I thrive on chaos. I’m one of those workers whose desk is always covered with piles of books and papers, often creeping down to the floor. And, like most people who work like that, I know exactly where everything is. In a bizarre way, it makes me feel very productive if I can look around and catch glimpses of half-written pages.
However, those pages themselves are very well formatted from the beginning. I’m incapable of writing anything without making sure that the margins are correct, the font is uniform, and the layout is as perfect is it can be. Does that mean you have to be as obsessive as I am? Definitely not.
While I like to format as soon as I start writing, and I always recommend that to PhD students, you will find your own best approach. However, don’t leave it too late. Too often, I’ve had to help a candidate to rush through the formatting in the last few days before submission.
So, when should you choose your format? To avoid a last-minute panic, I recommend choosing your format early on. Even if you don’t perfect it until the end, decide from the start what the layout of the opening pages will be, the margin width on your pages, and the overall “look and feel” of your manuscript.
And how do you know what format to choose? A lot of it will be dictated by your university, so check the thesis submission guidelines on their website. However, a key tool to guide your formatting is your Style Guide, for example the APA 7 Guide I discussed in another blog post.
That Style Guide will help you to enter your citations correctly, ensure your Reference List is consistent, and will answer all the questions you have about punctuation, headings, paragraph layout. And the length of your dashes will be flawless!
Finally, why should you be so picky about your format? First, you have to meet your university’s standards for submission. Even more importantly, your examiners will take your clean, elegant, and beautifully presented manuscript as a sign that you are an organized and confident candidate, ready to successfully defend your work. And that’s a good thing.