Title of Paper

Title of Paper

Double click your mouse anywhere in this paragraph to replace this text with your introduction. Often the most important paragraph in the entire essay, the introduction grabs the reader’s attention—sometimes a difficult task for academic writing. When writing an introduction, some approaches are best avoided. Avoid starting sentences with “The purpose of this essay is . . .” or “In this essay I will . . .” or any similar flat announcement of your intention or topic.

Level One Heading

Replace the level one heading with the words for your heading. The heading must be centered and in bold font. Headings are a necessary part of helping your audience track the sub-topics discussed in the body of the essay or report.

Be sure to indent the first line of each paragraph between five and seven spaces by pressing the Tab key one time on the keyboard. In addition, remember to double space the entire paper using the double space functionality in Word. This template is already formatted for double spacing.

In addition, keep in mind an academic essay should contain at least five paragraphs, which includes the introduction (introductory paragraph), the body (which is generally at least three paragraphs), and the conclusion (generally one paragraph). Most well-developed paragraphs contain at least three – five sentences, one of which is the topic sentence. Limit each body paragraph to one sub-topic.

Level Two Heading

Replace the level two heading with the words for your heading. The heading must be left-aligned and in bold font.

Level Three Heading

Replace the level three heading with the words for your heading. The heading must be in left-aligned with bold and italicized font. Most master’s level papers will be sufficient with three levels of heading. Delete the following level four and five heading placeholders if not needed.

Level Four Heading. Replace the level four heading with the words for your heading. The heading must be indented, in bold font, and end with a period.

Level Five Heading. Replace the level five heading with the words for your heading. The heading must be indented, in bold, italicized font, and end with a period.

Conclusion

The closing paragraph is designed to bring the reader to your way of thinking if you are writing a persuasive essay, to understand relationships if you are writing a comparison/contrast essay, or simply to value the information you provide in an informational essay. The closing paragraph summarizes the key points from the supporting paragraphs without introducing any new information.

References

This is a hanging indent. To keep the hanging indent format, triple click your mouse on this line of text and replace the information with your reference entry. You can use the Reference and Citation Examples (Center for Writing Excellence > Reference and Citation Examples) to help format your source information into a reference entry.

The reference page always begins on the top of the next page after the conclusion.