how to write heading of assignment

For any assignment always check with your lecturer if they require a specific structure. If your lecturer has given you specific instructions about how to organise your assignment, make sure you follow them. Academic assignments usually follow an established organisational structure that has, at a minimum, an .

When you have completed your research you should be in a position to prepare an outline plan for the assignment. The outline plan is a more structured and detailed plan than the initial plan you created at the brainstorming stage. It should give you a step-by-step overview of the assignment.

Download a copy  or click on the image above.

This template is designed to assist you with the collection and organisation of information into your notes and to plan the structure of your work before you start writing your first draft. The Assignment Planning - Guidelines has four stages:

Communications from the Library:  Please note all communications from the library, concerning renewal of books, overdue books and reservations will be sent to your NCI student email account.

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Formatting your assignments

Illustrated step-by-step guides to help you understand the formatting and presentation expectations of university assignments.

Introduction 

Although formatting your essay, report or dissertation can feel like a lesser priority than the process of research and writing itself, it is an important way to ensure your ideas are given the spotlight through visually accessible, professional presentation. Formatting can be a minefield, especially when you’re formatting at the last minute; it’s important to leave a few days at the end of your essay writing process for working on your formatting, and to spend some time familiarising yourself with the different aspects of formatting.

301 Recommends:

Our Essay Structure and Planning workshop will outline how to analyse your essay question, discuss approaches logically structure all your ideas, help you make your introductions and conclusions more effective, and teach how to link your ideas and ensure all essay content flows logically from the introduction.

Below, you will find some general introductions to the key areas. 

Action: know the rules 

Because formatting rules can vary greatly depending on your department or assignment, it’s crucial to check the formatting specifications in your assignment description/rubric, and any general departmental presentation standards, as a first port of call. Many referencing systems also have specific rules about how to format your work, so make sure to familiarise yourself with the university library’s referencing guides . Many referencing systems also have more detailed style guides available via their websites.

Formatting key information  

Assignment cover sheets .

In some departments, you may be expected to include a cover sheet on the front page of your assignment. This is a page including key information about your assignment, such as your module number, student registration number, essay title, and submission date.

You may be asked to submit a plagiarism declaration and to make your markers aware of any disabilities through the yellow sticker system . If you are asked to include a cover sheet in your assignment, your department should make you aware of where you can access this.

Assignment titles

Place your assignment title at the top of your first page, either centre or left aligned, in bold font. At university, you may be assigned a pre-designed essay title/question, or asked to select from several possible titles. You may also be asked to design your own essay title. Here are some top tips on designing your own title:

• To bring focus to your essay, draft a working title at the essay planning stage. You can come back and review this title in light of your finished essay draft.
• Make sure to use action words in your essay title that reflect the skills your assessors are looking for, both in the assignment description and the marking criteria you have been given. For example, if heavy emphasis is placed on critical analysis, you could use a title like ‘Analyse the effect of…’ See this glossary of essay terms , containing examples that you can use in your own titles. 
• The action words you choose can also help you to reflect the structure of the essay in your question. For example, an essay using the action word ‘Discuss’ might use a for/against/conclusion or advantages/disadvantages/conclusion structure, or an essay using the term ‘Analyse’ might break an issue down into parts, e.g. into key themes, to understand its meaning as a whole. Think about the type of essay you want to write: do you want it to be comparative, look at several topics equally, or do you have a clear argument that you want to put forward? You can then create a question that gives you the opportunity to approach the topic from your own perspective.
• Make sure to include the main terminology you are working with in your assignment title.
• Make sure your question has a realistic scope, without being so broad that you cannot answer it within the limitations of your essay. To limit your question, you could include any limiting factors you are working with, such as specific time periods, geographical regions or sub-themes within the overall topic area. For example, in the title ‘Evaluate the proposition that a global monoculture will destroy diversity and difference’, the broad topic of global monoculture is limited down through a specific sub-focus on diversity and difference.

Stating word counts 

Depending on the instructions you have been given, you may be asked to state your word count, either on your cover sheet or at the beginning of your essay. If you are asked to include this information, make sure your word count accurately reflects the assessment guidance: for example, are references included in your word count?

Visual clarity  

Line spacing .

Most assignment descriptions specify that you should increase the space between each line on the page, from the standard 1.0 spacing to either 1.5 or 2.0 spacing. You are asked to do this to make the essay more visually accessible and easier to read, by breaking up the number of lines on each page. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to line spacing in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Fonts 

All non-examination based assignments should be word processed rather than handwritten. Most assignment descriptions will specify that for visual clarity, and to ensure a professional appearance, you should use a plain, sans-serif font such as Arial. For readability, this should be in 11 or 12 point size. Check your departmental or assignment guidance for any specific rules about font choices. 

Page numbering, headers and footers  

Including page numbers in your assignments makes them more accessible. Depending on the departmental guidance you have been given, you may be asked to include these in either the header or the footer of your essay (the blank space above and below where the text would go on a normal page in a word processor). It may also be helpful to include your registration number and the module code of the essay in the same header or footers that specify the page number. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adding page numbers and using headers and footers in Microsoft Word and Google Docs. 

Page layout   

Margins .

A margin is the amount of blank space on either side of a paragraph in a normal word processor. Traditionally, assignment descriptions specified that the margins should be made wider at the binding edge (the left hand side) of the page, to allow for easier reading of printed essays. However, with the shift to online essays, you might not be asked to do this any more and the default settings on your word processor are likely to be sufficiently wide.

For printed dissertations and theses, you may receive specific guidance about the suitable layout of margins, as these are more likely to be printed: see this university guide on formatting PhD theses . 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adjusting margins in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Paragraph alignment 

Most formatting instructions specify that paragraphs should be lined up in a straight line (aligned) on the left hand edge, but left jagged on the right hand edge (like this page). This is called left alignment, or flush-left style, and should be the default alignment setting for your word processor. This style can be helpful for visual accessibility, but check any specific instructions you have been given by your department to see which style of alignment you have been asked to use. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adjusting paragraph alignment in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.  

Paragraph indentation

You may be asked to add indents to your paragraphs: an indent is an additional small gap between the margin and the beginning of a paragraph (it makes a ‘dent’ in the first line of your paragraph). Indents are used to provide extra clarification that the reader is starting a new paragraph after finishing the last one: therefore, they should not be used in the first paragraph of your essay. Indents are not always required, and whether you are expected to use them may depend on your referencing style , and any formatting instructions you have been given by your department.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to indenting paragraphs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Formatting referenced material 

Footnotes and endnotes .

Some referencing systems require you to use footnotes or endnotes to format your references (make sure to check the library’s referencing guide to familiarise yourself with the expected format of your referencing style). Inserting a footnote into your word document when you have cited from a source adds a superscript number (a number formatted in a smaller font) to the sentence. It creates a note with a matching number at the bottom of the page you are working on (in the footer), which you can add the reference information to.

Endnotes work in the same way, but instead of appearing at the bottom of the page, the reference list appears at the end of the document.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to manually inserting footnotes and endnotes in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.  

References and bibliographies  

Instead of, or alongside footnotes/endnotes, some referencing systems ask you to include a bibliography and/or a reference list at the end of the essay (make sure to check the library’s referencing guide to familiarise yourself with the expected format of your referencing style). A reference list is a list of all the sources you have directly referred to in the essay, which could be ordered numerically or alphabetically, depending on your referencing style.

A bibliography could be used alongside, or instead of, a reference list, depending on your referencing style; here, you list all the sources you have consulted that have influenced your ideas, whether they are included in the essay or not. The way this is ordered also depends on your referencing style. 

If you auto-generate your citations in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you can auto-generate your bibliography instead of creating it manually: instructions for doing so are in the resource below. If you use a different reference manager, such as Mendeley, Zotero, or Endnote, these have their own specific instructions for auto-generating bibliographies. See the reference management resources offered by the university. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to manually or automatically formatting a bibliography or reference list in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Block quotations  

When you need to include a quotation in your essay that is three or more lines long, you can add this as a block quotation. A block quotation appears on a separate line to the other parts of the paragraph, and is indented (i.e. there is a wider gap between a block quotation and the left-hand margin than there is between the rest of the paragraph and the left-hand margin). Block quotations aren’t placed in quotation marks, so the indentation is used to indicate that you are using a quotation.

Check your referencing guide and any departmental guidance to learn more about the specific rules on formatting block quotations in your department. Because they take up large chunks of your word count, and break up the flow of your texts, make sure to use block quotations sparingly: they are especially helpful when you are going to perform close analysis of a large section of text. For more information on different types of quotation and how to use them, see our workshop on paraphrasing and using academic sources.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to formatting block quotations in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Advanced formatting 

Headings and contents tables .

Most standard short essays do not include headings, other than the essay title and reference list and/or bibliography. Section headings may be required for some longer or more structured types of academic writing, such as reports; reports often follow a very closely prescribed structure, so it is essential to pay very careful attention to the specific guidelines issued with your brief. Make sure that any system you use for numbering your headings and subheadings is consistently applied throughout the document.

Depending on the advice you have been given, and the length and complexity of a lab report, you may also be required to include a table of contents to help the reader navigate between headings. Contents tables are generally standard practice in longer assignments such as dissertations and theses. Make sure to check any departmental guidance you have been given about formatting reports.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to formatting headings and contents tables in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

301 Recommends: Scientific Writing and Lab Reports Workshop

This workshop  will help you to familiarise yourself with some of the specific expectations associated with this assignment format.

Figures and tables 

Some kinds of essays, dissertations and reports will require you to make use of figures (pictures, diagrams, and graphs) and tables (any data in a table format). Figures and tables are normally numbered in sequence, e.g. ‘Table 1’, ‘Figure 4’, and are directly referred to in the text according to their number, rather than according to their location on the page (e.g. ‘as shown in Table 2’ rather than ‘as shown below’). 

