Standard manuscript format is a formatting style for

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

s of short stories, novels, poems and other literary works submitted by authors to

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

s. Even with the advent of

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...

, making it possible for anyone to prepare text that appears professionally typeset, many publishers still require authors to submit manuscripts within their respective guidelines. Although there is no single set of guidelines, the "standard" format describes formatting that is considered to be generally acceptable. Although publishers guidelines for formatting are the most critical resource for authors,

style guide A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gene ...

s are also key references for authors preparing manuscripts since "virtually all professional editors work closely with one of them in editing a manuscript for publication." Manuscript formatting depends greatly on the type of work that is being written, as well as the individual publisher, editor or producer. Writers who intend to submit a manuscript should determine what the relevant writing standards are, and follow them. Individual publishers' standards will take precedence over

Features

In general, a document with standard manuscript format will have the following features: * 8.5"×11" or A4 paper size. * Courier or a similar monospaced

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...

font. * 12-

point Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

(10 ) or 10-point (12 pitch) font size. * Double-spaced lines of text (set in a

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...

as 24-point or 20-point line spacing). * 24 or 25 lines of text. * 1, 1.25 or 1.5 inch margins. * Paragraph indentation of 0.5 inches. * Printed one-sided with black ink. On the first page of the document, the author's name and contact information appears in the top left corner. In the top right corner of the first page, the word count appears. Subsequent pages only have text in the top right corner. This text includes: the author's name, a slash, an abbreviated title, another slash, and the page number.

Word count

Writers can add the word count of the manuscript, although this may also be noted on a

query letter A query letter is a formal letter sent to magazine editors, literary agents A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers, film producers, and film studios, and assists in sale a ...

. Most publishers pay writers based on a hypothetical number of words in the manuscript. However, this is not the physical count of actual words; this is a rough count of the number of characters divided to better estimate the space that the final text will consume in the published version. Normally, this involves counting every character in the manuscript, including spaces, and dividing by 6. If the correct font size is used, and if the

margins Margin may refer to: Physical or graphical edges *Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page *Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust *Leaf ...

are set so that lines contain an average of 60 characters, the editor can easily assume that there are 10 words per line. Furthermore, if the top and bottom margins are set so that there are, for example, 25 lines on each page, the editor can easily count 250 words per page.

Manuscript handling

The final reason involves how editors, copy editors, and typesetters handle manuscripts. They might work on an entire manuscript at one time or the editor might hand groups of pages to the typesetter at a time. Unstapled pages facilitate this. Page numbers, author's name, and title on every page ensure that if an unstapled manuscript is shuffled on a table, shared among two or more people, or dropped, it can easily be reassembled, and if a stack of unstapled manuscripts is dropped, it can easily be sorted into the correct sets.

Other manuscript formats

There are formatting conventions for different kinds of written works, including: * Plays and screenplays * Novels and novellas * Essays and longer nonfiction works * Stories and collections of stories * Poems and collections of poems * Research or academic papers

Features

Word count

Manuscript handling

Other manuscript formats

See also

References

Further reading