- heading: top left; include in this order:
- your name
- professor
- course
- date
- title: centered, one line below heading
- pagination: author's last name, space, page numeral on
all pages except first. No punctuation separating the name and page (put
in the header of your document 1/2 in from edge of page)
|
See the
manuscript guidelines for a model of the information about the layout of
your document.
- remember to indent 1/2 inch for paragraphs
- use 2 spaces after end punctuation like periods, question
marks, etc.
|
| Whenever we work with titles of
outside sources in our writing, all disciplines (history, biology, geology, and,
yes, even phys. ed.) have a standard we all agree to use. Because it is a
standard, it is consistent, never-changing, and reliable--all the time.
The titles of works are categorized into 2 types: major
works and minor works. The descriptors "long" and "short" can
apply, but they are not perfect ways to distinguish these two types. Major
works are always going to be indexed in card catalogs of libraries. You'll
be able to walk up to a bookshelf and pull the work off. These types of
works might be books, but they can be volumes of a periodical, like The
New Yorker, or they can be reference works, such as the Columbia
Encyclopedia (a single-volume work, by the way) or Bartlett's
Quotations.
On the other hand, minor works will be found inside other
major works. For example, the title of a newspaper article will be found
inside the pages of the newspaper, such as the Los Angeles Times.
Likewise, an editorial or opinion piece might be found inside Time
magazine, a major work.
Another way to help you distinguish between major and minor
works is to visualize a bookshelf. If you can set the work in the middle
of the bookshelf and the work does not fall over (except for magazines and
newspapers which are ordinarily flimsy), then you probably have a major work.
If the inverse is true, that the work falls over, then you most likely have a
minor work. When unsure about what type of work you have, follow this
general rule:
- If the work in question is greater than 50 pages, call it a
major work.
- If the work in question is less than 50 pages, call it a
minor work.
One very important thing about major and minor works is how we
represent them in writing. Once you have determined the types of work you
have, the formatting is simple. Titles of major works are italicized;
titles of minor works are put in "quotation marks." This distinction is
crucial because the reader will want to know exactly where to locate the work,
either in the card catalog or within the pages of a major work.
The following chart will
help you memorize the different types of works you are likely to encounter.
If you have a work you don't see classified, send it to me and I will update the
chart. |
