Guidelines for Formal Papers Each of the four formal essays you hand in should be submitted as follows: Contents Format Title Pagination Margins Citations Proofreading Contents Hand in both peer edited versions, your polished final version, and a cover letter. In your cover letter, which should be at least 300 words long, typed, 1 1/2 or double spaced, dated and SIGNED, you should provide answers to the following questions: 1. What is the main thrust of your essay? What is your central argument you are trying to get across to your reader? 2. What caused you the most problems in writing this paper? How did you attempt to address these writing issues? 3. What criticism did your peer editors provide which made you revise your paper, either substantively or stylistically? 4. What criticism did I provide you, either in conference or via First Class mail that led you to revise your paper? Be specific about how my feedback made you change your essay. 5. How do you feel about your paper at this point? If you had more time, what would you change about this essay? (back to top) Format Your name, the course number and title, instructor's name and the date all go in the upper right corner of your first page (no separate title page is needed), e.g.: Wendy Wellesley Writing 125 (10) Ms. Viti September 30, 1999 (back to top) Title Center the title; do not underline it or put it in quotation marks. Make your title reflect the content of your paper. (back to top) Pagination All college papers should have page numbers. Placement is up to you--I put my page numbers at the bottom, but the top is fine. You need not number the first page, but may want to. (back to top) Margins Justify the left margin before you print out your paper. This just looks neater. (back to top) Citations Because you will be writing short papers, you need not include a separate Works Cited page except for the documented essay. You may use parenthetical citations or footnotes; use MLA style as set forth in the Hacker guide. You will probably have lots of questions about citation; ask me--it's my job to help you with this! (back to top) Proofreading Do proofread your paper, or if you can find a willing friend with a great eye for typos, ask for help. Careless errors make it seem as though you are not serious about your academic work. (back to top) *Consult Style Writer for questions about how to deal typographically with titles of cases.