Paper writing has its own conventions. It is as well to learn these now as to need to correct bad habits later. The style I recommend is that outlined in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Papers must be typed, double-spaced.  Use 1 inch margins all round. Use 10 or 12 pt. type. Staple the paper. Do not use plastic covers or binders. Keep a copy other than the one you submit (professors' cars have been stolen before now).

Text should be double-spaced (unlike in this handout). Long quotations, however, should be single spaced and indented five spaces. There is no gap between paragraphs.

The following information should be included on the title page of all papers.

Good grammar is expected of all students. Those new to writing papers should pay special attention to the following, lack of attention to which represents 90% of grammatical and stylistic errors seen in student papers:-

Spelling should follow the generally accepted conventions. If you don't have one, buy a good dictionary.

In general refer to actions people did in the past in the past tense (example: "Educators used the New England Primer in the Colonial Era.")  Refer to quotations from authors in the present tense, even if the author you are referring to is a historical person (example: "Joel Spring [a modern writer] argues that education is a system of ideological and cultural control.")

Apostrophes are not used in the plurals of words (example: "telephones." not "telephone's.") Apostrophes are used to indicate possession of one thing by another (example "the woman's hat.") If the word that possesses is already plural the apostrophe goes after the "s" that was added to make the word plural (for instance, "The Students' Association" means the association belonging to many students, but "the student's association" would mean some association pertaining to one particular student.)

"Its" = indication of possession, like "his" or "her."

e.g. "the book's cover" = "its cover."

"It's"= contraction for "it is."

Capitalize:

"He would have been elected," not "He would of been elected."

"She could have done it," not "She could of done it."

It has been very common to use phrases such as "If he would have helped her, she would now be safe," but this is grammatical nonsense and does not do what it intends, which is to make a conditional statement about the past. Literally the phrase as it stands means "If he had wanted to help her, she would now be safe." The phrase should be "If he had helped her, she would now be safe."

It is probably a lost cause to argue against them, but too many split infinitives are a sign of an uneducated writer. The infinitive of a verb is that part which expresses the meaning alone, for example, "to go," "to sing," "to be." In English, the infinitive is marked by the word "to," but in most other languages the infinitive is just one word, for instance aller, penser (French), gehen, kaufen (German), cantar, amar (Spanish). For this reason, it has long been considered bad style in English to "split infinitives" with adverbs. Instead of writing "to quickly go," or "to finally sing," you should write "to go quickly," or "finally to sing."

When writing formal papers only use "I" and "me" when it becomes confusing to avoid them. A paper is not meant to "sound" like a letter to a friend or a diary entry.

These words are massively overused by students. Your feelings are not relevant to a paper, it's your thoughts that count. When writing about historical figures, you only know what they "felt" if they left diaries or told someone else their feelings. Unless you can cite such information, do not state that a historical figure "felt" something. Also do not use "felt" when you mean "thought." These comments apply to "believe" in a less stringent manner.

"Being that he was King of France, ...." is better rendered  "Since he was..,." or "Because he was...," or "When he was..."

"Incredible," "Unbelievable," "Literally," "People," "They." Always check that these words really mean something when you use them.

It is bad style to use passive constructions, or more concretely, passive constructions lead to bad style.

Here are some examples:-

    "Sugar was boycotted by women."

    “Jim is engaged in a kicking action against Bob.”

All these sentences would be stronger and more informative if the person doing the lynching/burning/discovering was put in the picture.

    "Women boycotted sugar."

    “Jim kicked the snot out of Bob.”

You must indicate from where you are making any quotations you use in your paper. It is also important to cite the source of arguments and ideas when you take them from a textbook or other author.