Chapter 19: TYPING/PRINTING
What are the basics of a well typed or printed
manuscript? ---
Introduction--A Well Typed
Manuscript a Big Deal?
Goodbye College
Degree
New Hampshire's Lost $7
Million
How to Type
Papers with MS Word
---
Also
See "Spell
and Grammar Check" in the "What Is
'Revising'?" chapter.
---
This chapter describes two catastrophic failures to
type/print well, and it points out the great importance of a well typed/printed
paper in college and especially the professions. Basic details of general
manuscript style in college and in the professions also are detailed.
---
Introduction--Is a Well Typed
Manuscript a Big Deal?
When people ask me how important typing is in my
composition classes, I say, "It depends." When students are producing
first drafts of formal papers or weekly, non-graded writing, I often tell them
that they may either type or write neatly by pen, as long as I (and sometimes
others) can easily read the results.
"But what about final papers?" people sometimes ask
me. "What's the big deal with typing?"
"It's not a big deal to me when I teach a course
like literature or humanities," I tell people. "However, in composition
courses," I tell them, "I do have strict requirements. That's because it's
a big deal to some professors and in many professional jobs. And who's going
to teach you how to type or print if not your composition professor?"
I also like to point out to my composition students
that presenting a formal paper to a professor--let alone to a professional
supervisor--is like walking into an interview wearing flip-flops and a torn tee
shirt. No matter how right you are for the job--no matter how intelligent,
caring, or experienced--you're highly unlikely to get it. Similarly,
presenting a poorly typed manuscript makes an instructor have difficulty seeing
the content inside of the words.
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Goodbye College
Degree
How seriously do professors and work supervisors take
typing? To answer this, I like to tell the story of my friend Bob (his
real name--and a real person and story).
Bob was in a graduate program with me, and we did
our master's theses at the same time. A master's thesis is what you have
to write before you get your master's degree, and it usually takes a semester or
two to write it. It usually is thirty, forty, maybe even sixty pages long.
That may sound scary to some of you, but what very few people know is that when
you are preparing a master's thesis (or a dissertation, which is a book-length
paper that must be written for a PhD.), you usually receive a booklet of twenty
or thirty pages from the university's office of graduate studies telling you
exactly how to type your paper. That's right: twenty or thirty pages of
typing instructions. Then, when you finish your paper, you must allow an
extra week or two for the office of graduate studies to check it for proper
typing. If even one little thing is wrong, you must retype your paper.
Bob and I both decided to write a creative thesis
for our English master's degrees. I wrote a forty-page short story--a
fictional story. Bob also wrote a fiction story, but his was much longer:
it was 500 pages in length, in other words, a novel. Both of us sent our
manuscripts to the office of graduate studies to have our manuscripts checked.
Mine was okay the first time I sent it in, but the graduate-studies office told
Bob that he had a problem with his. His margin on the left side was 1/4"
too narrow. And, he was told, he would have to correct it in order to
receive his master's degree.
There's something I haven't told you, yet, about the
year we graduated. It was 1985, a time when people had just started using
personal computers. I had one, and Bob did not. He had typed his
entire manuscript, all 500 pages, on a typewriter. Now, with graduation
just a few weeks away and all of his other graduate work to finish in that time,
the graduate-studies office expected him to retype his entire 500-page
manuscript.
Bob always had been a rebel. He was a Vietnam
veteran and, like me, an older student, and he once had told me the only reason
he was in graduate school was because the army was paying for it.
During our two years of graduate
school together, he also kept himself fairly busy dating and having a good time,
so his grades were not the highest. When the graduate-studies office gave
him his ultimatum, he simply refused. He was livid with anger, which I
could understand--two years of school down the drain just because of a 1/4"
margin--but he absolutely refused to accommodate the graduate-studies
office. Bob never did retype his 500-page novel with a wider margin, as
far as I know, and he never received his master's degree.
