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The Benefits of Using Google Docs for Your Business

Google Docs is a powerful cloud-based document-management system that can help businesses of all sizes streamline their operations. With Google Docs, businesses can create, store, and share documents in a secure and easy-to-use environment. Here are some of the benefits that businesses can enjoy when they use Google Docs.

Collaboration Made Easy

One of the biggest advantages of using Google Docs is the ability to collaborate with others in real time. With Google Docs, multiple users can work on the same document at the same time, making it easier to get projects done quickly and efficiently. This feature also allows users to comment on each other’s work and make changes without having to send multiple versions back and forth.

Secure Storage and Sharing

Another great benefit of using Google Docs is that it provides a secure way to store and share documents. All documents are stored in the cloud, which means they are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. Documents can also be shared easily with colleagues or clients, ensuring that everyone has access to the latest version.

Integration With Other Apps

Google Docs also integrates seamlessly with other Google apps such as Gmail, Calendar, and Drive. This makes it easy to access documents from any device or location. Additionally, users can easily import files from other applications such as Microsoft Word or Excel into their Google Docs account. This makes it easy for businesses to transition from one document management system to another without having to start from scratch.

Overall, Google Docs is a great tool for businesses looking for an efficient way to manage their documents. With its real-time collaboration capabilities, secure storage and sharing options, and integration with other apps, businesses can take advantage of all the features that Google Docs has to offer.

This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

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How to Format Your Essay in MLA Style Using Google Docs

by Mel Beasley | Jan 23, 2021 | Academic Writing

Information is taken from the 8th edition MLA Handbook, latest version, 2022. 

MLA format was created by the Modern Language Association and is a widely used styling for research papers and academic essays. If you’re a college student, you’ll notice that MLA format is required in liberal arts and humanities subjects. 

Most professors will strongly recommend that you use Microsoft Word to format your essays, but some students might not have access to this paid software. If this is the case, it is possible to format your essay in MLA style correctly while using the free Google Docs app within your Gsuite. This guide will show you exactly how to format your essay properly in MLA style using Google Docs. This guide only covers the basics of formatting such as margins, spacing, etc., so please see our other resources for further MLA formatting guidelines

What will we cover?

• Proper MLA font style and size
• Margins and header
• First-page title information
• Body-paragraph spacing

1. Open your blank document

To get started with your essay, you’ll need to log in to your Gmail account. Once signed in, you should be looking at your email dashboard.

• Look to your profile image and name at the top right.
• Click on the squared dot icons to view your apps.
• You should see “Docs” as one of your options.
• Click on “Docs.”

2. Set the font and size

In MLA format, you may only use Times New Roman font at size 12. It’s understandable if you’re feeling the urge to get creative with styling but don’t. Stay focused on following the MLA style guidelines and you’ll save yourself valuable grade points later. 

When you open Google Docs, the font and size are set automatically, so make sure you manually make tweaks to these settings. Unlike MS Word, Google Docs only has one main view with all options listed in dropdowns. This simplicity should help you easily set up your document without getting lost.

How do you do it?

• In Google Docs, you’ll see your font and size dropdowns slightly off-center left of the page.
• Select Times New Roman .
• Select size 12 .

2. Set the margins in MLA format

MLA Style requires that your margins stay set to 1 inch around the entire page.

• Click on File at the top left of the page.
• Click on Page Setup.

• Next, you’ll see a popup appear in the middle of the screen.
• Check to make sure all the boxes for the top, bottom, left, and right are set to 1 inch.

3. How to add your name and page number in Google Docs 2020

Properly formatting your essay in MLA Style using Google Docs has a few extra steps compared to doing the same thing in MS Word, but as long as you follow this guide, you shouldn’t have any issues making it happen. Keep in mind that not adding your name and page numbers to your document could count against your grade. This part of formatting is very easy to do, and it’s not worth losing grade points over, so don’t forget this step!

• Select Insert.
• Hover over Headers & Footers .
• Select Header .

