1. Formatting Your Compositions Correctly and Consistently
Manuscript Form
Formatting Your Compositions Correctly and Consistently

2. Introduction – p.3 Manuscript:
Any composition that is prepared for someone else to read for
Grading
Publication
Editing
Etc.
Form:
Shape
Appearance
Structure
Model

3. Introduction – p.3 It is Important to Remember:
You are creating compositions to communicate your thoughts, ideas, emotions, feelings, desires, or beliefs to another person.
Therefore, your compositions must be easy to read and the form must consistently follow the rules that the reader expects. Otherwise, you will not be communicating well.
Too many students forget this.
They don’t care/think about the reader at all.

4. Introduction – p.3
Different majors require different manuscript forms.
Always make sure to check with the person or group to whom you are submitting your composition to make sure your form is correct.
It is your responsibility to make sure your form is correct.
I will be grading your manuscript form!

5. Introduction – p. 3 Think about it this way ….
You would not expect to get a job if you went to the interview dressed in a dirty t-shirt and ripped jeans!
Similarly, you should not expect your reader to respect your composition if you do not follow the rules for presenting it to them properly.

6. Introduction – p.4 F!

7. Paper – p.5 Paper – Keep it Simple! Size: A4 Colour: White
See page 5 for some common mistakes students make when handwriting their compositions.

8. Paper – p. 6
Incorrect
People who litter often thoughtlessly say, “It’s not my problem. Why should I care? It’s someone else’s job to pick it up.” We should be just as proud, however, of our schools, parks, streets, public buildings, and countryside, as we are of our own homes. Surely, the people who drop their garbage on the street don’t throw garbage on the floors of their own homes, or in their own gardens. Littering is bad for the environment and garbage is ugly to look at. No one wants to live in a dirty country, and no one wants tourists to go away thinking that a country’s citizens are dirty, selfish, and uncaring. It is up to each individual to do his or her best to keep our public spaces clean for everyone to enjoy. We should think of the whole country, inside and out, public and private, as our home. Instead of thinking, “Someone else will do it,” we should all think, “I can do it
myself!” X

9. Paper – p.6
Before you print your homework, use the “Print Preview” function in MS word

10. Paper – p. 7 When you use more than one piece of paper:
Do not use paper clips and do not fold the corners over to keep the pages together!
Use one staple in the top-left corner.

11. Paper – p.7
Incorrect:

12. Margins – p. 8 Composition Space Top Margin Left Margin Right Margin
Top Margin
Left Margin
Composition Space
Right Margin
Bottom Margin

13. Margins – p.8 The margins are the white spaces around the composition.
They form a ‘picture frame’ around your composition.
Normally, the computer will set the correct margins for you.
However, you may be using a public computer at the university or in a PC room, so you should make sure to check the margins carefully before you print.

14. Margins – Text Alignment
The Left Margin should be perfectly straight. The Right Margin should not be perfectly straight! Use this:

15. Margins – Text Alignment
A common (and very annoying) mistake: People who litter often thoughtlessly say, “It’s not my problem. Why should I care? It’s someone else’s job to pick it up.” We should be just as proud, however, of our schools, parks, streets, public buildings, and countryside, as we are of our own homes.
← empty space

16. Margins (and Line Spacing)
Do not use the enter key at the end of every sentence!

17. Indentation – p. 13
The first line of every paragraph must be indented: People who litter often thoughtlessly say …. We create the perfect indentation by using the ‘tab’ key once!

18. Line Spacing – p. 14
All compositions must be double spaced! People who litter often thoughtlessly say, “It’s not my problem. Why should I care? It’s someone else’s job to pick it up.” We should be just as proud, however, of our schools, parks, streets, public buildings, and countryside, as we are of our own homes.

19. Line Spacing
People who litter often thoughtlessly say, “It’s not my problem. Why should I care? It’s someone else’s job to pick it up.” We should be just as proud, however, of our schools, parks, streets, public buildings, and countryside, as we are of our own homes.

20. Line Spacing
This is the easiest way to double space your compositions:

21. Line Spacing
Do not use the ‘enter’ key to double space your compositions!

22. Avoiding a Common Mistake
Too often I hear from students: “I didn’t do it. The computer did it!” Well … all that means is that they need to figure out how to change the computer’s settings to match the formatting required in this class and, possibly in other classes, for other teachers, or for other purposes.