Now, some of you may think that this is just an
exception, that most places are a lot more relaxed about their typing
requirements. It is true that some professors are more relaxed than others
about how well a manuscript is presented, but most of them do expect it to be
typed in an academic style (which I'll explain in a minute). However, some
professors have very strict requirements. Even worse, you may find your
professors expecting you to know how to type in an academic or professional style
without telling this to you, and without specifying what such a style looks
like. In fact, some professors may even unconsciously have less respect for
a poorly typed manuscript than for a very well typed one. All of
this is why you should learn to type well and appropriately as soon as you can.
Doing often pays handsomely--in both better grades and more respect at work.
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New Hampshire's Lost $7 Million
"More respect at work" means your professional life. The story
of Bob, above, is repeated millions of times each year in some similar way in
the professional world. Work supervisors reject papers because they are
improperly typed, businesses look bad and lose work because of poor formatting
of business letters and pamphlets, and hundreds of thousands of would-be
writers, professional and amateur, find their works rejected because of poor
typing. And sometimes, huge amounts of money--and people's jobs--are lost
because of relatively minor mistakes of typing. Take the following case as
reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Jan. 29, 2004, and in other
newspapers:
In December, New Hampshire's state drug abuse
and prevention program was turned down for a $7 million grant on the sole
ground, said the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, that its application was typed with smaller margins than
permitted. The federal agency did not give the state an opportunity
to correct the formatting, even though the victims of the rejection were
not the grant-writers but drug-addicted patients.
--Shepherd, Chuck, "News of the weird," p.
E3. |
New Hampshire lost 7 million dollars. How many
jobs were lost, as a result? This is not to mention the number lives aided
or even saved by the money that might have gone to drug-addicted patients but
did not.
So good typing and printing does matter. It also is helpful to ask your instructor if
she has any specific guidelines, as each academic discipline--and each major
business or professional field--often has its own specific typing requirements. For
example, while a 1" margin is a common requirement, some disciplines or
professional situations may require more or less. It always pays to ask,
and asking does not show stupidity but rather just the opposite--a desire to
learn.
In addition,
individual instructors, work supervisors, and workplaces may have their own
particular requirements, born of their own needs and experiences. One
instructor I know, for example, finds papers much easier to grade if they are
stapled. He clearly states this in class several times; then he
automatically flunks papers that are paper clipped: a tough instructor.
Whether this is unfair is not the point. It is, simply, reality.
Most instructors and professional workplaces have some room for flexibility in
typing, but most also have their requirements and preferences, spoken and
unspoken. It is helpful to learn what they are ahead of time by asking.
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How to Type Papers
Using MS Word
(12-24-10)
(These directions are for use of MS Word
1997-2007. AVOID MS Works. Some operations are
different in Apple Word.)
1. Use
Standard Paper: Use 8.5 inch by 11 inch
paper, 16 or 20 pound weight (standard copying/typing paper).
2. How
to Add Page Numbers: Use MSWord
(not MSWorks). Click
on “Insert” & “Page Number(s).” Choose a right-hand corner or bottom middle.
Page 1 is optional. Double-click on the p. # & change “Position” to .2 & .2.
3. How
to Make 1” Margins: In Word 1997-2003,
click on “File,” then “Page Setup.” In Word 2007, click on "Page Layout." Set
all four margins for “1.” Print and check with a ruler. If your printer is
off, then change the margin to less as needed. (Are bottoms still different
from page to page? See “12.” below.)
4. How
to Fix Paragraphs for Academic/Formal Writing:
(1) In academic and formal professional writing, paragraphs are at least two
sentences long and usually longer.
(2) They also usually are not excessively long. (See the requirements in Draft
2 & 3 cover sheets for paragraph length.)
(3) Body sections in college usually have more than one paragraph.
(See D-2 & 3 requirements.) Vary
their lengths.
(4) In dialogue, each time a speaker starts a new turn, you should give that new
turn a new, indented paragraph.