• A header section should appear.
• Change your font to Times New Roman and your font size to 12 .
• Make sure the box next to “Different first page” is unchecked or the header won’t show on every page.
• Type your last name only and make a single space .

• Before navigating out of the header, you’ll need to insert the page number.
• Select Insert again.
• Hover over Page Numbers .
• Select the first option .
• When your page number appears in your header, you can simply select the middle of your page with your cursor to make the header changes stick.

4. How to set double-spaced lines in Google Docs

MLA Style requires that all your body text be double-spaced. This helps your essay look cleaner and easier to read. 

• Click on the Line Spacing icon.
• In the dropdown, select Double . 

5. How to set name and title information

The name, assignment type, date, and essay title are the first things your professor sees in your essay because they’re at the top of the first page.

Before you begin writing the first draft of your essay, go ahead and enter the name, course, and date information. MLA Format requires a very specific setup for how this information is listed in your essay. You should list your first and last name, the professor’s name, the course number, and the date all on designated lines. This information should be neatly aligned to the left of the page. 

How do you format your name and course info in MLA Format?

• You’ll need the first page of your MLA Style essay to contain your name , professor’s name , course number , and the date in that order. 
• Align the essay information to the left of the page.
• Hit Enter once before writing your essay title in the Center of the page.  
• Hit Enter once, Align Left , and tab over a half-inch before you begin writing your essay text.

The finished title information should look like this:

Not sure how to set your indent to a half-inch in Google Docs?

Google docs should already have your half-inch indentation automatically set, but here’s how to do it just in case.

• Select Format .
• Hover over Align & Indent .
• Select Indentation Options .

• You’ll see a popup appear in the center of the screen.
• Enter .5 in the box beside Left .
• Hit Apply .

That’s all there is to properly set up your essay in MLA Format using Google Docs. Good luck!

Mel Beasley has a bachelor’s in creative writing and journalism from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He brings 9+ years of digital marketing and writing experience to the table by writing for publications such as Lumina News and Encore Magazine. He spent 2 years as a college-level writing tutor, and is a certified writing tutor through the CRLA, which is a prestigious cert recognized by the Association for the Coaching & Tutoring Profession. He is a professional SEO blogger with experience writing for brands such as Boardworks Education and The Greater Wilmington Business Journal. One of his latest website and marketing projects has been building the website for the now New York Times Bestselling author, Nina de Gramont .

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How to Apply MLA Format to Google Docs

Are you trying to complete a paper for a submission and you’re having trouble getting all the formatting rules down to a tee?

Do you not know how to apply MLA format to Google Docs?

If that’s the case, it’s no surprise.

As simplified as Google Docs is as a word processor, formatting after specific rules and criteria can sometimes be difficult. And with something as important as an MLA format on official essays and papers , it’s the last thing anyone wants to deal with.

Fortunately, what the app lacks in some areas, it makes up for in others. Working off an MLA format is easy in Google Docs because it’s available as a template in the app’s gallery. Therefore, you can start working on a new document with all the rules applied on every page.

In this article, you’ll learn how to find the template, start a new document based on it, and ensure that your paper meets academic formatting standards.

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Table of Contents

What is mla formatting in google docs, why use mla formatting in google docs, how to apply mla format to google docs.

MLA formatting is a specific format developed by the Modern Language Association. Its purpose is to make papers and assignments easier to read. The association designed it for scholars, students, and researchers in literature fields, yet more fields have adopted the format for its uniformity and ease of reading a document.

In Google Docs, this type of formatting can be configured manually or applied as a standard template, the latter being the easier and recommended route.

As mentioned, the main purpose of MLA formatting is making a document easier to read, due to its spacing rules. It’s also important if you want to make in-text citations. For academic essays or research papers it’s a universally accepted standard format. If you don’t use it, your document might not meet the submission requirements.

It’s also important to use the MLA formatting template to properly highlight the author, date, field of study or topic, as well as the advisor on the paper, on the first page.

