(Updated 4.II.97. New entries on quotation and documentation formats)
In order to minimize delays in getting class papers transferred, graded and posted, I ask that you adopt the following conventions when preparing an assignment for submission:
1. Use the Courier Typeface for all work.
Courier looks like this. Other faces such as Times or Arial contain certain characters that do not transfer well electronically (notably apostrophes and double quotation marks).If you have prepared your paper in a different face, simply highlight the entire document by using the "Select All" feature in your word processor (manually blocking the entire text accomplishes the same thing), and choose one of the courier options in the Font menu.
2. Number all of your paragraphs.
Type the number in parentheses at the beginning of each paragraph. This
will make it much easier for me and for your classmates to refer to
specific passages while discussing your essay online.
3. Single-space your paragraphs.
This will make it easier to work with the text on a computer screen.
4. Skip a line between paragraphs.
This is the standard format convention for paragraphs on the World Wide
Web and the internet. It will also make it easier foir me to repair
translation quirks.
5. Do not indent the first lines of paragraphs.
Again, this is the standard format convention for paragraphs on the World
Wide Web and internet.
6. Block Quotations.
In printed documents, block quotations are indented and are often given a
different size and/or line spacing than the main text. Since these
formattings do translate to plain text, we will use the following
convention. Set the block quotation off as a separate paragraph (i.e.,
skip a line before and after the quotation), but do not
number it or the continuation of the paragraph afterwards.
7. Emphasis and Titles.
In typed documents, emphasis and titles of works are indicated by
underlining. In printed documents, they are put into
italics. Since neither of these formats is supported by plain text,
I suggest you use the internet convention of indicating the beginning and
end of underlined text with an underscore chracter (_). For example:
Allan Bloom is the author of _The Closing of the American Mind_.Another internet convention exists: surrounding strongly emphasized text with asterisks (*). This could be said to be equivalent of boldface in print. There is little cause, however, for this kind of emphasis in the writing we do.
8. Works Cited.
Two more print conventions that cannot be reproduced in plain text are
centering and hanging indents, which are conventionally used for the
"Works Cited" title and individual entries, respectively. For papers in
this class, simply place the words "Works Cited" on a line by themselves
and skip a line between each Works Cited entry. Thus:
Works Cited
Goodman, Paul. "A Proposal to Abolish Grading." _The Structure of Argument_. 2nd ed. Ed. Annette T. Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 190-93.
Neusner, Jacob. "The Speech the Graduates Didn't Hear." _The Structure of Argument_. 2nd ed. Ed. Annette T. Rottenberg. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 238-39.