A serious answer: string theory is a proposed improvement on the current "theory of everything" - the standard model; one of the aims of string theory is to incorporate a quantum mechanical description of gravity, which has so far eluded the standard model.
The mathematics underpinning string theory are extraordinarily complicated including differential geometry, group theory, and very high level topology. If you're not a math or physics grad student, you probably won't understand the technical (i.e. real) description of string theory.
To write such a paper, I suggest approaching it from the broader context of what problem string theory is trying to solve. A few things I suggest reading (and writing) about:
- General Relativity - Einstein's theory of gravity, which improves upon Newton's (noob) theory
- The
Standard Model of particle physics - the canonical theory of physics, predicting such cool things as the Higgs Boson. Pay close attention to areas where the theory breaks down, such as neutrino mass and quantum gravity, as these indicate the theory is incomplete.
- M-Theory and Edward Witten - the canonical version of string theory and the guy who basically crushed all other string theorists with his brain.
- History of the standard model - there's some wicked sick stuff in here, from Schrodinger and Heisenberg, understanding stars, radiation, splitting the atom, lasers, superconductors, discovering stuff like neutrinos, neutrons, wave/particle duality, Feynmann, and so on.
This guy isn't bad.
- History of string theory - you know, stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_string_the...