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Your job is not quite finished. After writing the paper, you must prepare its physical presentation. Unless told otherwise, you should type your paper double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all four sides of each page. Your paper should feature a title page, the body of the paper, and then the bibliography, "Works Cited," or "References" page(s). If your instructor prefers some variation of this model, that will usually be specified in advance. Once again, it is important to stress that a paper is a whole product. A paper that contains impeccable research, cogent analysis, and brilliant writing will still evoke a negative reaction from the reader if it is wrinkled, printed sloppily, or barely readable because the ink on the ribbon is exhausted. Some general guidelines include:
1. Printed material is preferable. Most instructors will not accept handwritten reports. Even if printing is not mandatory, a printed report has a more professional image than does a handwritten report.
2. Make sure the print is easily legible. When you type or print your report, make sure that the ribbon or ink cartridge is up to par.
3. Do not play the margin, spacing, and font game. Professors are not naive and have read veritable mountains of papers. Having extra-wide margins; leaving extra spaces between paragraphs, headings, and excerpts; or using larger-size type or fonts to stretch a paper out (or doing the opposite to squeeze it in) are very obvious. You will not fool the instructor or anyone else. So, why bother?
4. Number your pages. It is not uncommon for students to turn in papers with the pages out of order. Numbering the pages cuts down on this mistake. Also, unbound papers sometimes fall apart and must be reassembled. Numbered pages will facilitate this.
5. Securely fasten the paper together. Paper clips are a bad idea. Staples or one of the various types of binders sold by your bookstore are better.
6. Read your paper one last time. Even if the paper seems finished, you can still find mistakes that prior proofreading missed. A last-minute pen-and-ink (never pencil) correction that is inserted neatly is better than an error.
7. Go home and relax. Get a pizza, watch some television, catch a movie! You deserve it after working hard and writing a great paper. Congratulations!
* From John T. Rourke, Ralph G. Carter, Mark A. Boyer, Making American Foreign Policy(McGraw-Hill, 1996). Copyright © 1996 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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