Formatting your document with MLA rules by hand can be tedious, especially if you don’t have your cheat sheet with all the specifics on hand. Yet with Google Docs you can easily apply this format to a new document by using the template gallery.

First bring up Google Docs and click on the ‘File’ button. Then start a new document from a template.

Scroll down until you reach the Education section. Click on the MLA report as shown in the above picture. Your template should look like this:

You can then delete the template text and start typing in your document and Google Docs will stick to the MLA formatting rules.

If you do want to manually input formatting rules, here are the things you have to keep in mind:

• 1” margins from bottom, top, and sides
• Start paragraphs with an indent of half an inch
• Times New Roman 12pt is the preferred font and size
• Double space the document
• Leave only one space after punctuation marks
• The header should contain author name, instructor name, course number, and date each on its own line with double spacing in between
• Don’t underline or bold the title
• Title should be centered and capitalized
• Use italics for titles of sources
• The running head should contain the author’s last name and page number
• The running head should be placed one inch from the top and one inch from the right
• If you want to manually add headers, you can do it from the Insert menu.

Yet making small adjustments to formatting in Google Docs can still be time-consuming and unintuitive. That’s why starting a new document from the MLA format template is the best way to go when writing an academic research paper or essay.

As you can see, there’s really nothing to it when it comes to using MLA formatting in Google Docs. The app does the bulk of the work for you. All you have to do is type in your text, save, and upload or print the document.

The template gallery has plenty of examples for other formats too, hence the reason why the app is so simplified in terms of custom formatting options. Its overall design works to your advantage as it allows you to save time on detailed configurations.

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FREE 10+ College Essay Samples in PDF | MS Word | Google Docs

Most universities require their candidates to submit admission essays as part of their application procedure. Admission essays or college essays are compositions that contain personal statements about the student to provide a description of their academic achievements, strengths, and other personal qualities that will provide admission officers with essential insights into their perspective and experiences. Along with college admission essays, universities also require their students to submit other elements such as their GPA and letter of recommendation .

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A college essay refers to a personal essay that contains a maximum of 650 words that relate to the writer’s personal experiences. This type of essay writing includes a number of academic writing elements such as logical structure, thesis statements , and transition words. An essay outline can help student applicants to organize their thoughts as well as the information they want to include in their student papers . Writing an essay also shows how the student has thought about why they are a good candidate for the college they are applying for.

College essays provide students with an opportunity to stand out from other candidates by giving admission officers a different point of view about them beyond their academic achievements, test scores, and extracurricular achievements. Students are given the opportunity to provide personal information, communicate their personal values and qualities as well as set themselves apart from other applicants. As one of the most important parts of the college application or admission process, many students are intimidated by the idea of composing a college essay, however, it will be an opportunity to showcase the reason why they are a good addition to the school.

It would be ideal to think of essay topics before your senior year comes. Make sure to demonstrate deep insight and keep your essay’s originality to easily differentiate it from other similar essays. To identify your topic, you can start with your personal qualities and a story that shows your personal values.

Unline a five-paragraph essay, college essays have no set essay structure . This allows you to have a more creative approach to writing with the use of your storytelling abilities to compose your essay.

To start your essay, write your introduction. You can write it with an unexpected statement to pick the interest of your reader and encourage them to engage with your essay. Your conclusion must contain deep insight or a creative ending to leave your reader with a lasting final impression.

Before submitting, make sure you have reviewed your essay to make sure that its content is error-free. It is common to go through a number of revisions to ensure that your essay is up to your standards.

The different kinds of essays include persuasive essays , descriptive essays, narrative essays , expository essays, personal essays, political essays, compare and contrast essays, college essays, analytical essays, argumentative essays , and humorous essays.

Some of the good college essay topics you can write about include a defining moment, realization, or experience, a person with great influence on you, a key part of your identity, passion, an issue or conflict you have solved, and a unique hobby you have.