If your text is of dissertation or thesis length, or if your text has several figures, it may also be helpful to include a list of figures immediately after the table of contents. Some referencing guides have specific rules about presenting and referencing tables and figures, so make sure to familiarise yourself with these and carefully read any specific instructions about figures and tables in your assignment brief. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to inserting figures and tables and creating lists of figures/tables in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Top tips for formatting tables and figures:

• Make sure that any tables or figures you use are placed below the paragraph where you refer to them, and that you have directly referred to all figures and tables in the text of the essay.
• The caption for a table usually acts as its title, so this is placed above the table in the document. The caption for a figure is usually placed underneath the figure. Do not include unnecessary additional titles in the graph image itself, if the title is already included in your image caption. 
• Make sure to label your captions consistently, choosing between ‘Fig.’ or ‘Figure’ and consistently using either a full stop or a colon after the label (i.e. ‘Figure 1:’ or ‘Fig. 1.’) 
• Your caption should clearly and succinctly explain what the figure or table is. If the figure is taken from an external source, you must provide a reference that accurately reflects its copyright status (see these university library guides to inserting and attributing images and figures in university work). 
• Make sure to include legends in any charts you use (a key that helps to explain the data in the chart). Any data series you use should be clearly distinguishable from each other (e.g. avoid printing a report with coloured graphs in black and white!) If you are only using one series of data, a legend is not always necessary. 
• Make sure tables are clear and easy to read, using sans serif fonts, a readable font size, and avoiding unnecessary use of colour. 
• Make sure graphs are clear and easy to read, with clearly and appropriately labelled axes. Be wary of 3D effects that may obscure the clarity of a graph.
• Make sure to avoid presenting the same information in a graph and a table.
• Images and figures in printed essays, such as dissertations and theses, should be large enough for the text and numbers to be legible on the printed copy. Make sure they do not extend beyond the print margins of the document. 

301 Recommends: Displaying Data in Graphs and Tables Workshop

This workshop will provide more technical advice on using graphs and tables in your work. See also this Engineering department guidance on formatting graphs and tables in Engineering lab reports.

Appendices 

Appendices commonly appear in dissertations, theses, and lab reports. An appendix provides supporting information that gives the reader a better understanding of the essay, but that might be too long, detailed or awkward to insert into the main body of the essay without breaking up its flow. Interview questions or transcripts, sample questionnaires, raw data, figures, photographs, large/complex datasets, and diagrams are all examples of information that could be included in an appendix, if it is relevant to do so.

The reader should be able to understand the essay without reference to this supporting information, as all the most important and relevant information needed to answer the question should be included in the body (i.e., the appendix should not be used to make room for content that doesn’t fit within your word count). Your appendices must be clearly signposted and explained in the body of your report, highlighting any information that is essential for your reader to understand. Do not include any appendices that are not referenced in the text itself.

The appendices should be placed in numerical or alphabetical order, and signposted according to this specific system (e.g. ‘Appendix B indicates that…’) They should be clearly labelled, using headings that match up to the in-text reference. Appendices usually appear at the very end of the assignment, after your references/bibliography. Make sure to list any appendices used in your table of contents; if you have been instructed to do so by your department or within your referencing system, you could include a list of appendices separate to your contents list. 

The specific format of the appendix heading, and the reference made to the appendix in the text, depends on your referencing style , so make sure to carefully review this information before you design your appendices.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to inserting appendices and creating lists of appendices in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Tips and resources

• Use this 301 proofreading checklist to check over your work when you are finished.
• Use the University Library referencing guide for advice about referencing and formatting that is specific to your referencing style. If you need extra clarification about formatting rules, it is often possible to download an extended style guide from the official website for a specific referencing system. 
• For further training on referencing, using reference generators, and using images in your work, see the University Library workshop programme .

Related information

Academic Writing

Proofreading

Essay structure and planning

Scientific writing and lab reports

Creating accessible Word documents

The Summer Skills Spark: 5 weeks to ignite your research skills

Are you working on a dissertation or research project this summer? 

The Summer Skills Spark offers workshops to support you through every step of the process. You'll have opportunities to plan your projects, develop your research skills, explore dissemination techniques, and consider a future career in research. 

Collaboration between 301 Academic Skills Centre, the University Library, Digital Learning, and the Careers and Employability Service.

Basic essay structure

Improve your writing

Organise your essays to demonstrate your knowledge, show your research and support your arguments

Essays are usually written in continuous, flowing, paragraphed text and don’t use section headings. This may seem unstructured at first, but good essays are carefully structured.

How your assignment content is structured is your choice. Use the basic pattern below to get started.

Essay structure

An essay consists of three basic parts:, introduction.

The essay itself usually has no section headings. Only the title page, author declaration and reference list are written as headings, along with, for example, appendices. Check any task instructions, and your course or unit handbook, for further details.

Content in assignment introductions can vary widely. In some disciplines you may need to provide a full background and context, whereas other essays may need only a little context, and others may need none.

An introduction to an essay usually has three primary purposes:

• To set the scene
• To tell readers what is important, and why
• To tell the reader what the essay is going to do (signposting)

A standard introduction includes the following five elements:

• A statement that sets out the topic and engages the reader.
• The background and context of the topic.
• Any important definitions, integrated into your text as appropriate.
• An outline of the key points, topic, issues, evidence, ideas, arguments, models, theories, or other information, as appropriate. This may include distinctions or contrasts between different ideas or evidence.
• A final sentence or two which tells the reader your focal points and aims.

You should aim to restrict your introduction to information needed for the topic and only include background and contextual information which helps the reader understand it, or sets the scene for your chosen focal points.

In most essays you will have a considerable range of options for your focus. You will be expected to demonstrate your ability to select the most relevant content to address your focal points.

There are some exceptions. For example, if an assignment brief specifically directs the essay focus or requires you to write broadly about a topic. These are relatively rare or are discipline-specific so you should check your task instructions and discipline and subject area conventions.

Below are examples of an opening statement, a summary of the selected content, and a statement at the end of the introduction which tells the reader what the essay will focus on and how it will be addressed. We've use a fictional essay.

The title of our essay is: 'Cats are better than dogs. Discuss.'

To submit this essay you also would need to add citations as appropriate.

Example of opening statements:

People have shared their lives with cats and dogs for millenia. Which is better depends partly on each animal’s characteristics and partly on the owner’s preferences.

Here is a summary of five specific topics selected for the essay, which would be covered in a little more detail in the introduction:

• In ancient Egypt, cats were treated as sacred and were pampered companions.
• Dogs have for centuries been used for hunting and to guard property. There are many types of working dog, and both dogs and cats are now kept purely as pets.
• They are very different animals, with different care needs, traits and abilities.
• It is a common perception that people are either “cat-lovers” or “dog-lovers”.
• It is a common perception that people tend to have preferences for one, and negative beliefs about and attitudes towards, the other.

Example of closing statements at the end of the introduction:

This essay will examine both cats’ and dogs’ behaviour and abilities, the benefits of keeping them as pets, and whether people’s perceptions of their nature matches current knowledge and understanding.

Main body: paragraphs

The body of the essay should be organised into paragraphs. Each paragraph should deal with a different aspect of the issue, but they should also link in some way to those that precede and follow it. This is not an easy thing to get right, even for experienced writers, partly because there are many ways to successfully structure and use paragraphs. There is no perfect paragraph template.

The theme or topic statement

The first sentence, or sometimes two, tells the reader what the paragraph is going to cover. It may either:

• Begin a new point or topic, or
• Follow on from the previous paragraph, but with a different focus or go into more-specific detail. If this is the case, it should clearly link to the previous paragraph.

The last sentence

It should be clear if the point has come to an end, or if it continues in the next paragraph.

Here is a brief example of flow between two summarised paragraphs which cover the historical perspective:

It is known from hieroglyphs that the Ancient Egyptians believed that cats were sacred. They were also held in high regard, as suggested by their being found mummified and entombed with their owners (Smith, 1969). In addition, cats are portrayed aiding hunters. Therefore, they were both treated as sacred, and were used as intelligent working companions. However, today they are almost entirely owned as pets.

In contrast, dogs have not been regarded as sacred, but they have for centuries been widely used for hunting in Europe. This developed over time and eventually they became domesticated and accepted as pets. Today, they are seen as loyal, loving and protective members of the family, and are widely used as working dogs.

There is never any new information in a conclusion.

The conclusion usually does three things:

• Reminds your readers of what the essay was meant to do.
• Provides an answer, where possible, to the title.
• Reminds your reader how you reached that answer.

The conclusion should usually occupy just one paragraph. It draws together all the key elements of your essay, so you do not need to repeat the fine detail unless you are highlighting something.

A conclusion to our essay about cats and dogs is given below:

Both cats and dogs have been highly-valued for millenia, are affectionate and beneficial to their owners’ wellbeing. However, they are very different animals and each is 'better' than the other regarding care needs and natural traits. Dogs need regular training and exercise but many owners do not train or exercise them enough, resulting in bad behaviour. They also need to be 'boarded' if the owner is away and to have frequent baths to prevent bad odours. In contrast, cats do not need this level of effort and care. Dogs are seen as more intelligent, loyal and attuned to human beings, whereas cats are perceived as aloof and solitary, and as only seeking affection when they want to be fed. However, recent studies have shown that cats are affectionate and loyal and more intelligent than dogs, but it is less obvious and useful. There are, for example, no 'police' or 'assistance' cats, in part because they do not have the kinds of natural instincts which make dogs easy to train. Therefore, which animal is better depends upon personal preference and whether they are required to work. Therefore, although dogs are better as working animals, cats are easier, better pets.

