School Paper Format – The Proper Way To Write One

To write a good school term paper one must follow certain rules and regulations besides writing a good essay. Writing according to the set rules, following the correct school paper format and making a good, neat presentation is a part of the whole package, if good marks are desired. Even if the essay written is flawless, if the correct format is not followed and presentation is bad then all effort comes to a naught.

To start with, a white 8 and ½ inch by 11 inch paper is to be used and to be written on one side only. A margin of 1 inch is to be left at all sides of the page, that is, on the top, bottom,left and right hand side and this is followed for all the pages of the essay. The only exception being the page number which is written on the top right hand corner and inside a header. A title page is not necessary until otherwise specified by the instructor. If there is no title page then on the first page of the essay the name of the writer is to be written flush against the left margin, 1 inch from the top and followed by the instructor’s name , course code number and the date , each on a separate line and with double spacing. After the date and again after double spacing, the title of the essay is to be written and aligned centrally. If the instructor does not want the first page to be numbered then the numbering will start with page number two. The title is to be written in title case and not be written in all capital letters. The title is not to be underlined nor to be put in quotation marks. Nouns, like names of people and place and other important words will have to be capitalized but conjunctions and prepositions are written in lower case. eg. The Wizard of Oz. This is the same for all headings and sub headings too. If there has to be a title page then all the above information needs to written in the same manner in a separate page or if any instructions are given by the instructor then that will have to be strictly followed while writing the title page.

The entire essay will have to be written in Times New Roman , font size 12 and with double spacing. If the instructor wants, the paragraphs will have to be numbered with reference points like (1) at the beginning of the first paragraph and (2) at the start of the second para and so on and so forth. This is generally done if the submission of the essay is via e mail which is pretty common these days. Each paragraph is started with an indent of five spaces or a half inch gap. One space is left between two words and one space after each punctuation mark, however there should be no space before the start of a punctuation mark. Proper citations and references at the end and on a separate page is absolutely necessary to avoid charges of plagiarism. A school term paper generally does not need any table content as papers are of the shorter types. While handing over the essay to the instructor the paper should be stapled at the upper left hand corner or a paper clip is to be used and no other variation to this is allowed.

After following all the above said format, to get good marks in a school term paper the only remaining part is the writing of a good content essay without any grammatical, spelling or factual error. And if both the school paper format and the content are good and well presented then there is nothing to stop a student from getting top scores.

This post originally appeared on http://essaywritingblog.com/essay-formats/school-paper-format