Formatting pages

Section Three:

Formatting

Most of the essays you will write have formatting rules. These detail how the essay should be written, but most importantly how it should “look.” Scholarship essays are the same. Usually, you will have inside your prompt parameters that tell you how the essay should be written, saved, and submitted. If there are not provided parameters, then it is best to use APA formatting. APA is the most common and is easy to use. These are APA requirements:

❖Typeface: 12pt Times New Roman ❖Spacing: Double-space ❖Margins: One Inch margins on all sides. ❖Page Numbers: Insert a header at the top left of every page ❖Title Page: Title of the paper, author’s name, and purpose

Google docs has become very popular with current students. Due to COVID, many of you had online classes and used Google Classroom. Google Docs is a great program, but most people find writing with Word to be more convenient and easier to format. Look at the toolbar on a new Word document.

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1. Home button-you use this to move between review, layout, design, etc. 2. Insert for shapes, numbers, facts, or charts 3. Layout-margins, indentions, and headers such as page numbers 4. Review-allows you to review your essay for spelling, conciseness, and diction 5. Typeface and size 6. Orientation and line spacing

This is review but it is best to make sure you know where each tool is to help the appearance of your writing. Even if the content is amazing, if it is difficult to read the committee will not read it. Follow the rules and give yourself the best chance possible by showing off your work.

Learning Activity Six:

Format me!

Take the paragraph below and copy and paste it into Word. Using the above rules for APA, reformat the paragraph to meet APA parameters. Paste your formatted paragraph under the original.

Auburn University with all it has to offer makes the choice easy for deciding which school in Alabama to choose. With around 23,000 undergraduate students it is a medium sized school that has a college town feel. There are many schools and majors available with state-ofthe-art classrooms and laboratories. Combining school, social life and great sports makes it one of the best colleges in the nation. With over 150 majors, many of them nationally ranked, and nearly 600 organizations, you’ll be challenged and supported at one of the nation’s 50 best public universities—no matter where your bold vision for your future takes you. There’s so much to explore at Auburn. Auburn does everything in our power to ensure you can afford a college experience unlike any other. *

* https://auburn.edu/admissions/index.php