendices are an integral part of an academic term or research paper. Usually, they are comprised of the complete list of info of the maps, survey forms, charts, figures, stats, graphs and so on that the author used in the project. Mind that these elements are not included in the actual word count of the project.

How to Write a Zoology Term Paper: Extended Guide