Paper ties tear badly (8)
I believe the answer is:
treatise
'paper' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'ties tear badly' is the wordplay.
'badly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'ties'+'tear'='tiestear'
'tiestear' anagrammed gives 'TREATISE'.
(Other definitions for treatise that I've seen before include "Formal exposition" , "Iterates in dissertation" , "Learned paper" , "theory" , "Learned writing" .)