Formatting Requirements

Papers and take home exams that you submit for my class, should conform to the following conventions:  

1. You are learning to be a professional, so please type your paper.  You will never submit a manual report to your employer in the future.  Instead, you will always submit formal reports and formal reports are typed.  
2. Students should always double space papers since this is easier for my failing eyes to read.  Students should also use a reasonable size font and one inch margins.  When you use large size font, large margins, and triple spacing to insure you meet page requirements, it is obvious that you (a) you did not do the proper amount of research, (b) you place a low priority on my class, and (c) you think I am an idiot who will not notice these changes.  While the above three points may be accurate, this manipulating fonts and margins to meet page requirements does not place me in a good mood when reading your papers.  It is in your self-interest to insure as much as you can possibly do that I am in a good mood when grading your paper.  Following these basic requirements is a good step to accomplishing this.  
3. Papers must have a title page though the title page does not count as part of the page total (sorry).  The title page should include (in no particular order) the name of student, title of paper, date of submission, class title, and instructor's name.   
4. Papers must be stapled. Stapling papers in the correct order insure that pages are not lost and that I do not have to determine what page follows which page.  Of course, papers in folder or other binding material is acceptable.  
5. All quotations must use an approved citation style (APSA, MLA, Turabian, or other standard style). For students in PSC 211, most any style will be accepted as long as you are consistent. For political science students in upper division classes, you need to learn APSA.  If you have a question about citations, please ask.
6. Except for page 1, all pages are numbered. 
7. Use the Spell Checker.  Misspellings are unacceptable when the computer will easily make corrections for you.  Any paper that is not spell checked (and it is easy to tell), I will stop reading and automatically give it an F. 
8. Use Grammar Check.  Once again, the computer will solve most of your problems for you. 
9. I take plagiarism very seriously.  Anyone caught plagiarizing a paper will automatically fail the course and be referred to the appropriate University authorities for further review and punishment.