The following is a list of general tips, advice, and help for homework:
• Always start out single spaced, with 1.25 inches margins on the left and right sides, and 1 inch margins on the top and bottom sides and forget about the length requirements. Just type honestly and freely, without being biased or just trying to fill up space.
When writing a critical thinking, essay, or opinion answer writing piece:
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When typing an essay or report or composition or anything that requires a certain page requirement or you want to make longer (or to appear longer):
• After you have finished typing this way, if you do not meet the length requirements, 1.5 space your piece of writing.
• If this still doesn't bring your piece of writing to the length requirement or your satisfaction, double space your piece of writing.
• After this, you can change your font size to 12.5 or 13, indent the margins some, changing them from 1.25" by 1" to 1.5" by 1.25" or even larger (apply at your own risk), and indent the first line in a paragraph more. If you use Microsoft Word to do your typing, and you want to change the margins, go: File-->Page Setup-->Margins, then change "Top," "Bottom," "Left," and "Right."
• Discuss the question or essay or whatever with a friend online or on the phone or by e-mail or by any means of communication. You can discuss with me as well through my AIM screen name ErwaJocker or my e-mail address erwaman@mindspring.com, or you can talk to me directly, face-to-face, at school, on the bus, or where ever we happen to meet.
• Support your answers with facts. Facts are solid evidence that help structure your answers.
• Take some time to brainstorm and don't try to do everything at once. Take some breaks here and there and chat for a while, play a game, relax, take a nap, sit back and listen to music, etc., then come back and try again.
Things to Avoid:
• Contractions - instead of typing words like "don't" or "I'm," substitute in " do not" or "I am". Not only is this more professional, it slightly increases the length of your paper.
• Informal, casual, slang vocabulary, words, grammar, and spelling - such as "&", "r", "n", "Me and my mom", "I don't never", "dawg", "homey", "yo", etc...
• Small, short, too simplistic words - such as "big", "thing", "a lot", "nice", "kind", etc. Instead, substitute in more descriptive, longer, emotional words; words that have more feeling to them and give the reader a more accurate picture.
• Long sentences, fragments, and run on sentences - grammatically, fragments and run ons are incorrect, but long sentences that may be grammatically correct sometimes give too much description and lack the flowingness and the breathing room for the reader.
• Numbers written in numerical form - such as "1", "2", "100", "5,000", etc. Type out these numbers unless they are obscure numbers that have varying digits all the way down to the tens and ones places such as "13,569" and "20,874".
• Abbreviations that aren't commonly written as abbreviation, and which you don't identify - such as "MJS" or "ISB". Replace them with the actual words of the abbreviation or do something like "MJS (Memorial Junior School)" or "ISB (International School of Beijing)".