Writing a Good Academic Paper in Engineering

Faculties: AC, AR, BI, IN, SOH, VT, WT

Every university degree ends with a final thesis in which you demonstrate that you have acquired knowledge, skills, and competencies in your field. Such an academic paper also shows that you possess interdisciplinary skills, such as time management, scientific work, academic writing, and a good measure of frustration tolerance. Here you will learn about the quality criteria that an academic paper in engineering should meet and the standards by which it is assessed.

The objectives of your paper

After several months of research, discussions, and initial drafts, it’s time to complete your written paper. This paper should clearly and engagingly communicate to readers, your supervisors, and other interested individuals:

what problem you tackled,
how you solved it,
what the outcome was,
and how you interpret these results in light of the academic literature.

Quality criteria of an academic paper

Academic papers follow general quality standards: a logical structure, a clear and traceable line of argument, and the obligation to cite any material you have taken from sources. Additional assessment criteria are defined by your supervising instructors.

“An academic paper in engineering is often just part of a much larger body of work. That’s why clarity and traceability are very important evaluation criteria for me. In a final thesis, you should always write in a way that enables others to build upon your work. Beyond that, I mainly evaluate how students approach the task, not so much the final result.”

– Prof. Dr. Gerd Siegmund, Faculty of EFI

The evaluation grid – an example

Below you’ll find a sample evaluation grid for a paper. Depending on the type, objective, and method of your paper, the evaluation criteria may differ. Talk to your supervisors about their expectations for your specific work.

Category	Criteria
Topic and Research Question	Is it clear what is being investigated? Is it clear what goal the paper pursues? Is the question or task clearly and concisely formulated?
Starting Point and Frame of Reference	Is it clear why this particular question or task is being addressed? Is a meaningful connection to existing knowledge in the discipline established? Are the necessary fundamentals clearly described and explained?
Procedure	Is it clear how the question or task is being tackled? Are suitable models, theories, concepts, or methods used? Are these described adequately and understandably? Are they appropriately and correctly applied?
Results	Are the results presented understandably and clearly? Is the goal of the paper achieved? Are partial results interpreted sensibly? Does the paper lead to insightful results? Are results placed within existing academic knowledge? Has the potential of the topic been fully exploited?
Formalia	Does the handling of external knowledge comply with conventions? Does the layout follow the faculty’s guidelines? Is the presentation consistent? Are figures, graphics, and tables correctly integrated?
Linguistic Implementation	Is the text clearly formulated? Does the paper conform to academic stylistic conventions? Is it correct in grammar, spelling, and punctuation?
Overall Impression	Overall impression and any additional supervisor-defined criteria.

Frequently asked questions

What are the objectives of my academic paper?

Your paper should clearly show which problem was solved and how. It is also important to demonstrate how you interpret your results based on the academic literature.

Are there quality criteria for an academic paper?

Quality criteria include among others: a logical structure, a clear and comprehensible argumentation, and the obligation to mark information taken from sources.

According to which criteria will my academic paper be assessed?

A possible evaluation grid includes: topic and research question, starting point or problem, procedure, results, formalities, linguistic implementation, and overall impression.

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Illustration: Eine Person sitzt vor dem Laptop und arbeitet an einer wissenschaftlichen Arbeit.

Planning Your Thesis

How much time should I plan for? A typical bachelor’s thesis has a maximum processing time of six months, with the actual workload expected to correspond to about three to four months (after all, you still have to do a few other things in parallel). The processing time does not have to be fully used. …

Faculties: AC, AMP, AR, BI, EFI, IN, MB/VS, SOH, VT, WT

Organization & Motivation

Contributors: Jürgen Bäsig, Michael Chowanetz, Oliver Hofmann, Matthias Hopf, Denise Hurtienne, Günter Kiessling, Ulrich Kornagel, Wolfgang Mönch, Christine Niebler, Maria Noll, Frank Pöhlau, Ronald Schmidt-Vollus, Gerd Siegmund, Stefan Ströhla, Dzifa Vode, Sebastian Walter, Matthias Wieczorek, Dennis Christoph Wolff, Olaf Ziemann, Michael Zwanger

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Finding and Narrowing Down a Topic in Engineering

Finding a topic Use techniques such as freewriting or clustering if you are still at the very beginning of finding a topic for your academic paper. Once topics begin to emerge that you are genuinely interested in, you should proceed more systematically so that you can choose one. You can use the following questions for …