The paper should cover a topic of interest in modern materials science and engineering. Paper length should be between 5 and 10 pages (5 pages of double spaced text in a 12 point font and up to an additional 5 pages of charts/figures/pictures. The figures can be at the end of the paper or interspersed with the text). A few examples of topics might be:

1. Materials for turbine blades and how these materials have changed over the last 40 years
2. Materials for golf clubs and their evolution during the last 30 years
3. Diamonds, diamond simulants, and synthetic diamonds
4. Advantages and disadvantages of powder-metallurgically produced parts
5. Choices for bearing materials
6. Materials for use in nuclear power plants
7. Frame and body materials for high performance automobiles
8. Frame and body materials for aircraft (e.g. fighters, ultralights, passenger/cargo, human powered, …)
9. Automotive engine materials
10. Superconducting materials
11. Engineering composites (polymer matrix, or metal matrix, or ceramic-ceramic, or …)
12. Materials for use in implants and joint replacements
13. Processing and properties of metallic glasses
14. Properties and uses of auxetic materials (materials with negative Poisson ratio)
15. History, evolution, and state of the art for sword materials
16. History, evolution, and state of the art for battery materials
17. Materials in telecommunication (e.g. laser diode materials, optical fiber materials, etc.)
18. Any other materials topic that you find fascinating.

A good paper will:

• Explore a topic in materials deeply.
• Have quantitative information. If you are comparing material properties, give the numbers (e.g., show the properties for the materials in charts, tables, graphs, etc.)
• Be based on authoritative sources. We live in the internet age and, in additional to standard books and journal articles, you may legitimately use online resources if they are authoritative. E.g. material information about optical fiber obtained from the Owens Corning website (the manufacturer of the fiber) is authoritative. Material information about optical fiber obtained from www.joescoolprojectswithopticalfiber.com is not. Your textbook may be used, but is (obviously) inadequate as a source for research. Wikipedia is useful in directing you to primary sources but in itself is not authoritative! Any normal reference format is okay: I am not picky regarding reference formatting, but the references should at minimum include author, date, title, and publication/source from which the information was obtained.
• Be of appropriate length. If your text is less than 4.25 pages you will probably not have sufficiently detailed discussion to get a good grade. If your text is less than 3.5 pages your paper will not receive a passing grade. Please aim for 5 pages.

Be well written. If your text has multiple grammatical errors, spelling errors, does not make sense, and in general has not been proofread and edited, that will affect your grade.