Formatting stories and essays

When writing a fictional paper, essay or short story on the computer, it is not usually necessary to refer to the thoughts and ideas of others. However, following the general rules for formatting student assignments is essential, such as text size, line and paragraph spacing, margins and alignment, page numbers, etc. (see other chapters for instructions).

• There is no need to include a title page, a table of contents or references to the ideas and thoughts used.
• There is no indentation before paragraphs.
• The heading is aligned to the centre, and Heading 1 (14pt, bold) is used.
• Headings are in all caps, with no full stops at the end, words are not hyphenated, and abbreviations are not used.
• One empty row is left between the headings; the author’s name, class, and date are given. The author’s information should be aligned to the right.
• If there are more than two pages, they should be numbered (down, middle).
• Punctuation (period, comma, etc.) is not preceded by a space.
• There is one space between words and after punctuation marks.
• A hyphen is written between words (e.g. self-made).
• A dash replaces the word ‘to’ and is written between the numbers without a space (7–9 grades). You can make a hyphen with Alt + 0150 (Win) or Alt + hyphen key (Mac).
• Numbers from zero to nine are written as words, and numerals are used from 10 onward.