The third part of the exam in this course is a paper.

To pass the course you need to write this paper

and pass. The paper must be of academic nature, i.e. you need to demonstrate academic writing
skills. Therefore, the paper should not be written in an essayistic style. It must be based on the
analysis of literature published in the field you work in. That requires that you to disclose your
sources. Everything you read that flows into your work must be referred to. Failure to do so will
result in a fail. For citation and references, please use APA-style.

The paper should be about instruments. You are free to choose a topic you are interested in. Starting
point of the paper is an environmental problem. Then you describe a solution to address the problem
and you analyze the instruments that were used to implement the solution. Finally, you develop your
own thoughts about the solution and the instruments applied: What was good about the solution? Did
the instruments work? Could the instruments be improved? Or should other instruments be applied?

Therefore, the three core aspects you should cover are:

 factual background,
 description of instruments,
 your own critical evaluation.

A sample structure could be:

1. Introduction
2. Facts and figures: the environmental problem
3. Description of solution and instruments
4. Analysis/own critical evaluation
5. Summary of the results and outlook.

But this is only a rough guideline. Feel free to choose your own approach. The more confident you
feel about your writing, the more you might deviate from that sample.

You have to meet some formal requirements as well (although concentrate on the content primarily).
I suggest a length of 25.000 – 30.000 letters (spaces included). Please note: the length of the paper is
not decisive. This is just to give you an idea what I normally expect. Papers might be shorter or
longer.

You write the paper alone or in groups of two (although writing alone is recommended). If you do
the latter you may multiply the suggested length with 1.5. Although two people writing one paper
will normally receive the same grade, I reserve the option to grade individually. Therefore, you
should disclose the author(s) of every part of the paper.

With the registration for the course you were registered for the exam as well. The deadline for the
paper is 31 March (end of the semester). The paper should be uploaded in moodle. An assignment
that allows so will be set (please do not print - resource efficiency! ;-)).

Before you start working on the paper, please upload an outline (1 page maximum) in moodle first
(again assignment). You will receive a short feedback indicating whether you may go on with your
paper or whether you should change the approach.
Timeline:

 Outline until 19. January

 Feedback until 29. January

 Paper due 31. March

Last modified: Wednesday, 20 December 2023, 4:55 PM