The research report must be no longer than 20 pages. This 20-page limit includes the intro, text, tables, data, illustrations, appendices, and references. The report must be on 8 1/2 X 11 inch single sided paper printed double-spaced with page numbers at the bottom of each page and 1-inch margins. The research paper should start with an intro that explains how the research topic was chosen. The College Board says that the text of the paper should include the purpose and rationale for the research, the most relevant publications and patents, contributions from other to your project, the methods used, the results, a discussion of the results, and a conclusion which includes any applications and any future work. I basically used this list of required information along with the judging guidelines, to be talked about later, as a guide to write my research paper. Make sure to be very descriptive when explaining the methodology of your experiments (the judges should be able to re-create the experiment exactly).

The results section should have only raw data. The discussion is where everything comes together and you analyze the data, and try to show your thought process in coming to a conclusion from your findings. Be creative in the discussion. For example in my paper, I found correlations between pieces of data that most people wouldn't believe to show anything amazing. These correlations later became the most salient aspect of my project and the core of my conclusion. Your conclusion is also a place to be creative. Oftentimes, the findings of your project will seem to have no direct use in the world and this dilemma expected. After all, if the applications of your findings were obvious, you wouldn't be research the topic in the first place. For example, my project was in the field of fluid mechanics so I thought about the problems that water, our most abundant fluid, caused. I also went on to hypothesize that my observations of fluids could also be relevant to other states of matter. As you can probably see, the conclusion can be one of the hardest parts of the paper to write but it is also one of the most rewarding because it allows you to go over all that you have accomplished in your project.

The Project Mentor/Advisor Comments Form provided by The College Board that basically asks the level of involvement of the applicant, the advisor, and anyone else in the project. The form can be found here. Make sure to give this form to your advisor as early as possible to ensure that he or she sends it in by the deadline. Also as a courtesy, provide a stamped and addressed envelope for your advisor.

Three copies of this "Research Project", which includes the confirmation page, the title page, the abstract, and the research paper, must be submitted and your advisor must submit four copies of the Project Mentor/Advisor Comments Form he or she completes.

Click here to go back and read part 1 of the application process.