It’s always best to start out with what the rules are when it comes to just about anything. That way, everybody knows what the expectations are and no one gets confused about what they are supposed to do. I’m not big on a lot of rules but I think it’s important that the writing we do in my classes has a uniform look. This is something that will follow you wherever you go if you will be working where any type of writing will be done. (Note: formatting guidelines DO NOT apply to work done on Scholar. You have no control over much of the formatting. However, any APA style rules regarding citing sources (see image above) will definitely apply.)
There are two basic sets of rules for writing that I want you to observe.
Non-Milestone/Final Papers
All written works should adhere to the following page and text formatting:
- 1-inch margins on all 4 sides
- Double-spaced
- 12 point Times New Roman font
Use the following header information in the upper left-hand corner of the assignment, in this order:
- Your name
- The course you are taking
- The assignment
- The date
Example:
Jim Dunagan
CRS 333
Reflection Paper 1
February 14, 2021
Milestone/Final Papers
As you might imagine, these guidelines will be different and more specific. You will be adhering to APA style, which is presented in an excellent overview by the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab), perhaps the single-best source of citation information on the Internet. I strongly encourage you to view these pages to become familiar with how an APA paper is supposed to look. We will spend time in class discussing this, but you would be wise to look this over too. You can also view a sample APA student paper.
Make sure your paper includes the following:
- The page and text formatting rules underlined above in the “Non-milestone/Final Papers” section apply
- Correct header, featuring ONLY the page number (not including the word “page”) in top right-hand corner
- A title page and abstract or Executive Summary (Purdue OWL’s examples of title page and abstract)
- All paragraphs indented.
- Section headers/subheaders as needed (Purdue OWL’s page on section headers)
- NO PAGE BREAKS or extra lines between section headers and subheaders
- Correct use of in-text citations to indicate where research sources are used (Purdue OWL’s page on in-text citations)
- References page (NOT “Works Cited” or “Citations” or anything else) beginning on new page after final body text of paper (Purdue OWL page on References list)
- Alphabetical list (by last name of first author or title of article if no author) of sources used
- Hanging indent to be used for all sources on References page
To be honest, I am not a big fan of “citation engines” or websites that generate APA citations because they are often incorrect and students never actually learn the correct form for writing their citations. However, I have found that Noodle Tools Express has a highly reliable citation generator that I would ask you to use if you can’t create them yourself.
While there’s a lot here, this is not absolutely comprehensive. I will provide you with specific guidelines for certain activities. However, I will also refer you to this page in nearly all cases.