Introduction

Last week’s Writing Lesson focused on avoiding plagiarism through effective quote integration using the ICE Method:

Introducing the source
Citing the source
Explaining the source

You also put these principles into action in last week’s Writing Practice as you applied the ICE Method to one of your source materials for your upcoming Informative Essay assignment due at the end of Week 10. To review, here is the prompt for that assignment:

Writing Prompt

Drawing on everything you have learned these past several weeks about the informative essay, write a clear, focused essay in response to one of the following prompt questions:

What are the primary differences between top, mid, and lower-level goals? (W06 Life Skill Lesson)
What are three things people can do to start changing bad habits? (W06 Life Skill Lesson)
What are two of the benefits of holding regular family councils? (W07 Life Skill Lesson)
What are three steps people can take to avoid debt? (W08 Life Skill Lesson)
What are two things people can do to eliminate debt? (W08 Life Skill Lesson)
What are three principles people can take to invest in their future? (W08 Life Skill Lesson)
What is the difference between fixed and variable costs? (W09 Life Skill Lesson)

You will be graded on how well you answer the prompt question that you selected. You will also be graded on how well you apply the following components of the informative essay:

An essay that contains a clear and focused purpose centered on delivering the desired message without opinion or bias (taking a side); an essay that also is addressed to an audience with limited prior knowledge of the topic being discussed.
An engaging introductory paragraph in which you draw your reader in with an effective hook and establish a thesis statement.
Two to three detailed and organized body paragraphs that each contain a single controlling idea inside a strong topic sentence, at least two different types of supporting details, and a concluding/transition sentence.
At least one credible source (in other words, current, relevant, authoritative, accurate, purposeful) integrated into the body of the essay; that source is integrated and cited using the ICE method (introduction, citation, explanation).
A strong concluding paragraph that revisits themes and ideas from the introductory or body paragraphs, and provides the reader with closure.
A double-spaced essay, written in Times New Roman 12pt font, which has 1” margins; the essay also contains a left-aligned heading, centered title, and at least four left-aligned, indented paragraphs; There are no more than two distracting grammatical errors.

Aim for an essay with four to five paragraphs that is between 500–750 words. Consider your audience for this assignment to be a group of people who are unfamiliar with your prompt topic.

In order to effectively fulfill this assignment, you will not only need to select and apply credible source material to strengthen your essay, you will also need to know how to organize and format your essay in a professional way. That is what this lesson will help you to do.

Lesson

There are several different formats the academic essay can be written in—MLA, APA, and Chicago Turabian, to name a few. While each format type has its own distinct set of formatting rules, this lesson will focus on teaching you some of these basic similarities between all of these formats so you can apply them to your Informative Essay due at the end of Week 10. Let’s start by taking a look at the font.

Fonts

The font for academic essay assignments such as the Informative Essay is pretty universal. The general expectation for font type is Times New Roman and the expected font size is usually 12 point. To adjust these settings in your own Microsoft Word document in preparation for your essay, highlight the text and then follow the steps in the graphic below. Always remember that the font color should be black.

Example document. Accessible document available below.

Step 1: Click on the “Home” tab at the top left of your screen
Step 2: Click the font type drop-down menu and select “Times New Roman”
Step 3: Select “12” point font from the font size drop-down menu

Spacing

The next thing you’ll want to do is get your spacing right. Spacing refers to the amount of space there is between lines of text. You’ve likely noticed different sizes of spacing across different styles of writing you’ve read. For example, most novels are published with very little space in between the lines of text:

This is because the formatting rules of novel-writing call for “single-spaced” text.

Academic writing, on the other hand, is different. The formatting rules for this style of writing calls for “double-spaced” text (as shown in the image below). To adjust the space settings on your own Word document, highlight the text and then follow these steps:

First click "Home," then click dropdown "2.0." That will make it double-spaced.

Step 1: Click on the “Home” tab at the top left of your screen
Step 2: Click on the “spacing” icon and select “2.0” from the drop-down menu

Margins

An equally important formatting setting in academic writing is keeping your margins at 1-inch all around. Lucky for you, the 1-inch margin is the default setting of Microsoft Word. This means that for most of you, no additional steps will need to be taken to make sure this part of the formatting rules are being followed. If you are worried that your settings might need to be changed though, click on the icons shown in the image below:

First click on "Layout" and then click "Margins."

Step 1: Click on the “Layout” tab located at the top of your screen
Step 2: Click on “Margins” to assess what your current setting is (it should be set to ”1”)

Heading

Another part of formatting most academic papers have is what’s known as a “Heading.” The purpose of the heading is to share identifying information about you, the author of this piece of writing, to your audience. The audience for most academic pieces of writing happens to be a specific person, instructor, teacher, or professor, so the information you are asked to include within it generally appeals to that audience. The four lines of information every heading should contain are:

Author’s name (your name)
Author’s instructor (the person who gave you this assignment)
Author’s course (the course this assignment was given in)
Due date(the date the assignment is due to be turned in)

To get an idea of the overall look and setup instruction for this important part of the formatting process, review the steps in the image below:

First click "Home," then click "left justified." and that will make the heading aligned on the left.

Step 1: Click on the “Home” tab at the top left of your screen
Step 2: Click on the “left-aligned” icon

Title

Another universal part of formatting you’ll need to include in your own essay is a title. Your title should clearly explain what your essay is about. It should also be placed just beneath your heading, but before the first paragraph of your essay (in between the two). It should also be centered on the page and not have any bolding, underlining, or italicizing. To get a better feel for where the title of the paper goes within the academic paper, review the image and steps below:

For the title, click "Home," then click on the "center alignment" icon.

Step 1: Click on the “Home” tab at the top left of your screen
Step 2: Click the “center alignment” icon

Paragraphs

One final thing you will need to apply is proper formatting around your paragraphs. The rules taught here should feel like a review to all of you as the past two Writing Assignments required you to work with some of these principles already (such as indenting your paragraphs). If you are wondering what it looks like in a double-space format or are wanting to learn more about how to properly format your paragraphs in Word, please review the graphics and steps below:

For the indent, first click on "Home," then click "left justified," then indent your paragraph by clicking on the "Tab" key on your keyboard.

Step 1: Click on the “Home” tab at the top left of your screen
Step 2: Click on the “left-aligned” icon
Step 3: Indent every new paragraph by pushing the “Tab” key on your computer’s keyboard

Just to review, the six areas of formatting you will need to apply to your academic writing assignments (such as the Informative Essay) throughout this course are:

Six Areas of Formatting for Academic Writing Assignments image. 1. Font: Times New Roman, and 12 pt font size. 2. Spacing: double-spaced. 3. Margins: 1" all around. 4. Heading: Name, Instructor's name, course name, and due date. 5. Title: applicable to topic, centered on the page, and located beneath the header but before the first paragraph. 6. Paragraphs: left justified, and indented.

Your successful use of these basic principles will go a long way in helping you develop your academic writing skills so that you are prepared to write for lots of different purposes and audiences.