Pre-Printing Check

Whatever you’ve written, there will be a prescribed format for it. There are many different formats for academic papers – MLA, APA, and Chicago being three common ones – and scientific reports, business reports, business letters, etc. all have specific instructions for the placement of fine details. Be sure to look at all the applicable requirements of the format:

• Title – placement; underlining or italics
• Date
• Author’s name
• Professor’s name, course name, course code
• Table of contents
• Spacing
• Indentation
• Margins
• Headings and subtitles – placement; underlining or italics
• Direct quotes (including spacing, margins and indentation)
• Font
• Citations
• Bibliography
• Glossaries, indexes, etc.
• Blank pages (required at the beginning and end by some academic formats)

If you’ve written something that doesn’t need to follow a specific format, use your common sense? Is the font clear and sufficiently large? Does the spacing make sense? Are the paragraphs clearly separated from each other? Are the sections marked? Are the margins the same on each page?