Professional Documents
Culture Documents
GUIDE
2016
This guide claims neither ownership nor originality of the materials included herein. In
fact, much of this volume comes from the various style guides that have been
published, particularly the APA Style Guide, the CBE Style Guide, the MLA Style Guide,
the Turabian Style Guide (sometimes also known as the University of Chicago Style
Guide). The Team that prepared this Guide simply put together what was thought to be
of practical use to the faculty and students of the FICS, U.P. Open University, for the
internal purposes of the UPOU.
This Style Guide was the output of a team, appointed by Former Dean Melinda dP.
Bandalaria (now UPOU Chancellor) of FICS, and comprised of the following:
Ms. Emely Amoloza, MS, provided the necessary administrative coordination for all the
activities of as well as logistical support for the Team.
There are numerous style guides available for your use. So, why the need for a
separate FICS style guide? A style guide is generally defined as a set of standards for
writing documents such as academic papers to ensure that such documents are written
in a manner easy to understand and that reflects the expectations of the institution to
which youll submit your paper. In other words, the style guide provides rules and
regulations to treat textual documents to ensure better understanding by stakeholders,
in this case, the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, U.P. Open
University.
This FICS Style Guide provides the standards for writing thesis, dissertation, book, and
research manuscripts that are for submission to the UPOU, through the Faculty of
Information and Communication Studies, for approval and/or acceptance for publication.
It also provides general guidelines for the preparation of other documents to be
submitted to the FICS, such as course term papers and project reports.
2. There shall only be two spaces (double space) between paragraphs, but the first
line of each new paragraph must be indented one standard MS Word indention
or approximately five spaces.
Unless otherwise specified, all manuscripts submitted to UPOU, through the FICS, shall
follow these general guidelines:
1. All titles must be brief but not longer than two lines of 10cm.
2. First line of full title about six-eight centimeters from the top edge.
3. Authors name about five-six centimeters below the last line of the title.
4. Institutional affiliation of author about six-seven centimeters below the authors
name.
5. All texts on the cover of the manuscript must be gold in color, and not higher than
0.5cm.
6. On the butt (or keel), five centimeters from the top edge, shall be printed the full
title (which should be top-orientated when manuscript is in upright position on a
book shelf). About 1.0-1.5 cm from the title shall be the category of the report.
The categories are: PhD Dissertation, MS/MA/MM/MENRM Thesis, BS Thesis.
The family name of the author, followed by year of submission to the Faculty
(separated by a comma), must be printed from the bottom end, no more than five
centimeters from the bottom edge.
The cover of the manuscript would appear like the example on the next page, while the
keel would look like this:
FULL TITLE OF THE REPORT (No more than two lines.) MS Thesis Manalo, 2000
Title Page
1. The title page contains the following information: complete title of the manuscript,
author of the manuscript, institutional affiliation, and the year that the manuscript
was produced or submitted.
2. The title of a manuscript must be brief and concise, normally three to five words,
but in cases where the title may need to be a bit more lengthy, the full title must
be typed in inverted pyramid format, except on the keel where said title may be
typed in block format to save space.
3. The title must be about 10cm from the top margin, upper case, bold, except
scientific names which must be printed according to standard requirements for
scientific names.
4. The authors name, in upper and lower case, must be about ten cm below the
last line of the title.
5. At the bottom of the page, about 15 cm from the authors name shall be printed
the institutional affiliation of the author, spelled out. For example:
6. This is how a title page might look like most of the time (please see following
page for example). This example is hypothetical.
If the manuscript has a copyright, that copyright announcement must be printed on the
page following the title page. The symbol of copyright which is , followed by year,
copyright owner, and address or institutional affiliation of author, must be printed at the
center of the page.
This acceptance page refers to the acceptance page required by the UPOU. It should
be made clear here that acceptance pages are required for course projects, masters
theses, and doctoral dissertations.
You may obtain the details of style for your specific course project from your course
professor.
It should be clear that acceptance pages differ according to the preferences of the
institution (university). The FICS (UP Open University) adopts a simple acceptance
page that expresses acceptance emanating from the faculty as personified by the
Academic Advisory Committee and the Dean of the Faculty.
Acceptance pages for theses and dissertations are shown in the following pages.
__________________________
Adviser
____________
Date
__________________________
Program Chair
____________
Date
__________________________
Dean
Faculty of Information and
Communication Studies
____________
Date
__________________________ __________
Chair, Dissertation Committee (Date)
__________________________ __________
Member, Dissertation Committee (Date)
__________________________ __________
Member, Dissertation Committee (Date)
__________________________ __________
Reader/Critic (Date)
________________________________________
Dean
Faculty of Information and Communication Studies
______________
(Date)
This page may be considered optional, but most theses and dissertations carry it for
very good reasons. The acknowledgment page may be as brief as half a page, or as
long as two pages. Who to acknowledge would depend on the decision of the author.
