The paper is intended to be a relatively short document compared to the thesis. Typically, it is the length of a manuscript prepared for submission to a journal. The work should be done while a student is enrolled in the M.S. program at Penn State. The paper should be written according to the standards set for an IEEE publication and should represent a contribution to a specific engineering discipline. It should depict application at the state of the art.
Interdisciplinary activity is encouraged.
Near the beginning of the student's last semester, the student notifies the Graduate Program Staff Assistant that a paper is in progress. This information is forwarded to the Graduate School. When the paper is finished, all committee members and the Department Head sign a paper completion report that is held with a copy of the paper in student's department file. In conjunction with the paper, the student is to present a seminar on the work. The student schedules the seminar through the Department's Graduate Program Staff Assistant, who arranges the proper publicity and reservations.