Download our basic essay structure revision sheet

Download this page as a PDF for your essay structure revision notes

Better Essays: Signposting

Paragraphs main body of an assessment

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How‌ ‌to‌ ‌Structure‌ ‌College‌ ‌Assignments?‌

Find the Best Assignment Formats (with Examples) Here.

The assignment format and structure depend on the type of assignment you are doing. While most professors include formatting-related standards in assignment guidelines (such as word count, the layout of the assignment, file format, preferred fonts, referencing style, and requirements related to headings, page numbering, college assignment headers, and footers), they expect students to figure out how to structure their assignment. 

GoAssignmentHelp’s US homework help experts often come across college students who do not know how to write a project report, academic essay, research paper , or case study. Hence, they are sharing the most common assignment formats they use along with college assignments examples here.

Basic Elements of an Assignment Structure 

A university assignment typically has six compulsory sections:

• College Assignment Heading / Title Page
• Table of Contents / Index
• Introduction

Online assignments help experts on our platform highly recommend students at all academic levels to ensure that any assignment structure they use covers these six elements.

If your professor has not shared a specific assignment format with you, you should ask them about their preferred academic writing style. It will give you a good idea about how to set margins, what line spacing to use, how to mention page numbers in the assignment, what font style and font size are considered the idea in your university, and what’s considered the best referencing format in your department.

Different assignments are written differently. Here we will share with you:

Ideal Assignment Format for a Research Paper

Typical assignment format for an academic essay, best assignment format for a project report, basic assignment template for a case study, literature review assignment format, how to structure a reflective journal, how to write an annotated bibliography.

You may also check:   Assignment Cover Sheet Sample and Templates

A typical research paper has the following sections:

• Research Paper Title
• Table of Contents
• Research Methodology
• Findings & Discussions
• Conclusions
• References & Citations

Remember, the presentation of a research paper changes based on the referencing format your college professor prefers.

For example: In the MLA referencing style, you refer to your sources as ‘Works Cited’ while in the APA assignment format, you refer to them as ‘References’.

Here’s a sample MLA research paper assignment format:

All college essays must include:

• Thesis Statement/Purpose of writing the essay

The following essay outline essay template elaborates on the significance of each of these sections and what you should write in them. Notice that each paragraph in the body of an essay is divided into three parts:

• Topic sentence,
• Supporting details, and
• Conclusion statement.

A project report can be anywhere between 4 to 100 pages long – depending on your academic level and study discipline. Usually, project reports are compulsory assignments for students – and need to be written in a specific academic format.

GoAssignmentHelp’s project report writing experts in the US say that most reports share the following assignment format example:

• Acknowledgments
• Problem Statement / Project Report Research Question
• Objective / Purpose of the Report
• Methodology Used
• Analysis of the Problem Statement
• Conclusion & Recommendations
• References/Bibliography

While writing a case study, you need to include the following sections:

• Alternatives & Constraints/Limitations
• Proposed Solutions
• Recommendations

But these sections may change from a case study to a case study – depending on the nature of the problem/event/ entity under study. Our expert assignment help providers offer several case study templates for students as well as step-by-step guidance in writing effective case studies.

Here’s a college homework example involving a case study:

You may be asked to write a Literature Review separately or as part of a longer research paper. In both cases, you will have to follow the standardized academic writing and referencing styles preferred by your instructor, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. But all of them use this basic Literature Review assignment format:

• Body (which may have several subtopics)
• References/Citation

Different academic writing styles define the ideal word count for each section. Our review writing experts can also help you with writing article reviews and book reviews that need to be styled differently than literature reviews.

Here’s a literature review assignment template for you:

Reflective journal assignments can be written as diary entries, personal journals, essays, books, or peer reviews. Each entry in a journal or diary (meant to be a reflective writing piece) should have the following sections:

• Event or Situation being discussed
• Exploration
• Conclusion or Integration

Here’s a reflective journal assignment example that shows weekly reflection by the author in a learning journal. Each number in this journal is an important point that will come in handy while writing a reflective assignment.

An annotated bibliography has two parts:

• Citation, and

The citation format follows the formatting suggested by a professor’s preferred referencing style (such as MLA or APA). The annotation part is usually 100-300 words long and gives you a quick glimpse of why a source was selected for the writing piece.

Here’s an Annotated Bibliography assignment format example in the MLA style:

Expert Tips on How to Format Assignments

Our essay writing help providers say that they cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading assignment writing guidelines shared by your instructor. Understanding each instruction clearly and following it while writing the assignment can pull up your grades significantly.

Make sure that you understand the writing task perfectly. The way an assignment question is framed impacts the assignment format you should be using. If you misinterpret the type of assignment you need to write, you’ll probably end up using the wrong assignment format.

In case of a doubt regarding assignment format or how to present your answer, cross-check with your instructor. Or seek assistance from our assignment help experts. Our online assignment assistance experts are not only subject experts but also adept at all kinds of academic writing formats. 

Read through academic writing styles and referencing formats carefully. You will need to use their stylistic guidelines until you graduate from the program. 

You may also check some assignment format examples and samples available online to get an idea of how to write your assignment.

You may also check:   How to Write a Perfect Assignment?

Look for help with college assignment format?

Each course has specific assignment writing requirements. Most professors and teachers share them with the syllabus of the course or when they assign tasks to you. If you still need assistance, we, at GoAssignmentHelp, are always ready to help you.

We are the leading assignment help service providers in the US and have some of the best online assignment writers on our platform. Whether you need help with writing essays, dissertations, theses, or homework, we bring you some of the most qualified and experienced subject experts from American cities like New York , Los Angeles , Chicago , Houston , Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Diego, and more.

Wondering how to structure an assignment? Submit Your Question Here! 

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Understanding Writing Assignments

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How to Decipher the Paper Assignment

Many instructors write their assignment prompts differently. By following a few steps, you can better understand the requirements for the assignment. The best way, as always, is to ask the instructor about anything confusing.

• Read the prompt the entire way through once. This gives you an overall view of what is going on.
• Underline or circle the portions that you absolutely must know. This information may include due date, research (source) requirements, page length, and format (MLA, APA, CMS).
• Underline or circle important phrases. You should know your instructor at least a little by now - what phrases do they use in class? Does he repeatedly say a specific word? If these are in the prompt, you know the instructor wants you to use them in the assignment.
• Think about how you will address the prompt. The prompt contains clues on how to write the assignment. Your instructor will often describe the ideas they want discussed either in questions, in bullet points, or in the text of the prompt. Think about each of these sentences and number them so that you can write a paragraph or section of your essay on that portion if necessary.
• Rank ideas in descending order, from most important to least important. Instructors may include more questions or talking points than you can cover in your assignment, so rank them in the order you think is more important. One area of the prompt may be more interesting to you than another.
• Ask your instructor questions if you have any.

After you are finished with these steps, ask yourself the following:

• What is the purpose of this assignment? Is my purpose to provide information without forming an argument, to construct an argument based on research, or analyze a poem and discuss its imagery?
• Who is my audience? Is my instructor my only audience? Who else might read this? Will it be posted online? What are my readers' needs and expectations?
• What resources do I need to begin work? Do I need to conduct literature (hermeneutic or historical) research, or do I need to review important literature on the topic and then conduct empirical research, such as a survey or an observation? How many sources are required?
• Who - beyond my instructor - can I contact to help me if I have questions? Do you have a writing lab or student service center that offers tutorials in writing?

(Notes on prompts made in blue )

Poster or Song Analysis: Poster or Song? Poster!

Goals : To systematically consider the rhetorical choices made in either a poster or a song. She says that all the time.

Things to Consider: ah- talking points

• how the poster addresses its audience and is affected by context I'll do this first - 1.
• general layout, use of color, contours of light and shade, etc.
• use of contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity C.A.R.P. They say that, too. I'll do this third - 3.
• the point of view the viewer is invited to take, poses of figures in the poster, etc. any text that may be present
• possible cultural ramifications or social issues that have bearing I'll cover this second - 2.
• ethical implications
• how the poster affects us emotionally, or what mood it evokes
• the poster's implicit argument and its effectiveness said that was important in class, so I'll discuss this last - 4.
• how the song addresses its audience
• lyrics: how they rhyme, repeat, what they say
• use of music, tempo, different instruments
• possible cultural ramifications or social issues that have bearing
• emotional effects
• the implicit argument and its effectiveness

These thinking points are not a step-by-step guideline on how to write your paper; instead, they are various means through which you can approach the subject. I do expect to see at least a few of them addressed, and there are other aspects that may be pertinent to your choice that have not been included in these lists. You will want to find a central idea and base your argument around that. Additionally, you must include a copy of the poster or song that you are working with. Really important!

I will be your audience. This is a formal paper, and you should use academic conventions throughout.

Length: 4 pages Format: Typed, double-spaced, 10-12 point Times New Roman, 1 inch margins I need to remember the format stuff. I messed this up last time =(

Academic Argument Essay

5-7 pages, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins.

Minimum of five cited sources: 3 must be from academic journals or books

• Design Plan due: Thurs. 10/19
• Rough Draft due: Monday 10/30
• Final Draft due: Thurs. 11/9

Remember this! I missed the deadline last time

The design plan is simply a statement of purpose, as described on pages 40-41 of the book, and an outline. The outline may be formal, as we discussed in class, or a printout of an Open Mind project. It must be a minimum of 1 page typed information, plus 1 page outline.