Authors of theses and research manuscripts routinely would want to dedicate their work
to personages to whom they may be indebted. This page is devoted for that purpose.
Often, you can write this as follows:
Dedicated to:
Etc.
In many instances, the Table of Contents includes the Preliminary Pages. In this
instance, the pages would be marked with Roman Numbers. Usually, what would be
considered lower case for Roman numbers are used, hence, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix x,
etc. Include titles of textual content, tables, figures, and photographs in the Table of
Contents.
Chapter Title
The Chapter Heading, sometimes called the Center Heading, refers to a major part of
the Chapter. Here are specific requirements:
1. Only the first letter of the major words used are in UPPER CASE.
2. Chapter Headings must be typed in bold letters.
3. Chapter Headings must be three spaces below the last line of the preceding
paragraph.
Side Heading
Paragraph Heading
The main paragraphs of the side heading may have a title called the paragraph
heading, which is usually in bold and italics, but all in lower case, except for the first
letter of the first word which should by in upper case. Succeeding paragraphs are
Over-all, heres how the organization of the chapter would look like.
Chapter Number
CHAPTER TITLE
________________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Side Heading
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Side Heading
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
_________________________________________
Theres a chance that you would have additional side headings or paragraph headings.
Just follow the pattern above.
The in-text citation is used to provide information that can immediately tell the reader
the source of the material just presented, and this is done by providing the name of the
author and year of publication in parenthesis. With the use of in-text citation, the need
for foot-notes have become less necessary, except when the author wishes to provide
additional explanation or context to the statement just provided in the text.
The following examples of the use of the author-publication date combination (in-text
citation) come from the book titled Writing Your Thesis:
How to cite sources within the text. The three common techniques of citing other
works are quotations, summaries, and paraphrases. Let us cite liberally from Writing
Your Thesis (Librero, 2012)
Use of footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes are used to cite sources (instead of in-text
citations), or provide further explanation to ideas that could not be appropriately
included as part of the text. The footnote appears at the bottom of the same page for
which the note is provided. Endnotes are like footnotes but are usually provided at the
end of the article or chapter where they were introduced.
Footnotes have four main uses: (a) to cite the authority for
statements in text specific facts or opinions as well as
exact quotations; (b) to make cross references; (c) to make
incidental comments upon, to amplify or to qualify textual
discussion in short, to provide a place for material which
the writer thinks it worthwhile to include but which he feels
would disrupt the flow of thought if introduced into the text;
(d) to make acknowledgments.
For our purposes in this style guide, we discourage the use of footnotes and endnotes.
We consider them a bit cumbersome. The use of footnotes and endnotes is
discouraged but should there be a need for source citation in the text, use in-text
citation instead. However, use footnotes to cite sources of tables and figures/diagrams.
If there is a need for footnote in the text, place the footnote at the bottom of the page
where the note is mentioned. The first line should be indented five spaces and the next
lines flushed left. The footnote may be in smaller font size.
1
Example: Ma. Celeste H. Cadiz, Educational
Communication for Development, (College, Laguna,
UPLBCA Publications, 1991), p. 38.
2
The member banks and their contributions are
listed in Appendix 3. (This example is from
Turabian, 1973.)
Note that an endnote is formatted similarly. It just is placed at the end of the
manuscript.
Other presentation tools. There are different techniques and purposes for using non-
textual material such as statistical information, drawings and diagrams, as well as
pictorial materials.
(horizontal line)
(field)
1.2.2. The vertical lines are no longer required, although they may be
retained for the stub headings.
1.2.3. All horizontal lines are single lines. There is no longer need for
double horizontal lines for the top and bottom lines of statistical
tables.
Drawings and schematic diagrams have the distinct advantage of being able to
show highly technical components and provide the necessary explanation for
related parts.
2.1. Use technical drawings or diagrams when showing detailed parts, their
functions, and operation, especially when textual explanation becomes
cumbersome and confusing.
2.2. Use technical drawings and diagrams in showing and explaining scientific
operation that require showing of highly purposive and important details.
SOURCE:
3.1. It is said that a single photograph is worth a thousand words. This is much
more true in modern times, particularly where color becomes a significant
component of the event.
3.3. Events in life happen in fleeting seconds and usually do not repeat
themselves. Use photographs to freeze these events in time and make
them available for further analyses for better understanding.