(5) Indent the first line of each paragraph ½”: 0.5” or about 8-10 spaces
(using 12-point font),
not ¼” or less than 8 spaces.
5. For
Checking Grammar: How to Turn On Formal (Full) Grammar Check (in Word 2000
only):
(a) Click on “Tools,” “Options,” and “Spelling & Grammar.” (The boxes usually
are already set correctly.)
(b) Then change “Writing style” to “Grammar & Style.” (In early versions of
Word, this is called “Formal.”)
(c) If you wish, you may also go into “Settings” and, under “Require,” make the
first three blanks say “always,” “inside,” and “2.” You also may then check
every box under “Grammar” and “Style.”
(d) Finally, you may need to click on “Recheck Document.”
(e) You also can use the synonym checker by right-clicking on a word, then
clicking on “synonyms.”
6. How
to Indent Long Quotations:
Choose only quotations over four lines in MLA (or
over 50 w. in APA). Place each quotation on its own lines, alone. Remove the “
“ marks. Mark the quotation. Then indent it a whole 1” on the left (twice as
much as the start of a paragraph): do so on the formatting tool bar at top
("Home" bar in Word 2007) by clicking twice on the box with lines and a right
arrow: [à=];
or click on “Format/Paragraph” and set “Indentation/Left” for 1”.
7. How
to Delete “I/you/yours/me/my” Words:
A majority of professors may expect you to avoid “personalizing” your writing. In
MS Word (upper-right corner), find “Editing.” Then choose “Find.” Use it to
find all such personal words. You may replace them with words such as “people,”
“many/some/others,” “a person,” “we,” etc.
8. How
to Highlight Your Manuscript for the Changes Below, in “9”-“14”:
Have you already starting typing your paper? If so, the
directions in “8”-“13” below require that you start by highlighting your entire
paper in black. Do it as you would a word or sentence; however, start at the
top of your paper and mark it to the end of the last page. Then make the
changes below.
9. How
to Choose a Font (the style and size of letters):
(Do “8.,” above, first. Mark all of your
paper.) Go to the font window above (or click on
“Format,” then “Font”) and please use an academic font like
Times New Roman,
CG Times, Cambria,
or
Garamond. Avoid any
font that is overly large, plain, or extra small. Use font size “12”
(like this sent.) unless told otherwise.
10. How
to Choose Double Spacing (and avoid extra line spaces before/after paragraphs):
(Do “8.” first: mark entire paper.)
In all Word versions, right-click on paper. Click on “Paragraph,” then “Indents
& Spacing.” Set “Line spacing” at “Double.” Then set “Spacing” at “0” and “0”
(which will get rid of extra—or wider—line spacing before and after parags.).
11. How
to Choose ½” Indentation of Paragraph Beginnings:
(Do “8.” first: mark entire paper.)
In all Word versions, right-click on paper. Click on “Paragraph”; then “Indents
and Spacing.” Change “Special” to “First line,” and “By” to “0.5.” (Or in old
Word, mark your paper, click on “Format” and “Tabs,” and then set “Default tab
stops” at 0.5”.)
12. How
to Make All Bottom Margins Exactly the Same:
(Do “8.” first: mark entire paper.)
In all Word versions, right-click on paper. Click on “Paragraph,” then “Line and
Page Breaks.” Uncheck all the “Pagination” boxes.
13. How
to Make a Ragged Right Margin (when it is even or
“justified”):
(Do “8.” first; mark only your bib.)
In all Word versions, right-click on paper. Click on “Paragraph,” then “Indents
& Spacing.” Change “Alignment” to “Left.”
14. How
to Make Hanging Indents in a Bibliography:
(Did you already type? Do “8” first;
mark only your bib.) In all versions of Word, right-click
on “Paragraph”; then click on “Indents & Spacing,” “Special,” and “Hanging;”
set it for 0.5”.
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