Dictionary of English - essay and report writing

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The comma comes before the inverted comma. Closing quotation marks follow the punctuation marks for the sentence of which they are part, except for a colon or semi-colon. See the previous example.

If you refer several times to something for which there is an established but not well known abbreviation, give the full form the first time you mention it, with the abbreviation in brackets after it. Subsequently, use the abbreviation alone.

For the preferred style for dates, see dates.

3. Footnotes Footnotes are pieces of extra information placed at the bottom of the page to which they relate. They were traditionally used to give information about the sources of material quoted or referred to in the main body of an essay or report. Current practice is to give at the end of the text a bibliography, that is, a list of books and articles consulted, and referred to in the text.

You can use footnotes for background or explanatory information that might divert from the general line of argument if it were included in the text, but which some readers would be interested to look at. Some people prefer to keep the basic text free of the clutter of footnotes, and put the additional material in endnotes at the end of the text. Use footnotes and endnotes as little as possible, and keep them short. Use asterisks or superscript numbers in the text to indicate them.

A large block of information that would interrupt the text if included can be placed in a separate appendix at the end of the text.

4. Bibliographies The last section of the essay or report is the bibliography, called the reference list in the USA. This is where you list the books and articles that you consulted when you were researching your subject and that might be useful to readers. They are listed in alphabetical order by authors' surnames. You need to give full details of each so that any reader who wishes to consult a copy may do so.

Each item in the bibliography should be set out consistently in a standard form. A common one has the elements in this order: 1 name(s) of the author(s), surname and comma before first name and initials 2 the title of the work 3 place of publication, publisher, and date of publication Full stops are used at the end of each of these parts.

Known as ‘white sun in blue sky’, the flag of Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Zhong Shan appears in the canton. The rays of the sun represent 12 traditional Chinese hours (each equalling two hours) symbolizing progress. Red is a traditional Chinese colour. Effective date: 8 October 1928. >>