This project is an expansion of your opinion editorial. While you should avoid repeating any of your exact phrases from Project 2, you may reuse some of the same ideas. Your topic should be similar. You must use research to support your position, and you must also demonstrate a fairly thorough knowledge of any opposing position(s). 2 things to do - my position and the opposite.

Your essay should begin with an introduction that encapsulates your topic and indicates 1 the general trajectory of your argument. You need to have a discernable thesis that appears early in your paper. Your conclusion should restate the thesis in different words, 2 and then draw some additional meaningful analysis out of the developments of your argument. Think of this as a "so what" factor. What are some implications for the future, relating to your topic? What does all this (what you have argued) mean for society, or for the section of it to which your argument pertains? A good conclusion moves outside the topic in the paper and deals with a larger issue.

You should spend at least one paragraph acknowledging and describing the opposing position in a manner that is respectful and honestly representative of the opposition’s 3 views. The counterargument does not need to occur in a certain area, but generally begins or ends your argument. Asserting and attempting to prove each aspect of your argument’s structure should comprise the majority of your paper. Ask yourself what your argument assumes and what must be proven in order to validate your claims. Then go step-by-step, paragraph-by-paragraph, addressing each facet of your position. Most important part!

Finally, pay attention to readability . Just because this is a research paper does not mean that it has to be boring. Use examples and allow your opinion to show through word choice and tone. Proofread before you turn in the paper. Your audience is generally the academic community and specifically me, as a representative of that community. Ok, They want this to be easy to read, to contain examples I find, and they want it to be grammatically correct. I can visit the tutoring center if I get stuck, or I can email the OWL Email Tutors short questions if I have any more problems.

How to Write a Perfect Assignment: Step-By-Step Guide

Table of contents

• 1 How to Structure an Assignment?
• 2.1 The research part
• 2.2 Planning your text
• 2.3 Writing major parts
• 3 Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment
• 4 Will I succeed with my assignments?
• 5 Conclusion

How to Structure an Assignment?

To cope with assignments, you should familiarize yourself with the tips on formatting and presenting assignments or any written paper, which are given below. It is worth paying attention to the content of the paper, making it structured and understandable so that ideas are not lost and thoughts do not refute each other.

If the topic is free or you can choose from the given list — be sure to choose the one you understand best. Especially if that could affect your semester score or scholarship. It is important to select an  engaging title that is contextualized within your topic. A topic that should captivate you or at least give you a general sense of what is needed there. It’s easier to dwell upon what interests you, so the process goes faster.

To construct an assignment structure, use outlines. These are pieces of text that relate to your topic. It can be ideas, quotes, all your thoughts, or disparate arguments. Type in everything that you think about. Separate thoughts scattered across the sheets of Word will help in the next step.

Then it is time to form the text. At this stage, you have to form a coherent story from separate pieces, where each new thought reinforces the previous one, and one idea smoothly flows into another.

Main Steps of Assignment Writing

These are steps to take to get a worthy paper. If you complete these step-by-step, your text will be among the most exemplary ones.

The research part

If the topic is unique and no one has written about it yet, look at materials close to this topic to gain thoughts about it. You should feel that you are ready to express your thoughts. Also, while reading, get acquainted with the format of the articles, study the details, collect material for your thoughts, and accumulate different points of view for your article. Be careful at this stage, as the process can help you develop your ideas. If you are already struggling here, pay for assignment to be done , and it will be processed in a split second via special services. These services are especially helpful when the deadline is near as they guarantee fast delivery of high-quality papers on any subject.

If you use Google to search for material for your assignment, you will, of course, find a lot of information very quickly. Still, the databases available on your library’s website will give you the clearest and most reliable facts that satisfy your teacher or professor. Be sure you copy the addresses of all the web pages you will use when composing your paper, so you don’t lose them. You can use them later in your bibliography if you add a bit of description! Select resources and extract quotes from them that you can use while working. At this stage, you may also create a  request for late assignment if you realize the paper requires a lot of effort and is time-consuming. This way, you’ll have a backup plan if something goes wrong.

Planning your text

Assemble a layout. It may be appropriate to use the structure of the paper of some outstanding scientists in your field and argue it in one of the parts. As the planning progresses, you can add suggestions that come to mind. If you use citations that require footnotes, and if you use single spacing throughout the paper and double spacing at the end, it will take you a very long time to make sure that all the citations are on the exact pages you specified! Add a reference list or bibliography. If you haven’t already done so, don’t put off writing an essay until the last day. It will be more difficult to do later as you will be stressed out because of time pressure.

Writing major parts

It happens that there is simply no mood or strength to get started and zero thoughts. In that case, postpone this process for 2-3 hours, and, perhaps, soon, you will be able to start with renewed vigor. Writing essays is a great (albeit controversial) way to improve your skills. This experience will not be forgotten. It will certainly come in handy and bring many benefits in the future. Do your best here because asking for an extension is not always possible, so you probably won’t have time to redo it later. And the quality of this part defines the success of the whole paper.

Writing the major part does not mean the matter is finished. To review the text, make sure that the ideas of the introduction and conclusion coincide because such a discrepancy is the first thing that will catch the reader’s eye and can spoil the impression. Add or remove anything from your intro to edit it to fit the entire paper. Also, check your spelling and grammar to ensure there are no typos or draft comments. Check the sources of your quotes so that your it is honest and does not violate any rules. And do not forget the formatting rules.

with the right tips and guidance, it can be easier than it looks. To make the process even more straightforward, students can also use an assignment service to get the job done. This way they can get professional assistance and make sure that their assignments are up to the mark. At PapersOwl, we provide a professional writing service where students can order custom-made assignments that meet their exact requirements.

Expert Tips for your Writing Assignment

Want to write like a pro? Here’s what you should consider:

• Save the document! Send the finished document by email to yourself so you have a backup copy in case your computer crashes.
• Don’t wait until the last minute to complete a list of citations or a bibliography after the paper is finished. It will be much longer and more difficult, so add to them as you go.
• If you find a lot of information on the topic of your search, then arrange it in a separate paragraph.
• If possible, choose a topic that you know and are interested in.
• Believe in yourself! If you set yourself up well and use your limited time wisely, you will be able to deliver the paper on time.
• Do not copy information directly from the Internet without citing them.

Writing assignments is a tedious and time-consuming process. It requires a lot of research and hard work to produce a quality paper. However, if you are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty understanding the concept, you may want to consider getting accounting homework help online . Professional experts can assist you in understanding how to complete your assignment effectively. PapersOwl.com offers expert help from highly qualified and experienced writers who can provide you with the homework help you need.

Will I succeed with my assignments?

Anyone can learn how to be good at writing: follow simple rules of creating the structure and be creative where it is appropriate. At one moment, you will need some additional study tools, study support, or solid study tips. And you can easily get help in writing assignments or any other work. This is especially useful since the strategy of learning how to write an assignment can take more time than a student has.

Therefore all students are happy that there is an option to  order your paper at a professional service to pass all the courses perfectly and sleep still at night. You can also find the sample of the assignment there to check if you are on the same page and if not — focus on your papers more diligently.

So, in the times of studies online, the desire and skill to research and write may be lost. Planning your assignment carefully and presenting arguments step-by-step is necessary to succeed with your homework. When going through your references, note the questions that appear and answer them, building your text. Create a cover page, proofread the whole text, and take care of formatting. Feel free to use these rules for passing your next assignments.

When it comes to writing an assignment, it can be overwhelming and stressful, but Papersowl is here to make it easier for you. With a range of helpful resources available, Papersowl can assist you in creating high-quality written work, regardless of whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing draft. From conducting research to creating an outline, and from proofreading to formatting, the team at Papersowl has the expertise to guide you through the entire writing process and ensure that your assignment meets all the necessary requirements.

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Tips For College Assignment Heading

Table of Contents

An assignment heading is effective only when it is clear, concise, and relevant. It should include title, course name, and the student’s name. To improve the quality of your work, you can seek a  college assignment help too. You’ll need to understand the following aspects when writing a college paper: Title, Purpose and the MLA Style. Page length is also important. These are tips for college assignment titles. The MLA format is the best format to use to write research papers. These tips will help you create an essay to college. Making sure your essay is formatted correctly using MLA formatting is crucial.

The title page will be the most important thing your professor is likely to see. It must meet two main goals in order to provide the reader with the necessary details, and also to create a good impression. In this post, we’ll review the proper layout for your title page and provide suggestions on how you can make it stand out from the other papers. For tips and tricks on designing a title page which is memorable for canada assignment help follow this article.

The cover page of the college project should have the student’s name as well as the institution or college that gave the assignment and the due date. In some cases, you’ll have to make a declaration regarding plagiarism on your paper. It states that the writing is completely original and was not copied from another source. Different assignment types require different covers pages. Therefore, you need to consult your academic adviser or your professor for the appropriate one that matches the type of paper you are writing and your academic style.

The best way to begin an assignment is by stating the assignment’s purpose. For most educational settings it will be in the form of the name of the professor, such as “Professor Jones,” “Dr. Jones,” or simply “Jones.” This may include a code for the course, but ensure that you clearly label it. An incorrect course description can result in a deduction of a grade. These are some helpful tips for starting your college project.

First, you’ll need to determine the format of the paper. A header is required for all documents. It refers to the page number located on the left-hand side of the page. The font style for a heading should be a recognizable one, such as Times New Roman. Arial, Lucina and Palermo are the most acceptable fonts to use for college essays. For college papers it is recommended to follow the standards of the Modern Language Association. This means that the both names of the author be mentioned in the title and all lines be lined towards the left.

In MLA format, headings for college papers provide the most important information upfront. This helps discern who wrote the assignment and also who’s instructing. While it may seem more professional to address professors or instructors by their full names, this is acceptable. Instructors or professors will provide specific instructions for students. Particular guidelines must be followed in the MLA formats for headings of college assignments.

