Manuscript Form

    As you are learning to write, you should have a clear idea of what is good manuscript form. You should do everything - writing the title, leaving margins, indenting, capitalizing, and dividing words - according to generally accepted rules. Whenever you write something, work carefully, write neatly and clearly, and try to make as few mistakes as possible. Before handing in your essay or exercise, proofread it once or twice, because you may need to make some final corrections and changes. If you always work in this way, you are sure to make progress.

Ⅰ. Arrangement

    Either lined exercise books or regular office paper (size 19 × 27 centimetres) may be used. To make your handwriting easy to read and provide room for corrections, you had better write on every other line, and write on only one side of the paper if it is thin.
     Leave a margin on each side of the paper - about two centimetres at the top and a centimetre and a half at the left, the right and the bottom. In an exercise book the top and bottom margins are already there, so you need only to draw a vertical line to mark the left margin.
     You cannot make the right margin very straight, but you must not write to the edge of the paper. When there is not enough space left for a word, write it on the next line if it cannot be divided. In other words, there must be some blank space on the right side of the paper.
     Write the title in the middle of the first line. Capitalize the first and last words of the title and all other words (including words following hyphens in compound words) except articles, coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but, nor, for), short prepositions, and the to in infinitives:

     My First Visit to the Palace Museum
     The People Without a Country
     Rules to Abide By
     Dickens and David Copper field
     What Can the Artist Do in the World of Today?
     What Reform Means to China
     The Myth of a "Negro Literature"
     The English-Speaking People in Quebec

     No period is used at the end of a title. Use a question mark if the title is a direct question, but do not use one if it is an indirect question. Use quotation marks with quotes or titles of articles; and underline names of books.
     Indent the first line of every paragraph, leaving a space of about four or five letters.
     For paging use Arabic numerals without parentheses or periods in the upper right-hand corner of all pages. The first page need not be marked.
     Do not begin a line with a comma, a period, a semicolon, a colon, a question mark or an exclamation mark. Do not end a line with the first half of a pair of brackets, quotation marks, or parentheses. The hyphen that indicates a divided word is put at the end, not at the beginning, of a line.

Ⅱ. Word Division

    When you write near the edge of the paper, take a look at the space left. If it is not enough for the word you are going to write, you have to decide whether to divide the word or to write it on the next line. Never squeeze a word into the margin.
     The general principle is to divide a word according to its syllables. Pay attention to the following:
     One-syllable words like through, march, brain and pushed cannot be divided.
     Do not write one letter of a word at the end or at the beginning of a line, even if that one letter makes up a syllable, such as a. lone, trick. y.
     Do not put a two-letter syllable at the beginning of a line, like hat. ed, cab. in.
     Avoid separating proper names of people or places, like Chi. na, Aus. ten.
     Divide hyphenated words only at the hyphen: father-in-law, empty-handed.
Do not divide words in a way that may mislead the reader: pea. cock, re. ally.
     Do not divide the last word on a page. Instead, write the whole word on the next page.
Divide words with prefixes or suffixes between the prefix or suffix and the base part of the word: re. state. ment, un. relent. ing.
Divide two-syllable words with double consonants between the two consonants: strug. gle, shat. ter.
Dividing words is not always easy. When in doubt, consult a dictionary (see Part Two, Ⅵ).

Ⅲ. Capitalization

Capitals are used mainly at three places: the first words of sentences, key words in titles, and proper names.
Not only a complete sentence, but a sentence fragment treated as a sentence, should begin with a capital letter.
The first word of quoted speech (words put between quotation marks) is capitalized. If a quoted sentence is broken into two parts and put in two pairs of quotation marks, the second part does not begin with a capital letter unless the first word is a proper noun or an adjective derived from a proper noun:

He said, "My trip to Mount Tai was interesting but tiring."
"My trip to Mount Tai," he said, "was interesting but tiring."
I asked, "When do you usually go home?"
She answered, "At weekends."

Common nouns that are parts of proper names are capitalized:

Common Nouns

a famous university
a broad street
a large lakethe president of the
university
middle, age
labour, day
people, republic

Proper Names

Peking University
Changan Street
Lake Erie
President Brown

the Middle Ages
Labour Day
the People's Republic of
China

Words derived from proper names are usually capitalized:

Marxist DarwinismHegelian
Confucian Latinize Vietnamize

But proper names or their derivatives may become common nouns, verbs or adjectives:

mackintosh (after Charles Macintosh, a Scottish chemist)
chauvinistic (derived from NicolasChauvin, a devoted adherent of Napoleon)
quixotic (after Don Quixote, hero of the novel of the same name)
anglicize (from the Latin word Anglicus, meaning English)