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- Your main objective is to make your documents easy to read,
navigate, and/or skim. Your second objective is to make your documents professional-looking
and attractive.
- Keep your text in small chunks of print, single-spaced. Each chunk should be five sentences or less, or 150-200 words or less, or 1½ inches
or less. These numbers should be even lower when your writing appears on a computer
screen, where it will seem more dense.
- Indenting the first line of paragraphs or sections is optional. Indenting entire sections or paragraphs is helpful to show a subordinate relationship. Consider using an “I” pattern in a one-page document, where the introduction
and concluding sections are the only ones not indented.
- Documents are easier to read when they are left-justified and
“ragged right.” The uneven margin on the right will give each line
a visual identity; also, each line will have the same spacing between words. Use “word-wrap” rather than hyphenating
words at the end of lines.
- Headings will establish a visual pattern to your document,
as long as you are consistent. Try using different levels to your headings, based
on centering, indenting, font size, and use of boldface, underlining, italics, color, and capitalization. The title of your document, for example, can be centered, boldface, with a bigger font size and first letters
of words capitalized. A second level of headings can be similar, but not centered
and not as big.
- White space is as important as print in formatting a document. In general, try to keep one-third of a page empty of print or visuals. That includes margins (1½ inches or more on all sides), blank lines between paragraphs and sections, and
blank areas around headings and alongside lists and visuals.
- Keep your text at an easy-to-read size: 11 or 12 pt is nice! Use a serif font (with letter extensions) for the text, but consider using a sans
serif font for headings and titles. Use only a few fonts per document, and avoid
a big contrast in font sizes on a single page.
- Use bullets for lists in general, and use numbers for lists
when the items are in a specific numbered sequence (or as a reference point).
- Don’t overdo it when using boldface, italics, underlining,
colors, and other design
features. They can easily distract your reader.
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