Manuscript formatting and design




in courses taught by
Rebecca Moore Howard




Last updated 5 July 2009

Creative Commons License

This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Before submitting your paper:

  1. If your paper is to be published on the Web, choose a standard sans serif font such as Arial or Calibri. If it is to be printed out or submitted electronically as an email attachment, choose a standard serif font such as Times New Roman or Cambria.
  2. Set the pitch at 12.
  3. Use automatic formatting for your bibliography entries and indented quotations. If you use hard return to break at the end of each line, your document may look very different (and garbled) when it is printed out or opened on my computer. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the Format/Paragraph options on your word processor. If you need details, ask.
  4. Set one-inch margins at the top and bottom of all pages. Then at the beginning of the first page, drop down an extra 5 lines before beginning to type; that will give you a 1-1/2" first-page margin.
  5. Set one-inch margins on both the left- and right-hand sides of the paper.
  6. Turn off the right-hand justification: although paragraphs look neat when the print is lined up evenly on both the left and right hand side, the text is harder to read. Justify margins only on the left-hand side.
  7. Number the pages of your manuscript. Don't do this by hand, or it may come out garbled when you print out or when I open the document on my computer. Rather, use the "Insert page number" menu command on your software. For the most elegant effect, turn off page numbering for the first page.
  8. Include your name in the running header of each page. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask. In Microsoft Word, you can find the command in the menu under "View Header."
  9. Write your name, my name, the date of submission, and the course name and number at the top of the first page of your manuscript.
  10. Cite your sources, regardless of whether you're quoting or paraphrasing them. Include relevant page numbers in your citations.
  11. Provide a list of Works Cited at the end of the paper.
  12. Run a spelling check.
  13. Make a backup for yourself, in hard copy and/or on a separate disk.

    If you are submitting the paper in hard copy, printed out:

  14. Double-space your text.
  15. Staple the pages together.
  16. Don't encase the paper in any kind of plastic or cardboard binder unless I specifically ask you to.

    Or if you are submitting the paper electronically (as an email file attachment or on Blackboard):

  17. Single-space your text.
  18. Include your name in the file name. Don't name your file something like "first paper," "Howard," or "WRT 105." Rather, put your name in the file name: "JaneDoe.doc," "Doe#1.doc," etc.
  19. Save your file as a Microsoft Word document, with a .doc (not .docx) extension. The Microsoft corporation in its infinite wisdom has made versions of its software that can't be read on different types of machines, and Google hasn't caught up. I often read papers as Google Docs, but Google won't open files that were saved in Microsoft Works or in the latest version of Microsoft Office (which saves files with a .docx extension). Your paper needs to come to me with a .doc extension. Doing this by hand doesn't work; you have to open the file; do a "save as"; and choose the option that saves with the .doc extension; that option will probably be called "Word 97-2003 document." Check to make sure your file has been saved with a .doc extension; then I'll be able to read it in Google Docs.