23. Avoiding a Common Mistake
A common student ‘error’ is caused by Microsoft Word’s default settings. For some reason, in both Word 2007 and Word 2010, the ‘normal’ style is set for some very strange spacing.
The good news is, these defaults are pretty easy to change.
I’ll show you now, but I don’t expect you to memorize it. You’ll have to experiment with the settings to get it right (and look on the Internet for help if you have to!)

24. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style
First, right click the ‘normal’ box, and then click ‘modify’ 1. 2.

25. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style
Then, make sure to click ‘new documents based on this template’. 3.

26. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style Next, click ‘format’ followed by ‘paragraph’.5. 4.

27. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style
Adjust the ‘spacing’ so that both ‘before’ and ‘after’ are set to ‘0 pt’, and ‘line spacing’ is set to ‘single’.
[Even though we are double spacing our compositions, we will do that manually, later.] 6.

28. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style
Finally, after you click ‘OK’, (two times to get back to the document), right click ‘Change Styles’ and then click ‘Set as Default’. 7. 8.

29. Step 1: ‘Normal’ Style
Now, every document you create, should have this spacing set as the default and you won’t have to worry about it.
However, it is probably safer to save your changes as a ‘Quick Style Set’.
Then, even if the computer changes the settings to the awkward defaults, you can quickly change them back!
For example, I’ve saved the ‘text book’ styles so I can edit easily. With one click, I can replace the entire quick style set!

30. Step 2: Page Size and Margins
You may have to make sure that your page is set up correctly, too. On my computers the default page size is set to ‘letter’ (which is an American size that the rest of the world doesn’t use!), but, of course, it should be set to ‘A4’. This can be very frustrating when you print!

31. Step 5: Required Information
In this class, I want you to include 6 pieces of information in the top left corner of every composition you submit to me. This information is not required for photocopied homework pages from the text book, planning pages, short answer/fill-in-the-blank assignments, etc.

32. Step 5: Required Information
Notice that this information is single spaced!

33. Required Information
Just in case the previous slide was hard to see, at the top of every composition, you must include: Name: Student Number: Class: (use only 01, 02, or 03) Date: Teacher: Assignment: (usually the page number from the textbook)

34. Titles
Titles should be centered on the first line of the composition Do not: Use a different font or size Title Put the title in quotation marks “Title” Or any other ‘marks’ <Title> You may underline your title if you want See page 17 for more (Capital Letters, especially)!

35. Font Size: 12 point Style: use something simple like ‘Arial’ ‘Calibri’
‘Times New Roman’ is also common
See page 18 for more!

36. The Final Manuscript Top Margin Left Margin Right Margin Bottom Margin
Top Margin
Left Margin
Name: Bill Smith
Student Number:
Class: 01
Teacher: Tim Main
Date: March 14, 2008
Assignment: Manuscript Form
Manuscript Form
A good manuscript should look like this page. Don’t worry if you make mistakes when you submit your homework compositions, but be sure that you can produce a good, easy to read, manuscript for the exams, or your grade will go down. The most important things to remember are the six pieces of information in the top-left corner of the paper, the fact that the first sentence of the paragraph is indented, and the composition is double- spaced. If your compositions look like this, I will be very happy and you will have a much better chance of getting a good grade.
Right Margin
Bottom Margin

37. The Final Manuscript
Name: Bill Smith Student Number: Class: 01 Teacher: Tim Main Date: March 14, 2008 Assignment: Manuscript Form Manuscript Form A good manuscript should look like this page. Don’t worry if you make mistakes when you submit your homework compositions, but be sure that you can produce a good, easy to read, manuscript for the exams, or your grade will go down. The most important things to remember are the six pieces of information in the top-left corner of the paper, the fact that the first sentence of the paragraph is indented, and the composition is double-spaced. If your compositions look like this, I will be very happy and you will have a much better chance of getting a good grade.

38. Reminder
These are very basic rules and some majors, disciplines, professors, publishers, etc., may require very different rules. For example, you may be required to ‘justify’ the text, or complete a specific title page (the 6 pieces of information on the top are for this class only), and so on. It is up to you to find out what these rules are and create your compositions accordingly.