PHS Style Sheet
by James Sanderson
May 30, 2009
PHS English Department Style-sheet
The purpose of the style-sheet is so that you know how to present your typewritten or hand-written work,whether that work is an exercise done in class, an essay, or a research paper. The following guidelines have been taken from the MLA style handbook and so are keeping with the standards which you are expected to know in your post-secondary education. Any exceptions to this formatting will be told to you by your teacher on a per assignment basis.
1. Heading for all work:
Your Name
Your Teacher
Your Class
Date
Title of the work
You begin your first line of writing here, double spacing throughout.
2. Hand-written work will follow the same model. Name, teacher, class, and date will be located on the upper left corner of the paper. The title will be written centred on the first line. You will skip a line and begin your writing.
3. All typed work will be printed on white paper only.
4. All typed work will be done in Times New Roman, 12 pt. font only.
5. If you are using MS Office (Word) 2003, the default margins are set to 1.25". You will need to adjust them to 1". Most other word-processing programs follow suit. You MUST check them and change them if necessary. If you are using MS Office (Word) 2007, the defaults margins are 1". However, there are a number of other settings you will need to change:
a. The default font is Calibri, 11pt. You will need to change it to Times-New Roman, 12pt.
b. The paragraph properties include adding 10pts of spacing after each paragraph. This will have to be reset to 0.
6. As per MLA formatting, there will be no title page needed unless specified by the teacher.
7. Whether a paragraph, essay, or research paper is hand-written or typed, it will be double-spaced. Spacing on other assignments such as answers to a list of questions about a short story will be at the discretion of the teacher.
8. Neatness counts! The harder it is to read, the harder it is to grade. Therefore, if the teacher feels that a paper cannot be read it is left to the teacher's discretion as to what to do with it. Thus, it is to your advantage to be neat and to keep your teacher busy reading and grading your essay rather than allowing him or her to kick back on a Saturday or Sunday to watch a football game or a basketball game...or soccer game...or a movie!
Please note that this policy applies to incoherent writing. If the essay cannot be understood, the teacher is free to decide what to do with the paper. (You should hope that he or she will take mercy on you--since you did write something--and allow you to rewrite it but that may not be what happens!)
9. Hand-written work should be written in either black or blue ink only. No other colour is acceptable. The use of gel ink pens is left to the discretion of the teacher.
10. For citation information you may go to either:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
or
http://citationmachine.net/
The first site, which was recently updated, not only gives you the guidelines for either MLA or APA citations, it also has sample papers to which you can compare your work.
The second site, which has also been updated, is a handy tool you can use to create citations for your Works Cited page, if you are using MLA formatting, or References page, if you are using APA formatting.
