Term Paper
You have the option of writing the term paper in any topic of your interest within the financial economics field, as long as you apply some of the statistical and econometric tools covered in the course, especially multiple regression analysis. This is a great opportunity to apply and train your creative skills.
Since collecting data and choosing a topic related to finance might be a challenge, I have designed a case project that you can solve without any major problems. This case project may be used as a substitute for the term paper and it can be found in the folder Content/Term paper in Blackboard.
If you decide to write a term paper in a topic of your interest, please remember that a proper research paper must include a bibliography of information and works cited. The papers should not exceed 15 double spaced pages, not including cover page and appendices. The paper should be prepared using the APA writing style and guideline for references format. You must provide a bibliography, and all direct quotations and data sources must be properly cited. The Department uses the APA style as to facilitate both, reading the paper and understanding references without being cumbersome as some of the other
styles (such as Chicago or MLA). Students can download the student style guide from the American Psychological Association http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html) web site or you can purchase the APA style guide from the book store. There is even a help disk that can be purchased for about $ 40 (http://www.apa.org/software/ ) that will walk
you through the process as you write the paper if you desire a more personal
assistance.
Papers are to be RESEARCH PAPERS. Remember that work that you use from other authors MUST be referenced. Since it is assumed that you are not an authority on the topic that you are writing, it is expected that this paper is an overview of many different sources of information. These must be contributed to the author using the APA format. This is your paper and not the cut and paste of someone else’s work. The internet has led to a false sense of what research is all about. Those new to research tend to think that it means spending an afternoon surfing the internet and then an afternoon cutting  PAGE 5
from material available. Keep in mind that the Internet is: (1) not quality oriented as it has good materials and not so good materials, and the Internet does not know the difference; (2) the Internet is NOT a sole source location. In particular, sources such as Wikipedia are the works of individual submitters which are not reviewed. Thus while many entries provide excellent information, some are fundamentally flawed or just plain wrong. Keep in mind that the Boston University Library as well as your local, state and the national US Library of Congress have extensive online services. USE THEM