Length: 10-15 pages (double spaced)

Reference list: at least 20 FREE scientific articles; these should be articles that are found on PubMed and should not cite lay stories, blogs, or similar non-scientific online sources.

Topic: Some disease/disorder and the neuro-immune processes involved. (PARKINSON’S DISEASE)

Remember to include some kind of neuroimmune component and try to find a focus. A short paper is best if it shows depth and specificity (and it’s easier to write and read).  Start with bullet-points for key topics in your outline and include paper references from your citation manager.  As you start to flesh out each concept/area, you may find that you want to eliminate some topics and focus more deeply on others. You can adjust your title and intro accordingly.

Paper organization:

Introduction (10%) (~3-4 pages)

  • Background on the disease/disorder
  • Background on immune and neuronal processes involved

The best type of title makes an assertion or statement (i.e. regarding how an aspect of the immune system or neuroimmune system influences a disease or disorder).

Your introduction should spend one or two short paragraphs on the symptoms and prevalence. Next, your introduction should give a summary of the background of research in this area, honing in on why the area YOU are focusing on is important. Then you summarize the key points you are going to talk about and wrap up with a very short summary of what the reader is going to take away from this paper (one or two sentences). (Most people write the last part of the intro AFTER having done the bulk of the writing and sorted out what their final conclusions are.  At a minimum, it should be a reassertion of what your paper is going to tell us overall.

Body (15%) (~6-8 pages)

  • The specific mechanisms through which the brain-immune-endocrine systems can give rise to the illness
  • Treatments that can target these pathways to help combat the disease

The body of your paper is drills down into the key areas that you identified in your introduction.

Conclusions (5%) (~2-3 pages)

  • What is the take-home message of the paper?
  • What is lacking in the literature?

Your Discussion section should first summarize your findings and tell us why they are important. You conclude with explaining the implications of these findings and what it means – — this could include (but is not limited to) things like current and future treatments, gaps in research, appropriateness of animal models, etc. NEVER conclude with “More research needs to be done.” Be SPECIFIC.  Good conclusions are some of the hardest things to write.