As an admission officer, you can advise the students to ask for suggestions from their teachers who understand how to write the essay, recommend brainstorming strategies, look for areas or signs that a parent might have provided too much help in writing the college essay, and give general feedback on the finished composition.

College admission essays are a type of essay writing that gives students the opportunity to showcase their writing skills and express their abilities to communicate the reason why they fit into the university they are applying for. They write this essay with their personal statements about their achievements and strengths. It creates a good impression and increases their chance of getting admitted to their desired college.

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How to MLA Format a Google Doc (Step-by-Step)

You don’t want to lose points for silly mistakes in your papers, assignments, or essays. You might think that a little formatting mistake here and there doesn’t matter. But that might not be the case if the person who is grading your essay is particularly strict.

Even established academics need to brush up on their formatting skills sometimes. This is especially true if you’re new to using Google Docs. Or if it’s the first time you’re using Google Docs for a formal piece of work.

Now, there are various style guides for academic work. So, the first thing to do is check, double-check and triple-check what your institution, department, publisher, etc. requires.

If the format is MLA and you’re creating your work in a Google doc, we’ve got you covered:

What Is MLA Format?

MLA style, or MLA format, is a set of guidelines for formatting academic or research papers. It was originally introduced by the Modern Languages Association and used in the fields of literature and language.

Its purpose is to ensure the consistency and uniformity of submitted works. Nowadays, students and scholars of various disciplines use the MLA style.

Here are the basic MLA standards you need to adhere to:

• One-inch margins on the top, bottom and sides
• Indent the first word in every paragraph by one half inch
• Times New Roman font, size 12
• Indent block quotations by one inch
• Double-space the entire paper
• Your last name and the page number in the top-right of the header of every page
• Your full name, instructor’ name, course name and due date at the top of the first page
• The title centralized on the first page
• A Works Cited page at the end of the doc (with sources correctly formatted)

There are quite a few items to check off the list here. But we’ll guide you through:

Step 1: Apply One-Inch Margins

Your Google doc should be set to one-inch margins by default. But, you may wish to check to be on the safe side.

1. Go to File > Page setup.

2. Ensure all margins are set to 1 and this is applied to the whole document.

Step 2: Change the Font and Size

1. Choose Times New Roman from the dropdown font menu.

2. Click on font size and select 12.

Step 3: Insert a Header

1. Go to Insert > Headers & footers > Header.

2. Click the right align button.

3. Enter your last name and hit space.

4. Go to Insert > Page numbers and click the first option.

If your font defaults back to the original go ahead and highlight your last name and the page number and change them to Times New Roman, size 12.

Step 4: Change the Line Spacing

1. Click the line spacing button in the toolbar.

2. Select Double.

Step 5: Enter Your Details and the Title on the First Page

1. Type in the following on separate lines:

• Instructor’s name
• Course name

2. Hit the return key then click the center align button.

3. Type in the title of your paper.

Step 6: Add Indentations

Indent paragraphs.

1. Press the tab key to indent the first word of every paragraph.

Indent Block Quotations

1. Highlight the text.

2. Go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.

3. Next to Left, type in 1 and click Apply.

Step 7: Add the Works Cited Page

The Works Cited page has some unique formatting details. Therefore, there are a few steps you need to complete to format it correctly.

Add a Page Break

After the final paragraph of your paper, you must add a page break to ensure your Works Cited page appears on a separate, new page.

1. Go to Insert > Break > Page break.

Add the Title

As with the main title, the title for this page needs to be centrally aligned.

1. Click the central align button.

2. Type in Works Cited.

Add Your List of Sources

There are a few points from the MLA guidelines you need to incorporate here. First, each of your sources must be listed alphabetically. Ensure you cite your sources in the proper format , for example:

Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style . Penguin Random House, 2014.

And finally, each source must have a hanging indentation. Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.

2. Click the dropdown menu under Special indent and select Hanging.

3. Set the indent to 0.5 and click Apply.

How Do You Cite in Google Docs?

