Making an essay stand out (physically)

[Wesley]

Yo guys and girls.

 

I'm just finishing up an essay and was trying to think of ways to make it stand-out physically.

 

Before anyone says I should be making it stand out with content, yeah, I know, I've been trying to do that for days while writing it.

 

But yeah, basically the guy will be marking three other essays that are going to be about the exact same thing and I'm wanting to try everything I can to make mine stand that little bit further out.

 

I've typed my whole essay line by line like this too, he'll really love that.

 

But seriously, I want it to stand-out on paper in terms of just glancing at it, and I don't have a clue how to do that in a classy and professional way.

 

Anyone tried doing this or have any examples?

 

Any help would be good, thaaanks.

 

Goodnight!

Edited December 1, 2010 by Wesley

[The Peeps]

You'd be surprised how effective colour can be. Even if you just have blue headings or something.

 

Maybe a watermark or a border or something?

 

Just don't go overboard. A subtle difference from the other essays would be enough.

 

Or just write it out on the back of £5 notes

Edited December 1, 2010 by The Peeps

[or else you will DIE]

Print it on pink paper and wrap it in a bow.

[Sméagol]

Yes, what I attempted to ask earlier..

 

What's the essay aboput, and how many pages does it have?

[EddieColeslaw]

Even if you just make sure to have a proper layout and readable font, it should be fine. Don't go using crazy fonts or making every word a different colour, or anything like that If it's a really long essay, bind it nicely? An essay really is about the content...from an essay-writing enthusiast~

[Sméagol]

Well yeah, what Eddie says, think about your layout (especially if you use images to illustrate things). Don't go using word or something, use something like InDesign, Quark express, or Scribus (last one is free). Save it as a PDF, and go to a printshop, and print it on some fancy paper, and if you have enough pages, have it binded properly (like a magazine if it suits your essay). And perhaps have a fancy cover.

[Dan_Dare]

Use a header and footer for your page numbers and submission info (I always included my student number, module code and tutor name in the top right of page 1) Use Light Grey for that stuff and use Dark Red (in Word) for your title underlines. Looks great.

[Wesley]

Cheers for all the tips guys.

 

Just to give a little bit of background to the essay, it's an Organisational Analysis about my current placement.

 

It's about 13-14 pages and will be handed in electronically in PDF format.

[Charlie]

-Give it a professional looking cover page - Office 2007/2010 does good ones.

-Don't use Times New Roman, Calibri is the way forward.

-1.5 linespaced

-Use Office's formatting tools. Use the Headline tags for main headlines

-As Dan said, header with your name at the left, registration number middle and page number right (again, Word does page numbers if you didn't know)

 

 

General MS Word tips

-Use the 'Reference' tab. It's the most useful feature in Word 2007/2010. Will save you so much time and make a very good looking bibliography.

-Contents! Word can do this too from the Reference tab.

-Don't create new pages with the enter button (i.e. if you finish a part half way down a page and want to go to the next page for the next part). Hit ctrl+enter and it will insert a page break. It means your formatting doesn't go to shit when you change things further up.

[Cube]

Calibri is the way forward.

 

This. Calibri looks incredibly neat.

[Serebii]

Topless female on the front cover

[jayseven]

Wanting to make the essay stand out aesthetically? If you really want to, you can create a background image for your headings - like a website header, only it should be extremely subtle. For an old product design write-up I'd have a box the width of the writing field and maybe an size-20 sort of height that was a light grey net design. Helped break up the monotomy, perhaps.

 

Are you allowed to insert images? And are you sure it's even necessary. If he's only marking 4 papers then I wouldn't worry about being memorable too much.