The heading should use the same typeface as the remainder of the paper. It is important to consider readability when choosing the right font. A font that is difficult to read could create difficulties. Times New Roman is the best choice for paper following MLA format. A header should only be located on the front page. It is recommended to include a header on every subsequent page.

Page length

Headings for college assignments, there are specific format rules. The first line and last line of the heading must be one-inch apart. The college assignment’s initial page should have a number, and it must include instructors’ names, dates of birth and student as well as the date and course names. It is important to adhere to the guidelines for style set by the institution. It is possible to experiment with various styles of fonts in case you do not want to go with the traditional font.

Reference to

Within the body of college projects In the body of college assignments, a reference list needs to be provided. This page should be clearly marked with the author’s name and affiliation as well as the date of publication as well as the editor. In this part, you must also cite the source you have employed. This page should be referenced as references. Make sure you acknowledge the author of the original source in order to not commit plagiarism.

References are listed by alphabetical order. As an example, the initial phrase in a reference should be the name of the author, or, if the author is unknown, the first word of the title. Following the author’s name then the comma must be followed by a colon or a period. If the source cites two or more works the works should be listed alphabetically separated with a semi-colon. It is in accordance with APA style

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How to Write an Effective Assignment

At their base, all assignment prompts function a bit like a magnifying glass—they allow a student to isolate, focus on, inspect, and interact with some portion of your course material through a fixed lens of your choosing.

The Key Components of an Effective Assignment Prompt

All assignments, from ungraded formative response papers all the way up to a capstone assignment, should include the following components to ensure that students and teachers understand not only the learning objective of the assignment, but also the discrete steps which they will need to follow in order to complete it successfully:

• Preamble.  This situates the assignment within the context of the course, reminding students of what they have been working on in anticipation of the assignment and how that work has prepared them to succeed at it. 
• Justification and Purpose.  This explains why the particular type or genre of assignment you’ve chosen (e.g., lab report, policy memo, problem set, or personal reflection) is the best way for you and your students to measure how well they’ve met the learning objectives associated with this segment of the course.
• Mission.  This explains the assignment in broad brush strokes, giving students a general sense of the project you are setting before them. It often gives students guidance on the evidence or data they should be working with, as well as helping them imagine the audience their work should be aimed at.  
• Tasks.  This outlines what students are supposed to do at a more granular level: for example, how to start, where to look, how to ask for help, etc. If written well, this part of the assignment prompt ought to function as a kind of "process" rubric for students, helping them to decide for themselves whether they are completing the assignment successfully.
• Submission format.  This tells students, in appropriate detail, which stylistic conventions they should observe and how to submit their work. For example, should the assignment be a five-page paper written in APA format and saved as a .docx file? Should it be uploaded to the course website? Is it due by Tuesday at 5:00pm?

For illustrations of these five components in action, visit our gallery of annotated assignment prompts .

For advice about creative assignments (e.g. podcasts, film projects, visual and performing art projects, etc.), visit our  Guidance on Non-Traditional Forms of Assessment .

For specific advice on different genres of assignment, click below:

Response Papers

Problem sets, source analyses, final exams, concept maps, research papers, oral presentations, poster presentations.

• Learner-Centered Design
• Putting Evidence at the Center
• What Should Students Learn?
• Start with the Capstone
• Gallery of Annotated Assignment Prompts
• Scaffolding: Using Frequency and Sequencing Intentionally
• Curating Content: The Virtue of Modules
• Syllabus Design
• Catalogue Materials
• Making a Course Presentation Video
• Teaching Teams
• In the Classroom
• Getting Feedback
• Equitable & Inclusive Teaching
• Advising and Mentoring
• Teaching and Your Career
• Teaching Remotely
• Tools and Platforms
• The Science of Learning
• Bok Publications
• Other Resources Around Campus

How to write an assignment format?

Mar 29, 2023 | Assignment Writing | 0 comments

An accurate assignment format in English words is one of the top reasons behind students’ academic success.This writing will state the guidelines for writing different academic assignments with correct formats and a sample template elaborating its importance.

If you cannot comprehend the assignment writing template or feel lost in structuring academic writing according to the guidelines provided by the instructor, ask for professional help.

Click here, if you want to know Why is Time Management Important?

• Table of Contents

What is an essay assignment format?

How to start an essay format?

When starting your own writing in APA, the first thing that comes to mind is a clear comprehension of the basic format for writing assignment. The instructor usually gives students formatting instructions for their assignments, such as file type, font, layout, word count, APA referencing style, heading requirements and footers on Microsoft word, numbering, and headings.

If you’re not sure about formatting your assignment, read on to learn about some typical assignment writing forms with examples or simply hire an online assignment help for the best APA presentation. The professional essay writers of such service companies work on a case study assignment format word each day and hence deliver you the most accurate file format of your particular task. Even for Spanish Homework help you can connect with us and get the necessary help at reasonable prices.

Why is formatting important?

Formatting and presenting is essential to gain good grades. Likewise, it is also crucial for students to get all the information on What is a Number Sentence to get good grades.

The format of assignment of college is split, and the marks are allotted under various categories and subcategories that include

• formatting and layout
• APA referencing
• writing style
• Grammar and spelling.

Remember formatting is also important because you need to have improved academic performance

How many types of format to write for an assignment?

There are several formats of assignment question writing. The main formats of an academic writing assignment include APA format, MLA, Chicago/ Turabian, and Harvard.

The formatting and presenting of academic papers vary depending on the type and subject. In most cases, there are also references to other sources used in the article. Students often want to know about how many words in a paragraph ? Here you will get all the details.

How to prepare the assignment format?

Take a note of the following points when you start writing assignments:

Consider the Instructions 

Your research supervisor has assigned an assignment letter format so that they may assess your grasp of the course material and grade you appropriately. For a given reason, your instructor wishes you to consider something in a certain manner and follow academic integrity.

Do you know the 10 Top Rules to Improve Your Assignment in 2022 ? The above point is one

Note that you may begin to comprehend the instructor’s plan, aim, or technique for the subject matter by reading the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, reviewing the assigned readings, and pondering the assignment itself. If you’re still unsure about the essays, ask your instructor for more information about the materials and the writing style.

Learn the basic structure 

The following are the six parts of a university assignment. In addition, certain presentation schemes may be required. For instance, using a valid referencing style, leaving sufficient margins, line spacing, page numbers, and font style and font size is essential

• Introduction

Consider the material and evidence.

There are several types of proof, and the sort that works for your assignment might be determined by many factors—the subject, the assignment’s limits, and your instructor’s preferences. When it comes to the ad copy, however, this method may be more successful. Should you use statistics? Is there a historical example with a due date that can help you make an informed decision? Do you need to experiment to determine if statistical significance is possible? Is relying on personal experience sufficient here?

Format is important

It’s essential to follow a few formatting standards. Check out the sample university assignment format to assist you with this.

• Use a simple, legible font, such as Verdana, Calibri, Tahoma, or Arial.
• Use black text on the white background to create contrast.
• Unless you have special permission to utilize them, avoid using colors other than black or white in backgrounds or text.
• The body should have 11 or 12 points.
• Use 1.5 spacing and 2.53 cm (1″) wide margins for the heading and body of your document.
• Place your work in a left-justified, single column (also known as left-aligned) position.
• BOLD and Arial are commonly used for headings.

Title page guidelines

• A title page is necessary for almost every project. It should include the following items:
• Title of the assignment
• Name and contact details for the instructor, if different from above.
• The course name and number.
• Your last Name or student ID number appears at the top left corner—either in a header or on its own line.
• In-text citations/references list (and Works Cited page
• Figure and table labels should be numbered and clearly identified.
• List the numbers in numerical order just as they appear on your test.
• Don’t use numbers to identify items in a reference list.

Footers and headers

On every new page assignments except the title page, add a header or footer (except for first names and student numbers). It should include your Name (Last Name, first name/s), your student number, the course code, and the assignment number.

Also read: Ultimate guide on how to write a short essay

Assinment writing template

Here we will discuss some formatting templates for the complete understanding of the many assignments.

Case study assignment format:

   Title page: It contains the Title of the case study, your name, and section number.

Introduction: The introduction is about what you will be discussing in your assignment or where/how you got information for this topic. You must include a clear definition of the situation under consideration so that it does not appear vague. Know more about the Spanish assignment here.

Discussion: In this section, you must discuss whether or not the proposed solution has worked. You may also include other ways in which the problem could be handled. It is important to mention your opinion about what should happen now because it will help someone reading the case study later know where they stand on solving a similar situation.

Research paper format

A research paper outline has got the following parts

• Â Â Â Title of the Research
• Â Â Â Abstract
• Â Â Â Table of Contents
• Â Â Â Introduction
• Â Â Â Research Methodology
• Â Â Â Findings and discussions
• Â Â Â Conclusions
• Â Â Â References and Citations
• Â Â Â Appendices

Essay format

The format of an essay consists of the following five parts:

• Â Â Â Thesis Statement
• Â Â Â Conclusion
• Â Â Â Citations

A paragraph of text may be divided into three parts: the paragraph’s topic sentence, supporting details, and a conclusion.

What is the report format for assignment?

Students are frequently required to complete a project report as an academic exercise in a particular field such as marketing analysis assignment. Most professors want the report to be written at an academic level. The following is the structure of a project report:

• Â Â Â Title Page
• Â Â Â Acknowledgement
• Â Â Â Problem definition
• Â Â Â Objective
• Â Â Â Background
• Â Â Â Methodology
• Â Â Â Analysis
• Â Â Â Discussion
• Â Â Â Conclusion / Recommendations
• Â Â Â References / Bibliography

Similarly, you will have business assignment format, college assignment format, and so on.