Google Docs has a citations tool that will help you cite your sources in the proper format as you go along. You can also use this tool to automatically create a Works Cited page when you’ve finished your paper. Naturally, this is super useful as it will help you get the formatting correct every time and save you some time and energy.

1. Go to Tools > Citations.

2. Select MLA from the dropdown menu in the sidebar. (Other options are APA and Chicago.)

3. Click + Add citation source.

4. From the dropdown menu select a source type, e.g. book or journal, then select how you accessed the source, e.g. print or website.

5. Enter the details of your source into the form. (Click + Contributor if there are multiple contributors.)

6. Click Add citation source.

This will now be added to your list of sources in the citations tool.

7. Place your cursor where you want to cite the source, then click Cite next to the source in the sidebar.

You’ll now see an in-text citation in MLA format. Change the # to the appropriate page number.

8. When you’ve finished your paper, create a new page by adding a page break as mentioned above. Go to the citations tool and click Insert bibliography.

You’ll now see that Google Docs has automatically generated a list of sources in the correct MLA formatting based on the information you entered. You will need to change the title from Bibliography to Works Cited.

You may wish to double-check the formatting of the page for yourself. But, apart from the title, everything should be formatted correctly. Docs even adds in the hanging indentation which, of course, you need for your Works Cited page in MLA format.

How to Use the MLA Template in Google Docs

By far the simplest and quickest way to format your paper is to use a pre-formatted template. Google Docs has a number of templates in different academic styles, including MLA.

The template comes with some text as a placeholder. You just need to replace it with your own details and writing. Here’s how to find and open up the template:

1. Open a new Google doc.

2. Go to File > New > From template.

3. Under the header Education, you’ll see a template entitled Report with MLA written underneath it.

4. Simply click on this template and alter it as necessary.

Note that you may still need to go to the checklist above and double-check that everything is formatted correctly. For example, there isn’t a placeholder for your last name in the header of the template. Thus, you may forget the little things like this if you don’t check through the doc.

More Essay Writing Tips for Google Docs

1. try voice typing.

The voice typing tool is a useful tool for students with accessibility needs.

Furthermore, ideas flow quicker than you can get them down on the page sometimes. It might help to use voice typing on such occasions. You can go back to the text to work it into nice, neat sentences for your paper later.

To access voice typing, go to Tools > Voice Typing. Click on the microphone in the small window that appears to start dictating your text.

2. Speed Up Editing

Got a paper due tomorrow and need to make edits fast? It happens. Thankfully, there are ways to speed up the editing process in Google Docs.

First, if you want to reorganize your draft, you don’t need to copy and paste sections or paragraphs. You can simply highlight the text and drag it to its new location in your essay.

Moreover, when formatting your essay, you don’t need to do everything manually. Rather, you can use the paint format button to copy your formatting quickly.

This would be useful, for instance, if you have a lot of block quotations in an MLA style essay and you don’t want to manually indent the text every single time.

Similarly, if you realize you’ve made a recurring mistake in your document, you don’t have to go through your paper and correct the mistake every time. For example, you may have referenced the wrong author or failed to capitalize a word.

Fix it with the Find and replace tool. Go to Edit > Find and replace. Enter the correction and click Replace all.

3. Make Your Doc Available Offline

There are many instances where offline editing may come in handy. For example, if the wi-fi in your dorm goes down, it doesn’t mean you have to stop working on your essay. Or if you need to make a few quick changes to your doc while you’re on the train.

To turn on offline editing, go to File > Make available offline.

Any changes you make offline will be saved locally on the device you’re using. Then the changes will be synced to Google Drive the next time you go online.

4. Use Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a useful way to draw attention to a part of your essay. You can create bookmarks for yourself. Perhaps you want to come back to a section later and add more.

You may also want to leave bookmarks for an advisor. Say they’re checking your first draft before you submit the final piece.

To add a bookmark in Google Docs, first place your cursor where you want your bookmark to appear. Then go to Insert > Bookmark.

