Cockeyed Optimist

Whatever piece of academic writing you are doing, there will be some requirements set out for it, ranging from very informal guidelines, like “Write a reflective piece, 500 words maximum, on your first week at college”, right up to the long lists of specifications put out by a school for a Master’s dissertation or beyond (here are the rules for a PhD at the University of Queensland).

However brief or detailed they may be, you should always pay attention; if you don’t comply you risk losing marks.

And if you ignore very formal requirements, you may not get any credit at all!

Elements of assignment or thesis requirements

• Word count: can be expressed as minimum, maximum or both (range).
• Font and size: can be very specific ‘Times New Roman, 12 point’ or general ‘12 point’. Line spacing, ’single’, ‘one-and-a-half’ or ‘double’ are usually specified, too.
• Margins and layout: again, can be general — ‘2.5 cm margins’, or very specific — ‘MLA Format’; here is an example of a guide to MLA Format, and another.
• Citation and reference style: common ones are MLA (Modern language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), Harvard, Turabian (based on Harvard) and Chicago, and you might meet others.These are often specified by your school or instructor.If no details are given you, there is always the Web!.
  The Owl at Purdue has APA as well as MLA guides, and the University of Sussex has a nice interactive guide to Harvard Style.
• General approach: this can rather vague: ‘Reflective journal’, ‘paper or book review’, ‘literature survey’ are some.Occasionally, samples are provided to give you a guide — or ask your instructor.
• And, of course deadlines: ignore these and you will have to take the consequences, which could be deductions of marks for each day late, or refusal of the work!

So, make sure you check the assignment sheet, or again, ask!

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