This sample paper is about 3 pages long or about 1500 words. A paper of this length should have a short initial section that summarizes what the reader will find in the remainder of the paper. (Important: this paragraph is a SUMMARY; it is not an INTRODUCTION. If you do not know the difference, then ask me about it.) The paper should be divided into sections. Each section should be headed by a subtitle.

If a paper is shorter than 3 pages, it no longer needs an initial summary paragraph. Short papers may not need to be divided into sections.

HANDING IT IN <– This is a subtitle!

On the class discussion board I have provided a place where you can post your paper. To find this location, look at the first page of the class discussion ... there will be a thread named Hand In Papers Here or something similar. Inside that thread there will be a thread for each paper topic.Simply post your paper to the proper thread.

The discussion board uses special formatting commands for bold, italics, and so on. It is up to you to remember that you are posting your writing to a discussion board, and use the correct formatting commands in your paper.

IMPORTANT: It is an Honor Violation to copy from other people's papers. If someone has posted their paper before you do, you MAY NOT copy its text or ideas.

RETURNED, GRADED PAPERS

I will copy your posted text, convert it to a PDF file, grade it, and return it to you via email.

Everyone in the class can read your posted paper, but only you will see your graded paper.

I will always return your papers in PDF format. To read my comments you will need to have Adobe Reader on your computer. MS Windows and Mac OSX now come with Adobe Reader installed. If you have older software, you may need to get the free download from the Adobe web site.

I use PDF for a reason. I own a copy of Adobe Acrobat, a program that lets me put comments, crossouts, arrows and other kinds of marks on your document. And since PDF works on all modern computer systems, I can be sure that everyone is able to read my marks.

I don't use Microsoft Word for this because MS Word files do not translate well from one computer system to another, and because they do not travel over the Internet very well. Adobe PDF does not have these problems. In fact it is now the standard way of sending documents over the Internet. (So, you might as well learn how to use it right now ... since you'll probably be using it later on.)

I have created a sample PDF file that you can download as a test to see if you can read it on your computer. You can find it here.

STYLE

I do not care which formatting style you use for your paper as long as you use the same rules consistently all the way through. If you are not sure what to do, then use the MLA [2] style that English majors learn, or the APA [3] style that is favored by social scientists. I personally favor the looser "online" style that I describe here, but this not a very strong preference - use whichever style works best for you.

Online style usually puts a blank line between paragraphs. If you use this style, then you should not indent the first line of the paragraph. It is a good idea to keep paragraphs short - in the range of three or four sentences at the most.

Online style has no problems with one-sentence paragraphs.

Citations are handled by endnotes. These come at the end of the paper with references in brackets. Since you will be posting your paper to a discussion board, you can use links for these if you want to [4].

Online style also makes use of bold, italics and color. MLA and APA style were developed for typewriters and do not have rules for these. In general: use italics for titles of books, etc. ... and for light emphasis. Use boldface for headers, subheaders and for heavy emphasis. Use color for strikingly powerful emphasis. (I like medium gray for comments like this. It's still readable, but easy to skip over.) Color is a very dramatic tool -- don't overdo it.

Notice that I included a few lines of identification in the top left corner of the page. This is not strictly necessary - your email message will have a name and a date - however, it helps me when I go to record the grade. And it's always good to identify your work.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING

I took the time to spellcheck this page. Spellchecking is utterly necessary. I will take off major points for misspelled words. (In this case "becuase" was spelled incorrectly, and it didn't understand "PDF". It also thought that "spellcheck" was not a word ... my spellchecker is not very bright, so I always re-read my work. You should do this, too - there is no substitute for human editing.)

BE AWARE: IN ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS, YOU ARE WHAT YOU WRITE. Your typos are your fault, and they tell the reader either that you are ignorant, or that you don't care. Either of these is bad. I hate typos, and I will take off huge points if I find them in your writing.

LENGTH

There is no maximum or minimum limit on pages or words. Shorter papers are acceptable. I would rather have a short, well-written paper than a long paper that is filled out with "fluff." This sample paper contains approximately 1500 words. (I know this because I have a handy little computer program that counts words.)

Notice that this paper has no "Conclusion" section. When you no longer have anything to say, then stop. There is no need to summarize at the end of the paper - if the reader hasn't understood you, then it is already too late. However, it is often useful to provide a short summary paragraph at the beginning of the paper. This helps the reader organize his or her thoughts while reading your text.

VERY LONG PAPERS

If a paper is exceptionally long or complicated, I may ask you to submit it as a PDF attachment to an email message. Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format) [1] works on all major computer operating systems and is probably the most widely used worldwide. PDF files can be easily read on both major computer platforms (Mac OS and Windows).

APPLE MACINTOSH OSX <– This is a sub-subtitle

If you have a Macintosh with OSX or later, you can save directly from Word in PDF format. To do this you need to PRINT your document. When the Print Dialog Box comes up, look down at the bottom left and you'll see a PDF menu. Click on that and choose "Save as PDF…". This will let you save your document as a standard PDF file. If you are still using OS9, please contact me and I'll see what I can work out.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS

I don't use Windows, so I don't have personal experience with this, but most of my students have always been able to save in PDF. The ones who couldn't had a very old version of Windows. The first thing you need to do is bring up the Save dialog and see if it gives you a PDF option. If it doesn't, then you need to download a software driver to let you do what you want. These drivers are free, they download fast, and they are easy to install. The one my students like the most is PDF995 which you can find at the PDF995 website.

A second choice for Windows users is to go to Adobe's web site and use their online PDF conversion utility. You can sign up for a free trial that will let you convert 5 documents.

IMPORTANT: The first time you create a PDF you should load it into Adobe Reader and test it out to make sure that it all worked OK. It is up to you to make sure that your papers work properly before you send them to me.

[1] Do not forget to cite any information that you did not create yourself. Here, for example, I might cite Adobe's website at HTTP://www.adobe.com/.

[2] Modern Language Association: http://www.mla.org/style

[3] American Psychological Association: http://www.apastyle.org/

[4] Like this. Links are time-consuming to make, and not really necessary - but you can use them if you want to.