5. Consider Add-Ons

You can do a lot in Google Docs. However, if there’s a tool you need that Google doesn’t offer yet, there’s likely an add-on you can use instead. You may want to add a plagiarism checker or thesaurus to your arsenal, for example.

To browse add-ons, simply go to the Add-ons tab and select Get add-ons.

6. Share or Save Your Doc in the Right Format

There are tons of ways you can share, save or submit an essay using Google Docs. The first thing to do is check with the course advisor how they would prefer you to submit your essay.

To send it directly to them, click the share button in the top-right corner and enter their email address.

Note that you can add a message alongside your submission. You can also change the permissions of the recipient using the dropdown menu next to their email.

Alternatively, you may wish to create a shareable link which you can also do via the share button. To adjust the permissions here, click where it says Change to anyone with the link.

If you don’t want to send the doc but rather save a copy, go to File > Download. Here you have the option of saving your document in various formats, including .docx and PDF.

This is useful if your advisor wants you to send a copy in a certain format using a file attachment.

Correctly formatting a paper or essay in Google Docs may feel like hard work at first. But, soon enough, it will become second nature. This guide will help you get the fundamentals of the MLA style guide right.

It’s up to you whether you wish to use the MLA template for your paper. But, we’d recommend manually formatting your work in the MLA style if you have the time. This way you know for sure there are no formatting mistakes.

Finally, don’t forget that Google Docs is rich in useful features that could help you during the writing, editing and formatting processes. Go explore what Google Docs can do.

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College Essay Outline Template

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Seth Perler

Executive Function, ADHD & 2e Coach

✍️How to make a student ESSAY TEMPLATE on google docs to make your life much easier

So look, you’re doing the same thing over and over and over, wasting time and energy you could use for other things. This video will show you a simple trick to make an essay template you can literally use for years and in many different classes. It’ll save you time and make it WAY easier to get started if you’re someone who tends to procrastinate.

💚 Give: Love my work and want to donate?   🎦 YouTube: Visit my official YouTube channel here. Please subscribe, like & comment to support my work.   👉 Share: To support me, please *CLICK* at the bottom to share on FB or Pinterest. ✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers. 🙏 Thanks! — Seth

Video Transcript: Click here to download the transcript PDF.

What is up students? My name is Seth Perler, I’m an executive function coach in Colorado and I help struggling students navigate this thing called education. So you can have a great future. And my job is that make your life easier, more fun, less stressful, have more success, and make it easier. And what I’m gonna teach you today, in order to make your life easier students is this, I want you to go into your Google Calendar, go into your Google, I want you to set up a template for essays that you will be able to use. If you’re in middle school, you can use it through middle school, high school, and college. If you’re in college, you can use it over and over and over and over and over. It’ll save you a lot of time. Here’s the gist of how that works.

The first thing we are going to do is we’re going to hop right here, you’re going to go into your Google Drive. When you go into your Google Drive, you’re going to open up a new document right here, click on Google Docs. And now you have a brand new document. And what I want you to call this document is “Essay Template”. Get ready to hit pause a lot on this video because I want you to set yours up as well. Go away, please go away, get out. Okay, great, thank you. Now when I click up here, it’s automatically going to snag what I put there. I don’t know if you knew that little hack right there, I’m going to make this easier for you to see. I’m going to put this on size 200 so that it’s easier to see. I’m going to hit Command+A, I’m going to hit Command+A right here, and I’m going to enlarge this, et’s say to 14 for the purposes of this video. Now we have an essay template. I’m going to delete this and I’m going to the right name, or actually, all right, well, I’ll leave it name, date, teacher, class, title. And what I’m gonna do is I’m going to Command+A, I’m going to go right here. I’m going to make it 1.5 spacing, just because I like how 1.5 spacing looks on things like this. Trust me, you will use this for science, social studies, language arts, and sometimes other classes. Math not so much, maybe. But in any class, you have to do a written piece or an essay, we’re going to start with this. We always start with name, date, teacher, and title. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to put your name in here, Seth Perler is my name. So I’m going to put it that in there, I’ll never have to change it for any teacher. The date I will have to change, but I’m going to just put in 7/31/20. And I’m going to leave that there. And then I just have the template and I can just change it for each new paper. Let’s say it’s Mr. Smith, and let’s say the class is language arts. I’m just going to leave those there as placeholders, but those will change for every new paper I do. Title, I’m going to go ahead and take. I’m going to center the title because that’s very professional looking, I’m going to put it in bold, I’m going to do that and hit enter, I’m going to left justify this and I’m going to unbold it, and I’m going to click intro, body one, body two, actually, I’m not gonna write body three yet, I’m gonna write the conclusion. Oops. And then I’m going to write the bibliography and works cited. I’ll explain, don’t worry.

