Guidelines and Tips for Written Exercises
for courses taught by Felix Just, S.J.

This page contains  General Guidelines  |  Grammatical & Stylistic Cautions  |  Bibliographical Format

See also the related page on  Biblical References


General Guidelines:

Prior Research:

Final Product: Unless otherwise specified in individual instructions, all short written exercises should be:


Grammatical and Stylistic Cautions:

Please be especially careful about the following common errors, which may not only drive your readers up the wall, but also significantly distract them from understanding what you are trying to say (thus resulting in lower grades!). The following items should not have to be mentioned to college-level students, but past experiences have made these cautions necessary.

Know Proper Spelling:

Use Proper Capitalization:

Be Careful with Grammar & Punctuation:

Use Inclusive Language: Finer Points for Academic Writing: Some Humorous "Rules for Writers":
  1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
  4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  5. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
  6. Be more or less specific.
  7. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
  8. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
  9. No sentence fragments.
  10. Don't use no double negatives.
  11. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
  12. Spell-checkers can't always tell rite form wrong.
Other Aides for Good Writing:
Bibliographical Tips:

When citing or referring to sources in your paper, it is usually sufficient these days to give brief references within your text rather than using separate footnotes or endnotes. Put your abbreviated references in parentheses at the end of the sentences in which the quotations occur (Author, Title, page#).  Also, make sure that the sentence's closing punctuation follows the reference (cf. Just, "Bartimaeus," 254)!

At the end of most papers (as specified in the instructions), append a single-spaced bibliography listing all the sources you used.  In general, give credit where credit is due, be as specific as possible, include complete publication information, and be consistent in your format.

Whole Books and Monographs: Chapters/Essays in Edited Books: Articles in Academic Journals: Articles/Entries in Dictionaries or Encyclopedias: Websites:

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This page was last updated on April 4, 2007 .