APA style formatting tips

• Use the same font for the entire paper, including the Title and any headings.
• Use a sans-serif typeface between 8 and 14 points in figures. 10-point Lucida Console or Courier New is good monospace fonts for displaying computer code.
• Footnotes : A single line spacing, 10-point font

Line Spacing:

With the following exceptions, double-space the entire paper: The title page, abstract, text, headings, block quotations, reference list, table, and figure notes.

• Table and figures: Depending on what you decide creates the best impression, table and figure words may be single, one-and-a-half, or double spaced.
• Footnotes: Footnotes referring to the bottom of a page may be single-spaced and set to your word processing program’s default settings, such as Microsoft Word.
• Equations: Before and after equations are generally double-spaced; however, the students may triple- or quadruple-space them.
• Set margins at 1 in. (2.54 cm) on all sides of the page (top, bottom, left, and right)
• If your course or lecturer has specified particular margins (for example, 3cm on the left side), you should adhere to them.
• Create a crooked right margin (or leave it uneven).
• Do not use full justification, which changes the spacing between words to make all lines equal length (flush with the margins).
• Split words manually after a line.

Indentations:

Remove any line breaks from your file. The first sentence should be indented by five spaces (or more, if desired). For uniformity, indent the first line of each paragraph using the tab key. Most word-processing applications offer good starting points of the same font. The essay’s remaining paragraphs should all be left-aligned.

Exceptions to the paragraph indentation requirements are as follows:

• The title pages should be in the middle of the book.
• Block quotations are indented 1.27 cm (0.5 in).
• The center is used for level 1 headings, including appendix titles. Level 2 and 3 headings are left-aligned, as well as table and figure captions, notes, and so on.
• All text is flush left.

Reference List:

After the text but before any appendices, start a new page and create a reference list. Call the list References (italicized). All references are double-spaced. Apply a hanging indent to all of your citations (the first line is flush left, with each subsequent line indented 1.27 cm (0.5 in)). To

Level 1 Heading – Centered, Bold, Title Case

Level 2 Heading – Flush Left, Bold, Title Case

Level 3 Heading – Flush Left, Bold, Italic, Title Case

Level 4 Heading Indented, Bold, Title Case Heading, Ending With a Full Stop. 

Level 5 Heading, Bold, Italic, Title Case Heading, Ending with a Full Stop.

Essays and assignments look good when you follow the proper guidelines. 

See more:  Tips To Write a Good Thesis Defense

So now, when you know the way of presenting your assignment writing, use the tips and write every assignment with confidence.

You can also learn how to write a peer review here!

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AI Detectors Get It Wrong. Writers Are Being Fired Anyway

Ai is already stealing writers’ work. now they’re losing jobs over false accusations of using it..

Kimberly Gasuras doesn’t use AI. “I don’t need it,” she said. “I’ve been a news reporter for 24 years. How do you think I did all that work?” That logic wasn’t enough to save her job.

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As a local journalist in Bucyrus, Ohio, Gasuras relies on side hustles to pay the bills. For a while, she made good money on a freelance writing platform called WritersAccess, where she wrote blogs and other content for small and midsize companies. But halfway through 2023, the income plummeted as some clients switched to ChatGPT for their writing needs. It was already a difficult time. Then the email came.

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“I only got one warning,” Gasuras said. “I got this message saying they’d flagged my work as AI using a tool called ‘Originality.’” She was dumbfounded. Gasuras wrote back to defend her innocence, but she never got a response. Originality costs money, but Gasuras started running her work through other AI detectors before submitting to make sure she wasn’t getting dinged by mistake. A few months later, WritersAccess kicked her off the platform anyway. “They said my account was suspended due to excessive use of AI. I couldn’t believe it,” Gasuras said. WritersAccess did not respond to a request for comment.

When ChatGPT set the world on fire a year and a half ago, it sparked a feverish search for ways to catch people trying to pass off AI text as their own writing. A host of startups launched to fill the void through AI detection tools, with names including Copyleaks, GPTZero, Originality.AI, and Winston AI. It makes for a tidy business in a landscape full of AI boogeymen.

These companies advertise peace of mind, a way to take back control through “proof” and “accountability.” Some advertise accuracy rates as high as 99.98%. But a growing body of experts, studies, and industry insiders argue these tools are far less reliable than their makers promise. There’s no question that AI detectors make frequent mistakes, and innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire. Countless students have been accused of AI plagiarism , but a quieter epidemic is happening in the professional world. Some writing gigs are drying up thanks to chatbots . As people fight over the dwindling field of work, writers are losing jobs over false accusations from AI detectors.

“This technology doesn’t work the way people are advertising it,” said Bars Juhasz, co-founder of Undetectable AI, which makes tools to help people humanize AI text to sneak it past detection software. “We have a lot of concerns around the reliability of the training process these AI detectors use. These guys are claiming they have 99% accuracy, and based on our work, I think that’s impossible. But even if it’s true, that still means for every 100 people there’s going to be one false flag. We’re talking about people’s livelihoods and their reputations.”

Safeguard, or snake oil?

In general, AI detectors work by spotting the hallmarks of AI penmanship, such as perfect grammar and punctuation. In fact, it seems one of the easiest ways to get your work flagged is to use Grammarly, a tool that checks for spelling and grammatical errors. It even suggests ways to rewrite sentences using, you guessed it, artificial intelligence. Adding insult to injury, Gizmodo spoke to writers who said they were fired by platforms that required them to use Grammarly. (Gizmodo confirmed the details of these stories, but we are excluding the names of certain freelance platforms because writers signed non-disclosure agreements.)

Writers, experts, and even AI detection companies themselves said that using Grammarly can get your writing flagged as AI-generated. However, Jenny Maxwell, Grammarly’s head of education, disputed those claims. “There is no evidence linking AI detection flags and the use of Grammarly suggestions. Suggestions like our clarity rewrites are not powered by generative AI,” Maxwell said. Grammarly does offer generative AI tools that write content from scratch, though these suggestions don’t appear automatically. These features “should and would” trigger AI detection, she said.

Detectors look for more telling factors as well, such as “burstiness.” Human writers are more likely to reuse certain words in clusters or bursts, while AI is more likely to distribute words evenly across a document. AI detectors can also assess “perplexity,” which essentially asks an AI to measure the likelihood that it would have produced a piece of text given the model’s training data. Some companies, such as industry leader Originaility.AI, train their own AI language models specially made to detect the work of other AIs, which are meant to spot patterns that are too complex for the human mind.

However, none of these techniques are foolproof, and many major institutions have backed away from this class of tools. OpenAI released its own AI detector to quell fears about its products in 2023 but pulled the tool off the market just months later “due to its low rate of accuracy .” The academic world was first to adopt AI detectors, but false accusations pushed a long list of universities to ban the use of AI detection software , including Vanderbilt, Michigan State, Northwestern, and the University of Texas at Austin.

AI detection companies “are in the business of selling snake oil,” said Debora Weber-Wulff, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics in Berlin, who co-authored a recent paper about the effectiveness of AI detection. According to Weber-Wulff, research shows that AI detectors are inaccurate, unreliable, and easy to fool. “People want to believe that there can be some magic software that solves their problems,” she said. But “computer software cannot solve social problems. We have to find other solutions.”

The companies that make AI detectors say they’re a necessary but imperfect tool in a world inundated by robot-generated text. There’s a significant demand for these services, whether or not they’re effective.

Alex Cui, chief technology officer for the AI detection company GPTZero, said detectors have meaningful shortcomings, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. “We see a future where, if nothing is changed, the internet becomes more and more dictated by AI, whether it’s news, peer-reviewed articles, marketing. You don’t even know if the person you’re talking to on social media is real,” Cui said. “We need a solution for confirming knowledge en masse, and determining whether content is high quality, authentic, and of legitimate authorship.”

A necessary evil?

Mark, another Ohio-based copywriter who asked that we withhold his name to avoid professional repercussions, said he had to take work doing maintenance at a local store after an AI detector cost him his job.

“I got an email saying my most recent article had scored a 95% likelihood of AI generation,” Mark said. “I was in shock. It felt ridiculous that they’d accuse me after working together for three years, long before ChatGPT was available.”

He tried to push back. Mark sent his client a copy of the Google Doc where he drafted the article, which included timestamps that demonstrated he wrote the document by hand. It wasn’t enough. Mark’s relationship with the writing platform fell apart. He said losing the job cost him 90% of his income.

“We hear these stories more than we wish we did, and we understand the pain that false positives cause writers when the work they poured their heart and soul into gets falsely accused,” said Jonathan Gillham, CEO of Originality.AI. “We feel like we feel like we’re building a tool to help writers, but we know that at times it does have some consequences.”

But according to Gillham, the problem is about more than helping writers or providing accountability. “Google is aggressively going after AI spam,” he said. “We’ve heard from companies that had their entire site de-indexed by Google that said they didn’t even know their writers were using AI.”

It’s true that the internet is being flooded by low-effort content farms that pump out junky AI articles in an effort to game search results, get clicks, and make ad money from those eyeballs. Google is cracking down on these sites , which leads some companies to believe that their websites will be down-ranked if Google detects any AI writing whatsoever. That’s a problem for web-based businesses, and increasingly the No. 1 selling point for AI detectors. Originality promotes itself as a way to “future proof your site on Google” at the top of the list of benefits on its homepage.

