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Better grades with great looking reports


Introduction


Making a good first impression on your reader takes some effort and can influence your grades to a certain extent. Although the content of your essay is of highest importance, the formatting and organization of your essay does influences your reader and makes a first impression.  So, putting some efforts on formatting is highly recommended. In this tutorial, we look at few quick tips that improve the readability of your documents and make it look professional.

Adding a Table of Content

Table of content (TOC) helps the reader to quickly understand how the author has organized her work and allows the reader to quickly access the information that the reader needs. Further, this helps the marker to the compare the grading criteria with work of the author. To use the Microsoft Word’s, Automatic TOC functionality, you have to first format the chapter headings and sub headings using Heading styles.  

Heading Styles

Highlight chapter heading and apply style “Heading 1”. For sub chapters, the heading is formatted using “Heading 2” styles. If there are sub chapters within those sub chapters, it should be formatted using “Heading 3” styles.  These styles can be found in “Styles” grouping in “Home” ribbon.




Numbering Chapters  

In academic writing, it is always recommended that the chapters are numbered for easy navigation. This is fairly easy.  In the “Paragraph” grouping, select “Multilevel List”. From the list library select the list that starts with “Chapter 1”.




Cover page  

A cover page can further enhance the looks of your essay or report. Microsoft Word provides number of cover page template that you can readily use. These templates can be found in “Insert”  Ribbon under “Cover Page”.


Referencing  

In academic writing, it is important that you properly reference all your sources. Failing to do this will result in plagiarism. Plagiarism found in any writing is dealt with heavy penalties. You can avoid these penalties, by adding appropriate citations and reference. Microsoft Word supports various common referencing styles such as Harvard and APA. Microsoft Word also helps you manage a database of the sources, this means if you are using same sources in another document you do not have to re-enter the details again.    

Inserting Citation

To insert cite a source the fact that you have provided in your report, place cursor in the place you want to insert citation and then follow the following instructions:
  • Select “Insert Citation” from the “Citations and Bibliography” grouping in the “Reference” ribbon.
  • Select “Add new sources…”
  • Fill up the fields with details of the sources that you want to cite and then click “OK”.

Inserting Reference Page  

If you have already cited all your sources in the body of your report using the above steps, it is easy to create a list of references at the end of your document. Simply use the following steps:
  • Type “Reference” where you want your reference page to be and apply Heading 1 style to it.
  • Click somewhere below the “Reference” Heading then
  • Click “Bibliography” in the “Citations and Bibliography” grouping in the “Reference” ribbon.
  •  Select “Insert Bibiliography”



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