The purpose of this template is this, once we have this template, what you’re going to do is either cut and paste the template or duplicate the template every time you have a new paper, it is going to save you time. But also, if you are a student who struggles with getting things done, this is taking a bunch of steps off your plate, because they’ve already done, why reinvent the wheel? But not only that, one of the biggest problems my students have, I work with students who struggle with executive function, a lot of them have ADHD, a lot of them are very global, big picture, brilliant, creative minds. When you have a creative mind, what do you think happens when you start writing? Well, what happens when my students start writing, probably 95% of the students that I work with have the same struggle. They’re so creative, they have so many ideas, but they’re not what’s called ‘linear.’ So what happens when they start writing a paper is they vomit their ideas all over the paper. What that means is they type in what I call a mono-paragraph, one big, giant, long paragraph. So they might have a paragraph that’s two or three pages long, it makes no sense. It goes in a million different directions. And then they spend a lot of time trying to edit it, revise it, and make it make sense. Then they get frustrated, they don’t turn it in at all, or they turn it in late, or they turn it in on time, but they turn it in and they’re not really happy with it. It’s just too frustrating for them to edit it and revise it. This template that I’m showing you will help you have what I call buckets. In this case, we have five buckets, intro, body, body, body, conclusion. Those five buckets are how you’re going to build a paper. So even if you write a one-page essay, or even if you write a 10-page essay that has many, many, many paragraphs, it still generally has three main body sections and an intro and a conclusion. So even if you’re in college and you’re writing a 20-page paper, oftentimes this type of format is still at least the basics of what’s going to get you started. So let’s go ahead and look at this. We have name, date, teacher, class. And these you can put on the same line if you want in your template. And then you have a title, the title is centered. The title also can be called assignment. What is your intro do? It tells what I will teach, so it tells what you’re going to teach or talk about in this paper. So go ahead and write that in there.

What is body one about? Well, it is basically your introduction, okay? Listen very carefully to this part, because what I’m going to tell you, helps you in middle, high school, and college, it’s very simple. Writing is hard. But this structure is used in all, almost all of your writing. Listen very carefully. Your intro, basically, is going to say, “Yo, what up. I’m about to tell you about this topic. I’m going to tell you three things.” So I might say, “Yo, what’s up, I’m about to tell you about Paul Reed Smith guitars, my favorite electric guitar company,” or “I’m about to tell you about acoustic guitars.” Okay, let’s just say I’m going to talk about guitars, why you should play guitar. And then I’m gonna say topic number one, the benefits of electric guitars. Topic number two, the benefits of acoustic guitars. Topic number three, how to jam with other people. So I have a paper that says, “Hey, I’m gonna tell you when to pick an electric, when to pick an acoustic, and how to jam with other people. So that’s what I’m going to teach them. Body one is the subtopic, or the topic. This is details, and this is sort of proving your point. Sorry, I’m talking and typing in the same time, proving your points. This is where teachers will talk about supporting your idea. So supporting evidence, you might hear teachers say things like that. This is where you’re going to say, and in this case, in our body one, we’re going to talk about electric guitars. Body number two, we’re going to talk about “Let me do this,” and then I’m going to do this again. This is body two, this is body three. But these are the same, you’re just talking about that point. This one is all about electric, this one is all about acoustic, this one is all about jamming, and then your conclusion.