A Google spokesperson said this completely misinterprets the company’s policies. Google, a company that provides AI, said it has no problem with AI content in and of itself. “It’s inaccurate to say Google penalizes websites simply because they may use some AI-generated content,” the spokesperson said. “As we’ve clearly stated, low value content that’s created at scale to manipulate Search rankings is spam, however it is produced. Our automated systems determine what appears in top search results based on signals that indicate if content is helpful and high quality.”

Mixed messages

No one claims AI detectors are perfect, including the companies that make them. But Originality and other AI detectors send mixed messages about how their tools should be used. For example, Gillham said “we advise against the tool being used within academia, and strongly recommend against being used for disciplinary action.” He explained the risk of false positives is too high for students, because they submit a small number of essays throughout a school year, but the volume of work produced by a professional writer means the algorithm has more chances to get it right. However, on one of the company’s blog posts , Originality says AI detection is “essential” in the classroom.

Then there are questions about how the results are presented. Many of the writers Gizmodo spoke to said their clients don’t understand the limitations of AI detectors or even what the results are actually saying. It’s easy to see how someone might be confused: I ran one of my own articles through Originality’s AI detector. The results were “70% Original” and “30% AI.” You might assume that means Originality determined that 30% of the article was written by a chatbot, especially because the tool highlights specific sentences it finds suspect. However, it’s actually a confidence score; Originality is 70% sure a human wrote the text. (I wrote the whole thing myself, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

Then there’s the way the company describes its algorithm. According to Originality, the latest version of its tool has a 98.8% accuracy rate, but Originality also says its false positive rate is 2.8%. If you’ve got your calculator handy, you’ll notice that adds up to more than 100%. Gillham said that’s because these numbers come from two different tests.

In Originality’s defense, the company provides a detailed explanation of how you should interpret the information right below the results, along with links to more detailed writeups about how to use the tool. It seems that isn’t enough, though. Gizmodo spoke to multiple writers who said they had to argue with clients who misunderstood the Originality tool.

Originality has published numerous blog posts and studies about accuracy and other issues, including the dataset and methodology it used to develop and measure its own tools. However, Weber-Wulff at the University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics in Berlin said the details about Originality’s methodology “were not that clear.”

A number of experts Gizmodo spoke to, such as Juhasz of Undetectable AI, said they had concerns about businesses across the AI detection industry inflating their accuracy rates and misleading their customers. Representatives for GPTZero and Originality AI said their companies are committed to openness and transparency. Both companies said they go out of their way to provide clear information about the limitations and shortcomings of their tools.

It might feel like being against AI detectors is being on the side of writers, but according to Gillham the opposite is true. “If there are no detectors, then the competition for writing jobs increases and as a result the pay drops,” he said. “Detectors are the difference between a writer being able to do their work, submit content, and get compensated for it, and somebody being able to just copy and paste something from ChatGPT.”

On the other hand, all of the copywriters Gizmodo spoke to said the AI detectors are the problem.

“AI is the future. There’s nothing we can do to stop it, but in my opinion that’s not the issue. I can see lots of ways AI can be useful,” Mark said. “It’s these detectors. They are the ones that are saying with utmost certainty that they can detect AI writing, and they’re the ones who are making our clients on edge and paranoid and putting us out of jobs.”

This article has been updated to include comment from Grammarly’s Jenny Maxwell.

Former ‘Late Late Show’ Head Writer Ian Karmel Talks Losing 200 Pounds in New Memoir and Writing Jokes for Ellen’s Farewell Tour

By Lexi Carson

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Ian Karmel , comedian and Emmy-winning former co-head writer for “ The Late Late Show With James Corden ,” describes his journey from childhood to working through internal struggles that led him to drop 200 pounds in his recent memoir “T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People.”

The cover of the book echoes the title, portraying a kid at the beach. Karmel says he was inspired to use that image because he “thought that anyone who was a fat kid would know that feeling.”

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“This book, it’s not just for fat people, it’s also for anyone who has been bullied or anyone who has family members or loved ones or anything like that, who have been fat at any stage of their life, or even anyone who wants to understand them better,” Karmel says. “I think everyone’s been bullied. Kids are scared, and when you’re scared, you’re mean. Everyone goes through it at some degree.”

However, Karmel has chosen to turn to humor in his hard times.

Karmel says he and Corden talked about being “fat kids” all the time. “For [Corden] and I, being fat entertainers, and making fun of yourself and using your fatness and your body to get laughs and everything like that was something we had an ongoing dialogue about the entire run of ‘The Late Late Show.'”

While Karmel and Corden made jokes about weight, they never had open and real conversations about it until a 2019 “Real Time with Bill Maher” segment urged people to bring back fat shaming. This prompted Karmel and Corden to write a segment in response and use their platform to clap back at the “condescending bulls—t!”

During his eight years working on “The Late Late Show With James Corden,” he reached his peak weight—420 pounds. After a scary visit to the doctor, Karmel decided to start making changes in his lifestyle.

“My blood pressure was 200, over 100 and something and I was really unhealthy. When a doctor comes in and says, very seriously, ‘You could die from this, that’s the kind of blood pressure where you could have a heart attack or a stroke, those are very realistic things that can happen,'” he says. “The idea of having to lose 200 pounds, that’s like saying, ‘Oh, hey, why don’t you build a rocket ship or climb to the top of Mount Everest.'”

In a world where weight loss drugs like Ozempic are now the new normal, Karmel lost weight the old-fashioned way. He says he prepares meals in advance, weighs himself regularly to check his progress and engages in his frequent “hot girl walks”—a phrase coined on TikTok to describe a stroll.

However, if the weight loss drug was accessible at the time, he says he “100% would have tried it.”

“When I was 420 pounds, I would have been wearing an Ozempic half shirt, drinking out of an Ozempic water bottle, rollerblading around Hollywood advertising — I would have been the poster child,” Karmel jokes.

“Our entire society is built around simultaneously punishing fat people and trying to make people as fat as possible, at the same time,” Karmel says. “It’s easier to get a cheeseburger than it is to get a salad, and then the world is cruel to the person who eats the cheeseburger. So it’s fucked.”

Looking back on his life and the experiences he’s endured, Karmel has a message he’d like to tell his younger self: “Go about your life and find the people who love you for who you are. Some people are going to bully you, and most of the other people aren’t really thinking about you at all.”

Karmel was also set to be the opening act on Ellen Degeneres ‘ upcoming farewell tour, “Ellen’s Last Stand… Up.” Although those plans have been scrapped, Karmel spent the last three months working closely with Degeneres on her material. “I listened to her tell me about her life, and tell me about the last four or five years of her life specifically and tried to synthesize that into something funny and relatable. It was one of the great challenges of my career, but also super fun,” Karmel says. “She’s very funny. She’s very creative. She’s very direct in her feedback, which I appreciate.”

Karmel says he was first in awe at the opportunity to work with the former talk show host. “She’s been really nice and professional. And when the offer came through, I couldn’t believe it. Because you almost don’t think of her as a human, because it’s Ellen. She’s one of those one-namers.”

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Russia adopts Chinese yuan-to-ruble as benchmark exchange rate after US sanctions force a further move away from the dollar

• Moscow adopted the yuan-to-ruble exchange rate as benchmark after the US expanded sanctions against it.
• The US sanctions forced the Moscow Exchange to end dollar and euro trading, causing market confusion.
• Russia's central bank reports yuan is now the main currency, accounting for 54% of trades.

Moscow is adopting the Chinese yuan-to-ruble exchange rate as its benchmark currency pair after the US expanded sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, the country's central bank said on Thursday.

The new restrictions target any global financial institution processing transactions with Russia. They also take aim at investments in Russian stock exchanges.

The new US sanctions prompted the Moscow Exchange to end dollar and euro trading on Thursday, causing confusion — since the exchange rate is now opaque. Some lenders in Russia stopped selling US dollars altogether, while the dollar-ruble rate spiked at some local banks.

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Russia's central bank appeared to seek to calm the market in a statement on Thursday. It said the role of the dollar and the euro has declined "consistently" in the last two years, according to TASS, the state news agency.

The central bank added in its statement to Russia's RBC News that the yuan has become "the main currency" on the Moscow Exchange. The yuan accounted for 54% of currency trades in May. It will "set the trajectory for other currency pairs" and be the guideline for market participants, the central bank said.

Russia's use of 'friendly currencies' and the ruble for trade has risen

Russia has been seeking alternative trading partners and payment systems since the West hit the country with sweeping sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia's central bank said on Thursday that the currencies from "friendly countries" and the ruble now account for as much as 80% of Russia's foreign trade payments.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin himself doubled down on his call to phase out the use of the US dollar and other "toxic" currencies earlier this month.

Moscow is also working with the BRICS bloc of major emerging countries on a payment platform to bypass the use of the US dollar — the world's dominant reserve currency for decades.

Meanwhile, countries around the world are also diversifying their assets and chipping away at the dominance of king dollar over fears that — like Russia — they could be shut out of the dollar-based global financial system should sanctions hit.

However, the greenback is so entrenched and pervasive that very few actually think it can be dethroned.

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Explaining cricket to a baseball expert… now that the U.S. is apparently good at it

I watch grown men in pajamas hit balls with sticks, and then I write about it.

This is my job. It’s how I afford food and shelter. Some people are experts at cardiology or architecture or cooking or fixing automobiles, but not me. I’ve devoted my whole life to grown men in pajamas hitting balls with sticks, and I’m an expert in it. The world doesn’t need baseball writers, but I’m sure glad that they want them.

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However, as a baseball writer, it’s extremely frustrating for me to watch cricket . Shouldn’t my expertise in grown men in pajamas hitting balls with sticks translate to that sport, too? It’s like a chef being an expert when it comes to cooking food in pans, only to be completely confused by pots. Aren’t they basically the same thing? How can baseball and cricket be so different, and why can’t I wrap my mind around the latter?

