Guidelines for Submitting Assignments Electronically

Dennis R. Bratcher

Given the increased volume of material submitted electronically it has become necessary to provide some standardized guidelines. The purpose of these guidelines is not to impose legalities but is aimed at addressing some complications brought on by the increased use of electronic technology in education by both professors and students. These are the considerations for establishing guidelines.

a) Due to the proliferation of spammers and hackers, I receive many hundreds of e-mails a week. As a result, the security for receiving e-mail with attachments is set very high. Usually, e-mail with an attachment is automatically dumped unless it is coded in some way.

b) Because of the volume of assignments submitted electronically, especially in large classes, there must be some way easily to sort incoming mail and keep it on file for future reference.

c) Since I do usually not grade papers on the computer they must be printed, which requires a standard way to format and print the papers.

d) I teach in a variety of venues and receive material from different classes and schools, so the assignments must be easily identified for grading.

With these needs in mind, papers submitted electronically must follow these guidelines. If they are not followed there is a high degree of risk that the paper will not be received.

Note: Not all assignments can be submitted electronically. Some assignments must be handed in in hard copy. Please note in the syllabus if any specific assignment can be submitted electronically.

1) Assignments should be sent as an e-mail attachment. Do not paste the document into a regular e-mail. Formatting problems between e-mail programs usually make such documents difficult to read.

2) The document format should be MS Word. Most other programs will translate to MS Word in the "save as" feature. I can translate material from most other formats, but that takes time. With many papers coming in at the same time that gets to be a problem. If you do not have the capability of writing in or translating to MS Word format, please ask about it before submitting electronically in any other format.

3) The document should include a cover page with: i) the student’s name, ii) the name of the school, iii) the name of the class for which it is submitted, iv) the name of the assignment, v) the date the assignment is due, and vi) the date on which the assignment was actually submitted.

4) The internal document formatting should be as follows:

Margins: 1" all around

Font: Times Roman or equivalent

Size: 12 pt

Spacing: Double (except in specialized assignments such as bibliographies or outlines)

Paragraph: Left Align, First Line Indent .5"

Footnotes: same page (no endnotes), single spaced

Quotes: Standard blockquote, single spaced for quotes of more than five lines.

Bibliography: Standard hanging indent, single spaced

5) In addition, there should be a header on all pages except the first, formatted as: Space from edge: .5". The header should contain "[student’s name]" aligned left margin and "[automatic page number]" aligned right margin.

6) On assignments for which there is more than one separate piece of the assignment, for example a series of sermons, they should be saved in one file only with each separate part of the assignment beginning on a new page. For longer assignments running 40 or more pages, they may be saved in two files for ease of transmission. However, they should have consecutive page numbers throughout.

7) The file name should be the student’s last name, a space, and a short single word description of the assignment. Example: smith sermon.doc. If the assignment is sent in two files, each should be numbered, as "smith sermon1.doc" and "smith sermon2.doc"

8) When sending the file, the first thing in the subject line of the e-mail should be the abbreviation of the school in all caps, such as NTS, NNU, or PLNU. This will ensure that the mail program sorts the incoming mail into the proper mailbox and does not just delete it. Additional codes may be provided for each class. Attachments MUST have these codes in order to be received.

9) You should receive an autoreply confirmation that the paper has been received and is readable. Especially around due dates, this may take a few days after the due date. If you have not received a confirmation within a few days, please feel free to write and ask about it. Do not assume that a paper has been received until you receive a confirmation.

10) You will be provided with an e-mail address for submitting work. This address may be different than the address you are given for normal electronic communication. Use that address for submitting all papers. Please do not send multiple copies to multiple e-mail addresses. Also, if you are going to send a hard copy to the school for forwarding, do not submit an electronic copy as well. I will often print out work before I receive the hard copy. Let's save some trees!

11) In some cases, the volume of material may simply be too high to have everyone submit assignments electronically. In such cases, students will have to mail a hard copy either to the school or to me directly as instructed.

Ten Tips for Writing Student Academic Papers