What does the conclusion do? The conclusion simply says, “Yo, what up? I just told you, boom, boom, boom.” So the intro says, “Yo, I’m about to tell you,” then you tell them, then the conclusion says, “Yo, I just told you,” and then you have your bibliography and work cited. Usually, I will center this, I will bold this. And oftentimes I will hit enter un-center that, I will unbold that, and I might put an example of a website or a book or a newspaper in here, just so that I have sort of a template for the work cited page. Now, we’re going to do is delete this, and then I’m going to show you how you would use this in a class. Let’s say you are in social studies, and you have to write a paper about my least favorite topic right now, politics. Eww. So you have to write a paper on this, you’re going to go ahead and click that. And you’re going to click ‘Make a Copy.’ And I’m going to call it instead of ‘Copy of Essay Template,’ I’m going to call it ‘Social Studies Essay,’ and I always like to put the due date on there. So let’s say it’s due 09/08/20. And I always put my name in the title, there’s a reason for that, and that is because your teachers get inundated with a lot of stuff.. Look what’s happening, oh my gosh, it’s automatically generating my brand new paper. Now I have the template, but I still have not lost my original template. So I can still use my original template for any other class. But I have my brand new template, I’m going to make this easier for you all to read. Now I can put the title it’s as a social studies thing on politics, I can put the new teacher, I can put the new date, I’m going to leave my name. Now I have, instead of vomiting everywhere, I can really start to think through how I’m going to do this. Then if your teacher doesn’t want to work cited, many don’t, you can just delete the work cited but it was already there just in case. You’re only going to be doing work cited on a small fraction of papers, but I’m telling you, you will do a lot of them the next few years. So just listen to me. Do it right the first time, have it there so that it’s all ready to rock and roll. And boom, there you go. I forgot to put on the conclusion. Here’s what I taught or told you, here’s what it was about. And that’s about it.

So, to recap, students, my job is to make your life easier, less stressful, have more time, more freedom, more fun in your life because you’re wasting less time and you’re being proactive rather than reactive. You’re doing things, a little hack that’s going to make your life easier, creating a template called ‘Essay Template,’ with a template for what you use for almost every paper, you’re going to do in middle, high school, and college that is ready to rock and roll. If you’re in college, obviously, you can make it more complicated, you know, maybe Times New Roman, most of your teachers in college are going to want Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced, it might be a certain format at your university, whatever. But to have the template ready to rock and roll and just click ‘Copy,’ like I did ‘File, Make a Copy’ and you have a brand new one. Or the other thing that you can do is you can hit Command+A to select all, and then start a new document and Command+V to paste it into your new document. I personally like this way of the make a copy better, but doesn’t matter. They’re both very similar.

My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach in Colorado. If you like this, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on my website. If you’re a parent or teacher, I have a bunch of freebies for you. I have so much content on there, support what I do, sign up grabs freebies and share this with somebody. Leave a comment, tell me what you think of this. Is this helpful? What would you do? Did I forget anything? I don’t think so, I’ve been doing this a long time. But if I did, leave your tips below. Let us know what would make this even easier, what will make it even better for people. Have a fantastic day. Hope you have some peace in your heart today. I hope you have joy today and I hope you have a real connection with human beings in your life that you care about today. Take care.

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APA and MLA templates for Google Docs

Here are two Google Docs templates you can use for APA or MLA formatted papers. The templates are View Only, so you will need to make a copy if you want to use one. Click the Use Template button in the upper right corner to make a copy. 

These templates have headers, page numbers, margins, fonts and line spacing already set up for you. Just make a copy and type over the filler text. 

APA Template Google Doc

MLA Template Google Doc

References and Citations

Google Docs also has a Citation tool to help you format your bibliography and in-text citations. You can find it in the menu under Tools=>Citations . Here is a short video showing the process:

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