There’s no time like the present to figure this out, with the United States shocking Pakistan in one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport . It’s time to learn about this version of pajama stickball, so I enlisted The Athletic ’s Richard Sutcliffe, a keen cricket fan when he is not covering Wrexham and Sheffield United, to answer some questions.

I learned a lot, and maybe you will too.

Grant Brisbee : Back in the summer of 2001, I was unemployed and “searching” for a job, while also collecting unemployment. I used this time to write the Great American Novel download a bunch of video games and play them all day. I was particularly obsessed with International Cricket on the NES because I was determined to learn the rules of cricket from it.

Even though it was the best idea (and summer) I’ve ever had, it didn’t work. So now I’m here to bother you.

Richard Sutcliffe : I think we’ve all had a summer or three like that. I’m probably a bit older than you and distinctly remember playing a Spectrum 48K (told you I was getting on a bit….) game about Formula One. I had no idea about the rules, even when it came to how many points each driver earned, but still loved it. As for cricket, I can see why it’s a game that confuses, even when playing International Cricket as much as you did, Grant. How much did you pick up?

Brisbee : Very, very little. You might say that I picked up absolutely nothing at all.

I guess I’ll start with what confused me the most, which is the people running back and forth. Who are these folks? Why are they running between the sticks? Is there a way to stop them? When I looked up what a wicket was, I read a description of “sticky wickets”, which seemed to suggest that the people running were carrying the sticks back and forth. That can’t be true, can it?

The runners. I think we should start with the how and why.

Sutcliffe : To break cricket down, and using a bit of my very limited baseball dialogue, the aim of the batting team is to score as many runs as possible. The bowling side, equivalent of the pitcher in baseball, aim to bowl the opposition out by taking 10 wickets, achieved usually by hitting the stumps or catching the batter out.

The batting team score runs by either hitting the ball to the boundary rope for four runs (six runs if your shot clears the rope without bouncing) or by running between the two sets of stumps — the ‘sticks’ of that lost summer of 2001 — after hitting the ball. Every time the two batters run between the stumps is one run. Again a bit like baseball, when the batter is running from base to base, the fielding side can run a batter out if they hit the stumps before the batter gets home. Not sure how clear that is. I might have even confused myself!

Brisbee : So are the runners there in place from the start of play?

Sutcliffe : Each team has 11 players. The opening pair — numbers one and two in the lineup — will go into bat first and they’ll both run between the stumps to score a run. Once one of those is out, batter number three comes in. And he joins the remaining batter to do the running between the stumps. This continues all the way until the 10th batter is out, meaning a team is ‘all out’. Then it’s the opposition’s turn to have a bat.

Brisbee : Clear as a plate of spotted dick. I guess the logical follow-up question is, how do the players make ‘outs’? Are the defending players trying to hit them in the head with the ball? Please tell me they’re trying to hit them in the head with the ball. That sounds awesome.

Sutcliffe : The most spectacular way for a batter to be out is when the bowler sends the ball flying past the bat to shatter the three stumps. There’s something beautiful about seeing a stump or two knocked out of the ground at pace!

To try to soften a batter up, a fast bowler will, indeed, bowl very short from time to time so the ball bounces up and arrows straight for the head. The batter’s job is then to either duck out of the way (the sensible option) or try to hit the ball (brave, but stupid). Thankfully, the protective headgear that batters wear these days means injuries are very rare. But it does add to the drama.

Brisbee : And the best possible bowl, in theory, is one that bounces right at the feet of the … paddle man … without going past and becoming an illegal bowl?

Sutcliffe : That’s right. Ping the ball at the toes of a batter — though I do like ‘paddle man’! — and then get ready for the stumps to go tumbling out of the ground.

Brisbee : Do the stumps actually fly out and have to be reset?

Sutcliffe : In the days of the great West Indies teams in the 1980s and 1990s, the stumps could fly 10 or 15 yards such was the pace that they bowled at. Then, yes, the stumps have to be put back in place complete with two bails on top.

Brisbee : That sounds awesome. They should make the batter reset them for a bit of extra humiliation.

When it comes to baseball, fans have an obsession with power. There’s nothing better for most fans than when the ball leaves the field of play (a home run). When it comes to pitchers (our bowlers), there’s a particular fascination with the pitchers who can throw 100 miles per hour (161kmph) and blow it past the batters.

Is there a similar fascination with balls that leave the field of play and extremely fast bowlers? Or is there much more to the game than that?

Sutcliffe : Cricket is very similar in that respect to baseball. Your ‘home run’ is the equivalent of a six in cricket, in that the batter’s shot leaves the field of play — and the crowd laps it up.

Same with the bowlers and the speeds they achieve. My local ground is Headingley and when England play a one-day match here, the giant screen will tell the crowd how fast each ball has been. Anything over 90mph and, again, there’s a big roar.

There’s all sorts of other aspects, particularly when bowling. Such as whether the ball swings in the air or if it spins to fool a batsman. But, the long and short of it is fans, particularly at one-day games, crave speed and power.

Brisbee : That’s good. I was scared that only Americans were going to be into the big, dumb, powerful things because we’re all like Kevin Kline in “A Fish Called Wanda”, but it seems that there are definitely some commonalities.

One of the cool things about the sport, in my opinion, is that there’s no foul territory. In baseball, if a batter hits the ball directly behind him, it’s a foul ball, and he or she will see another pitch. In cricket, it looks like a ball directly behind the batter is in play. Are there strategies that take advantage of this? As in, are there players who are known for their ability to hit the ball directly behind them?

Sutcliffe : Top film reference, by the way. A true classic. “Don’t call me stupid!” was a catchphrase me and my mates used for a good few years. I also believe the John Cleese character would have been a big cricket fan. He just seemed the sort! Anyway, I digress.

Yeah, you’re right, about the ball being in play, regardless of whether the batter plays it in front or behind themselves.

In recent years, it’s become an increasingly valuable skill to be able to play behind as, usually, there are fewer fielders trying to stop the ball reaching the boundary (earning four runs).

Brisbee : Here’s a screenshot of that video game. What in the fresh heck could possibly be going on here? Can the fielders really get that close to the batter? Do they get hit in the face with batted balls regularly?

Sutcliffe : Oh yes, fielders can get very, very close to a batter. It’s a dangerous position to be, even with the helmets and padding that those fielding so close will wear.

I’ve actually seen a batter be out when his shot cannoned off a fielder standing three yards away and ballooned up in the air for another fielder to catch the ball. As it hadn’t hit the ground after being hit, the poor, unlucky batter was out caught.

Fielding so close also allows for plenty of the, er, ‘banter’ that cricketers enjoy.

Brisbee : I’ve heard rumors of matches that last for days. Literal days. What’s the deal with those? Both baseball and American football have reputations for being extremely long games, but nothing compared to that.

Sutcliffe : A Test match is a maximum of five days long. And it might then finish as a draw. Which I know, from experience when talking to friends from the U.S., is totally unfathomable to some.

I’m one of those who still loves Test cricket and can happily spend days watching it. But cricket is increasingly moving to the shorter form of the game, such as the T20 World Cup where the U.S. recently beat Pakistan. Each side bats once and the match lasts no more than three hours. It’s this form of cricket that will be in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Brisbee : Y’all make fun of American baseball players for wearing giant gloves on their catching hands, don’t you?

Sutcliffe : Not so much baseball, other than tagging the term ‘World Series’ on to a sport where only the U.S. and Canada seems to compete. But there were a few eyebrows raised on this side of the pond about the padding that American footballers wear. We have rugby over here, where there’s similar bone-shuddering tackles going in, but all they have in terms of protection is a gum-shield.

I do think, though, that times are changing and there’s now much more of an appreciation of American sports.

That said, I was on holiday in San Francisco a couple of years ago. We decided to take in a Giants game against Kansas City (I think the tickets were $8 as we were up high behind the batsman). I really enjoyed the spectacle and the views across the Bay — it was a sunny June evening — were spectacular. But, maybe a bit like yourself with cricket, I didn’t have a scooby (doo – clue) as to how the scoring went.

I got the rudimentary bits, like the need to get from base to base and the joy of a home run. It’s just how San Francisco won 6-2 that I couldn’t fathom. I still enjoyed myself, mind. Probably because I love sports. And I’m a sucker for a cracking sunset view.

Brisbee : Yeah, I’d be surprised if I saw the Giants score six runs, too.

Alright, I think I understand a lot more about the game than when I started, and I’ll have to check out a match soon. First, though, I have to ask about this.

In my summer of unemployment, I was obsessed with figuring out what this meant. First question: What does it mean? Second question: Are there any other awesome cricket terms? Because this one rules.

He looks so sad.

Sutcliffe : Sadly, I’ve known how he feels far too many times over the years.

Basically, he’s out without managing to score even a solitary run. Its origins are quite simple in that a duck’s egg is oval, just like the figure ‘0’. There’s also a variation where a batter is out for a ‘golden duck’. That meant they faced just one ball before being dismissed. The ultimate humiliation.

Brisbee : When someone is out for a golden duck, does a giant disembodied hand grab him and drop him in the gully, like this?

Sutcliffe : If that doesn’t appear, then the makers of International Cricket really missed a trick!

Brisbee : I’ve learned a lot today, and I’m eager to catch a match now. Or a game. A set. A match-game.

There’s still so much to learn.

Thanks for putting up with my stupid cricket questions, Richard!

Sutcliffe : It’s been a pleasure. Enjoyed it. And next time I’m in the Bay area, hopefully you can teach me the finer points of baseball that continue to evade me despite that 2022 visit to Oracle Park.

(Top photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

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