This appears as a minor issue, but use of each of the two terms has distinct and
significant purpose. Bibliography refers to the listing of sources that were used in the
preparation of the manuscript. Such sources may or may not have been cited in the
text. References, on the other hand, is a list of those materials that were used in the
preparation of the manuscript and were cited in the text.
By the way, it is frequent that writers of theses and dissertations would claim that a
source is through personal communication with an expert, etc. It is appropriate to
provide in-text citation for personal communication sources (i.e., Personal
communication, email message on June 15, 2015). You may italicize this. However,
you need not include personal communication sources as part of the bibliography.
In general, each of these Style Guides has its own formats and purposes, but all of
them were designed for publication purposes. Hence, they are also known as
publication style guides. Over the years, the APA Style has been considered one that is
applied to the social sciences; the MLA Style Guide for the arts and humanities; the
CBE Style Guide for the sciences and Mathematics; and the Turabian-University of
Chicago Style for general application (usually in universities).
Over the years, and due to the influence of electronic publications, all the guides have
changed. There are old rules that remain applicable, but many have been discarded
and many new ones added.
It must be emphasized here that this FICS Style Guide does not deal with the minute
details. The presumption is that, in general, the FICS adopts the APA-oriented style.
While the general guidelines are spelled out on this guide, it is highly recommended that
you look at the details in the APA Publications Manual. The APA also has adopted
rules for areas it has not traditionally had rules for. For example, APA for the Sciences,
APA for Engineering, etc. The details are all available in the main APA Manual and
online.
The basic intention the FICS Style Guide is really to provide general rules and
regulations for the production of documents to be submitted to UPOU through the FICS.
These rules and regulations may or may not be similar to any Style Guide available
For stand-alone books: Authors name (last name first), double space, year of
publication enclosed in parenthesis, double space, title of book in italics (Clc), single
space, place of publication, colon, single space, publisher. The first line is flushed left
and all succeeding lines indented 10 spaces to the right.
Examples:
Harman, Willis. (1998). Global Mind Change. Revised Expanded Edition. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Librero, Felix R. (2012). Writing Your Thesis. Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines: U.P.
Open University.
Librero, Felix R. (2008). Distance Education in the Philippines: Issues and Concerns.
College, Laguna, Philippines: UP Open University.
Nisbett, Richard E. (2003). The Geography of Thought. New York: Free Press.
For edited books, with editor treated as author: Name of editor, year of publication,
title of edited book, place of publication, publisher.
Examples:
Baggaley, Jon and Tian Belawati (eds.). (2010). Distance Education Technologies in
Asia. New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd and International
Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada.
Cario, Ledivina V. (ed.). (2001). The Philippine Social Sciences in the Life of the
Nation. Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Center.
Librero, Felix R. (2010). Training Asian instructional designers. In Jon Baggaley and
Tian Belawati (eds.), Distance Education Technologies in Asia, Sage
Publications India, New Delhi and International Development Research
Center, Ottawa, Canada, pp. 214-226.
Librero, Felix R. (2012). Devcom mindset: are we ready for it? The Journal of
Development Communication, Vol 24, No. 2, pp. 50-58.
Cangara, Hafied. (1995). The Use of Satellite Communication for National Integration
in Indonesia. Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of the Philippines
Los Baos.
Flor, Alexander G. (1987). The Information Rich and the Information Poor: Two Faces
of the Information Age in a Developing Country. Unpublished PhD
dissertation. University of the Philippines Los Baos.
Use of Annexes
If the manuscript includes Annexes (these are also called Appendices), the clear page
following the last page for the bibliography should be used as title page for the Annexes.
The word Annexes must be typed, centered in UPPER Case, and BOLD.
Each Annex must start with a clear page. The Annexes should be assigned pages as
well, like they are part of the main body text. Annexes may be identified by Roman
Numbers or Alphabet, typed in upper case, bold.
This Style Guide provides you with the general rules and guidelines for the preparation
of manuscripts for submission to the UP Open University, through the FICS.
Admittedly, this guide does not give enough details.
The following references could provide such additional guidelines and details:
Lastimosa, Pura J. and Morma V. Llemit. (1994). Style Guide for Research Writers and
Editors. Los Banos, Laguna: PCARRD.
Librero, Felix R. (2012). Writing Your Thesis. Los Baos, Laguna: U.P. Open
University.
Radford, Marie L.; Susan B. Barnes; and Linda R. Barr. (2006). Web Research. 2nd
Edition. Boston, New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, Montreal, Toronto, Madrid,
Munich, Paris, Hongkong, Singapore, Tokyo, Cape Town, Sydney: Pearson.
Turabian, Kate L. (1980). A Manual for Writers (of Term Papers, Theses, and
Dissertations). 8th Edition. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Reprinted in the Philippines by National Book Store.
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