Question about formatting of an interview for college paper.

Asked by stemnyjones (3976

) February 25th, 2012

I’m trying to format an interview (Q-A Q-A format, not paragraph-style) for one of my college classes. The paper is double-spaced, and the questions are numbered and bolded, with the answers un-bolded, and an extra space between the end of an answer and the start of the next question.

My specific question is this: The third question of the interview is 5 lines long, with a 9-line answer, and it cannot all fit on the remainder of the first page. I’m torn between which of the following would be a more placement for it:

Placing only the question on the bottom of the first page, with the answer beginning on the next page (the question fits exactly onto the first page, so there would be no extra blank lines at the end of the page),
or
Moving the question AND answer to the next page, leaving 6 empty lines on the bottom of the first page.

I can’t contact my professor at this point, though I know that his opinion is what matters the most, so I am simply asking for your opinion/knowledge about which one is more correct. Please don’t suggest that I contact my professor.

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5 Answers

Could you just make the font a tad smaller for that part? Aside from that I’d just put Contd. Page 2

XOIIO (18328

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I havent done anything in college though.

XOIIO (18328

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Unfortunately, no… although the prof. didn’t give specifics about the interview portion of the paper itself, the general format is APA style, meaning that the font and size are set throughout the paper.

stemnyjones (3976

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When one is formatting pages, there is concern for what are called “orphans” and “widows” which are the little bits that get kicked to the next page. The definitions vary depending upon which book you choose, but the point is not to break something up in a way that it is difficult to follow. In your example, leaving the entire question at the bottom of a page with the full answer starting at the top of the next page is preferred to kicking the entire thing to the second page.

Kayak8 (16457

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When magazines run interviews, they don’t seem to worry much about where the page breaks (speaking as a reader, that is—I know nothing of publishing). If a page breaks right between a q and a, I think that’s perfect & will maintain uniformity. Five lines is a significant shortening of a page, I think, otherwise. Ideally the q’s and a’s are formatted differently (as is also the case in magazines) so the reader’s eye won’t easily miss the new question at the bottom of the page, even if it’s just one line.

gasman (11335

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