If you don’t already have one, seek out a decent Handbook of College English, such the Harbrace version. Even used will be fine since the conventions of composition don’t change that much. The handbook will offer guidelines and well-detailed instruction in writing essays of various formats like cause-effect, comparison/contrast, process, etc.

More importantly, the handbook will show in detail how to handle the documentation of sources (citations and references). Unless your professor is from the Dark Ages, the required format will be either MLA or APA, both of which have fairly easy formats to use, and both of which will be well outlined in the handbook. Any good handbook should also have model essays which show exactly how the documentation, spacing, headers, etc. should look.

The newness of formal writing may seem a bit overwhelming at first, but after a few papers, the formatting becomes second nature.

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