The presentation of your written work is important. Your work should be neat, clean, and easy to read. Follow your teacher’s directions for placing your name and class, along with the title and date of your work, on the paper.


For handwritten work:
  • Use cursive handwriting or manuscript printing, according to the style your teacher prefers. The penmanship reference below shows the accepted formation of letters in cursive writing.
  • Write or print neatly.
  • Write on one side of lined 8 1/2" x 11" paper with a clean edge. (Do not use pages torn from a spiral notebook.)
  • Indent the first line of each paragraph.
  • Leave a margin, as indicated by the guidelines on the lined paper. Write in a size appropriate for the lines provided. Do not write so large that the letters from one line bump into the ones above and below. Do not write so small that the writing is difficult to read.
  • Write in blue or black ink.
  • Number the pages in the upper right corner.
  • You should not cross out words on your final draft. Recopy instead. If your paper is long, your teacher may allow you to make one or two small changes by neatly crossing out the text to be deleted and using a caret [^] to indicate replacement text. Alternatively, you might make one or two corrections neatly with correction fluid. If you find yourself making more than three corrections, consider recopying the work.

PENMANSHIP REFERENCE



For word-processed or typed documents:
  • Choose a standard, easy-to-read font.
  • Type or print on one side of unlined 8 1/2" x 11" paper.
  • Set the margins for the side, top, and bottom of your paper at approximately one inch. Most word-processing programs have a default setting that is appropriate.
  • Double-space the document.
  • Indent the first line of each paragraph.
  • Number the pages in the upper right corner. Many word-processing programs have a header feature that will do this for you automatically.
  • If you discover one or two errors after you have typed or printed, use correction fluid if your teacher allows such corrections. If you have more than three errors in an electronic file, consider making the corrections to the file and reprinting the document. If you have typed a long document, your teacher may allow you to make a few corrections by hand. If you have several errors, however, consider retyping the document.



For research papers:
Follow your teacher’s directions for formatting formal research papers. Most papers will have the following features:
  • Title page
  • Table of Contents or Outline
  • Works-Cited List

Below are three common methods of incorporating the ideas of other writers into your work. Choose the most appropriate style by analyzing your needs in each case. In all cases, you must credit your source.
  • Direct Quotation: Use quotation marks to indicate the exact words.
  • Paraphrase: To share ideas without a direct quotation, state the ideas in your own words. While you haven't copied word-for-word, you still need to credit your source.
  • Summary: To provide information about a large body of work—such as a speech, an editorial, or a chapter of book—identify the writer’s main idea.

Whether you are presenting a formal research paper or an opinion paper on a current event, you must be careful to give credit for any ideas or opinions that are not your own. Presenting someone else’s ideas, research, or opinion as your own—even if you have rephrased it in different words—is plagiarism, the equivalent of academic stealing, or fraud.
You can avoid plagiarism by synthesizing what you learn: Read from several sources and let the ideas of experts help you draw your own conclusions and form your own opinions. Ultimately, however, note your own reactions to the ideas presented.
When you choose to use someone else’s ideas or work to support your view, credit the source of the material. Give bibliographic information to cite your sources of the following information:

  • Statistics
  • Direct quotations
  • Indirectly quoted statements of opinions
  • Conclusions presented by an expert
  • Facts available in only one or two sources

When you credit a source, you acknowledge where you found your information and you give your readers the details necessary for locating the source themselves. Within the body of the paper, you provide a short citation, a footnote number linked to a footnote, or an endnote number linked to an endnote reference. These brief references show the page numbers on which you found the information. To make your paper more formal, prepare a reference list at the end of the paper to provide full bibliographic information on your sources. These are two common types of reference lists:

  • A bibliography provides a listing of all the resources you consulted during your research.
  • A works-cited list indicates the works you have referenced in your paper.

The type of information you provide and the format in which you provide it depend on what your teacher prefers. These are the most commonly used styles:

By following the links above, you’ll find sample citation formats for the most commonly cited materials. Each format calls for standard bibliographic information. The difference is in the order of the material presented in each entry and the punctuation required.
Glossary