Design guidelines for written assignments

Since the advent of relatively inexpensive desktop publishing software, document design has become increasingly important. Generally speaking, document design refers to the physical arrangement of text and graphics on the page to maximize reader comprehension. This paper discusses design guidelines educators can use to format their assignment instructions. The purpose of formatting is to avoid students' misinterpretation of the assignment and to receive more readable papers. Topics covered are design awareness and formatting tips on using headings, chunking information, and using special features.