A double spacing and using of a 12 size font ensures the smoothness of the research work that is well-prepared and explained to the reader. A good manuscript is the one that is easy to read. Researchers commonly use fonts and line spacing to make it readable. Manuscript includes paragraphing, sentence structure, headings, subheadings, and other reading preferences. Headings and subheadings should be in bold for the reader to understand the topic. A good format paper will stipulate the reader to take the interest in the entire paper. The presentation of the manuscript is necessary to attract readers and influence them to read the whole manuscript (Salkind 200).
Graphical representation of the work always facilitates users. For example, it is applicable in selecting figures or tables that can explain the entire story to the reader if he is unable to get the idea from the text. The graphical representation can explain the idea better than words, and it is easily understandable. The use of colors, design, and methods to present the table and figures play important role in making the work neat and clean. There should be an explanation of each graph or table that can help the reader understand the objective of using such graphs and tables. Graphs and tables are suggested to be of 1.5 lines spacing to make the work look like a professional paper (Salkind 220).
A manuscript should be strong and effective to feed all the material in the mind of reader. There should be the title page including name of the writer and the topic that is to be discussed in the paper. The page numbering is useful in acknowledging the reader about the length of the paper and the current page the reader finds fimself when reading the manuscript. A well-developed research can ensure that the reader is going to read the whole paper on the specified topic. In the absence of title page, it will be difficult for the reader to identify the subject matter and the author of the paper. Another important issue for researchers regards the paper copyrights. Copyright is helpful in restricting others to present the document by merely changing the title page or headings. More to that, the material used in the paper to explain the subject matter must be fully analyzed before publishing, conversely, it would amount to an error in the paper (Salkind 240).
“Rule of thumb” is extensively used to format the paper before its publication. The rule of thumb presented in this paper is to guide the new writers through formatting and writing their manuscripts. There are many other things such as using colors to separate different sections of the paper, but they are not applicable to all writers. The researchers may use different techniques to design the paper, but most importantly they need to ensure application of all the essential rules under the name “rule of thumb”.
Works Cited
Salkind, Neil J. Exploring Research. 8th Edition. London: Pearson, 2012. Print.
