(no subject)

[chhotii]

To those of you who have taken writing-intensive college-level courses more recently than I have...

When you're given a writing assignment, and told that the finished product is expected to be about 4 to 5 pages long, what assumptions are the professors and TFs making about the formatting? Single spacing or double spacing? (I have spacing set to 1.5; double-spacing looks crappy IMHO.) Block indents of supporting quotes? I assume the default margins and font size Word comes up with are right on; I think monkeying with those would start to look fishy.

I'm not trying to weasel out of more writing-- I have already filled almost 4 of these 5 pages, with 1.5 spacing and extensive quoting from the source material, and yet I still have points that need to be explained and a transition to be bridged. I'm just trying to figure out the scope of what they're expecting. Would directly asking the TF about line spacing sound too much like grade-grubbing?

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

In my experience - they want it double spaced (though 1.5 is okay). Keep it to the limited page length, though. It's an exercise in editing and breaking down what you want to say to what is most important.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Just ask, you're thinking too hard. (I would expect double-spaced, though.)

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

Usually your professor will tell you the particular style guide you should be using in the syllabus. If they don't, MLA is a safe default for liberal arts papers; that requires double-spaced lines.

Perdue has a good set of MLA resources here:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

(I know more science-oriented stuff has a different style guide, but I've never had to use it.)

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, they are quite thorough and specific! Thanks!

(I think a "history of science" class, focused on analysis of the source texts more than anything else, falls more in the catagory of humanities than science, so I'll take the MLA stuff as authority in this case.)