Assignment
Formatting Essays
Formatting has to do with the appearance of your essays. Formatting answers questions such as what typeface do I use? What is the spacing between the lines? Where do I put my name?
Many times what happens in college, your instructors will refer you to a Style Manual to answer these formatting questions. Many disciplines in college have their own style manual. For example, the humanities and arts tend to use MLA (Modern Language Association). The social sciences most often use APA (American Psychological Association). The style that the college requires for ENG101 is MLA. You will be learning much more about MLA in later units where the course teaches about citing sources for the research paper. However, as students begin writing their first essays, there needs to be an introduction to MLA to answer the formatting questions.
Please visit this resource to learn the basic requirements of MLA. There is even a sample essay on this page to show the basics of MLA formatting.
The page recommends using Times New Roman 12 point type, but to make it more clear, and to keep everyone in the class consistent, please use Times New Roman 12 point as the official typeface for the class. Also, the above page at OWL Purdue discusses using headings. You may ignore that part of the page. Headings are not required for your essays in this class. You may stop reading the page when you get to the section on "Section Headings" (that information may actually be useful in future classes, but it is not necessary here).