Print a copy of these read them carefully and keep them at your side as you write. (Suggested formats are “more like guidelines” but they too should be guiding you.) Virtually all journals have on-line “suggestions to authors” or “instructions for authors” or some such on the journal web page.

A prescribed format is not “guidelines” it is an expectation. If a format is prescribed for a paper either by a professor in case of a course paper, by an adviser or department in the case of a thesis, or by a journal editor when preparing a manuscript for publication, attempt to follow the format immediately from the first draft onward. Accepting suggestions will greatly improve most papers! You should be open to their suggestions, evaluating them objectively and non-defensively. They should be honest in their evaluation, giving reasons for their criticisms and suggesting methods for improvement if possible. It often is shared with colleagues, advisers or classmates whose opinions you respect because you wish to have their criticisms and their ideas for improvement. If you leave it out, neither you nor another reader will be able to evaluate the appropriateness, of that idea to the paper or its manner of expression there. That is, the first draft is the time to see whether or not an idea or approach works. For example when writing, one should err toward including, rather than excluding, information and ideas. Of course, it should follow the outline that you have prepared beforehand! Much of the effort of a first draft is experimental. The purpose of the first draft is to get one’s ideas on paper and to try out a plan of organization for those ideas.

College rough draft example