Page 254 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

Formatting

3 Format an essay.

You have heard it all your life: First impressions count. The document
you hand to your instructor, the résumé you hand to a prospective

employer, or the letter you send to the editor of a newspaper has the

ability to present a positive first impression or a negative one. When

you turn in a computer-generated or neatly handwritten paper, with no

smudges, cross-outs, or dog-eared edges, the instructor expects that

paper to be a good one, written as carefully as it was prepared. In
contrast, a hastily scrawled document smudged with eraser marks or

heavily laden with correction fluid suggests that the writer did not take

the time and the effort to create a good impression—or to write a good

paper.

Manuscript format is so important that entire books have been written
about it. An instructor who asks you to use MLA style, APA style, or

Chicago style is referring to styles outlined in books published by the

Modern Language Association, the American Psychological

Association, and the University of Chicago, respectively.