Audience
If you are writing research papers you probably already have an idea what is expected. Your paper will be read before Kingdom A&S, but this is not the case at events such as Bryn Gwlad Candlemas. You will need to follow the same kinds of guidelines as papers written in the average American high school. Please remember that your judge may have a working knowledge of the topic and what is expected, but your casual reader may not understand all the specialized terms in a particular field. If your topic includes a lot of jargon, consider using a glossary, or footnote the first instance of that term.
Citations
Points are expected to be cited in your paper. Avoid websites like Wikipedia that give only general information. Scholarly works from universities and other experts are the best sources. Your local librarian can assist you with finding resources as well as sites such as books.google.com, or JSTOR. JSTOR can often be accessed through a library card, and books not in your local library can be loaned through interlibrary loan. Again, your librarian can help. MLS is the documentation style most familiar to judges. However all formal citation methods are welcome. If you are writing a science oriented paper with a lot of analysis, APA may be a better choice. If your topic is humanities based, Chicago Manual of Style, may be a better choice. It is a best practice to list the style of citation you are using to avoid confusion. If you only know release 5 of APA and there is now a release 6, use it and note it in your citations. This will avoid confusion in judging. If you are a user of Microsoft Word, citation formats can be automated for you. See add a citation and create a bibliography for more information.
Length
It only needs to be as long as you need to cover the topic. The average paper in History and Social Science is 20 pages double spaced. If it is getting well over that, consider narrowing your focus, and pay careful attention to staying on your hypothesis, or thesis. Though, you are welcome to write a book if that is what you want, let the Kingdom Arts and Sciences minister know so plenty of time can be given to judging. Remember, any off topic or tangential information can be summarized and included in an appendix and keeps you from losing your main point.