Paper formatting guidelines
All necessary styles are included in this template. Do not use ad-hoc formatting (italic + bold,
changes in spacing, font size etc.), as it leads to style proliferation and makes the document unstable
and very difficult to format thereafter. Open the styles box on the right
and you will get a bunch of heading and other styles shown below. Please number your sections
hierarchically, heading 1 with one digit, heading 2 with 2 digits, heading 3 with 3 digits, and heading
4 without digits. Automatically-generated tables of content (accessible in word’s References menu)
will pick up the first 3.
1. Heading 1
Text
1.1 Heading 2
Text
1.1.1 Heading 3
Text
Heading 4
For figures, always use the function in “References/Insert Caption”, as they will be numbered
automatically and adjusted to accommodate changes in the ordering. Cross-references should also be
made using the “References/cross reference” function, although they won’t be updated automatically
as you change the ordering of figures (you will have to chase them one by one, right-click on them
and choose “update field” in the pop-up menu).
Before inserting a caption, toggle to make spaces and hard returns visible and insert several
horizontal spaces where you want to insert the caption. Then insert the caption in the middle of the
spaces, as shown below.
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This will ensure that if the figure caption happens to be right after a hard page break, a crossreference to that figure will not itself include a page break (common formatting headache).
If you put the caption label and text on the same line (as shown above), in the cross-reference menu
choose “label only” (see below) .
The style for captions in this template is Heading 5. Always use it for that. Never embed figures in
text (with text to the left and right of the figure), as it creates hell.
Figure 1: Text of the caption
All tables should be generated in excel and copy-pasted-special as “enhanced metafile”. To get rid of
ugly-looking gridlines, in excel go to “view” and then uncheck the gridlines option. Here is, as an
example, the beginning of a regression results table. All regression results should be presented that
way, including in particular the dependent variable and the type of estimator. Note that the table’s
font is times new roman, like the text, but smaller.
Table 1 Text of the caption
2
Estimator
Sample
Dependent variable: ln(trade value)
Gravity controls
ln(distance)
OLS (within) OLS (within) OLS (within)
All a/
All a/
Manufacturing
(1)
(2)
(3)
-0.442
(268.00)***
-0.448
(260.15)***
-0.477
(264.38)***
Comm. border
0.420
(97.47)***
0.415
(95.84)***
0.407
(89.42)***
Comm. language
0.189
(55.28)***
0.191
(55.77)***
0.227
(63.38)***
Comm. colonizer
0.234
(38.24)***
0.235
(38.18)***
0.234
(36.33)***
MFN tariff
-0.005
(22.52)***
-0.005
(22.30)***
-0.009
(38.31)***
RTA pair
0.223
(54.28)***
0.223
(54.13)***
0.231
(54.22)***
MFN tariff x RTA
0.001
(3.59)***
0.001
(2.96)***
0.001
(2.56)**
Trade policy variables
If two figures must be put side by side, put them in a table, like this:
Figure 2
Text of the caption
(a) First case
(b) Second case
Figure pasted here
Figure pasted here
Source: blabla
But choose invisible lines. For that, highlight the entire table and choose “no border” in the button
below.
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The headings in the table above use the “No spacing, box” format. Figures and excel tables should be
pasted by the “paste special” function as “enhanced metafile”, i.e. as images. This reduces the size of
the overall word file and makes it more stable. Submit the tables and figures as separate excel files.
Talking about figures and tables:
o The font in the tables and figures should be the same as in the document, i.e. times new
roman, and a smaller size (say 10 pts)
o There should be no title in figures and tables, as the title will be in the caption.
o Lines and bars should be formatted so they can be distinguished when printed in black and
white.
 In a bar chart, for each series, right-click on one of the bars, choose “format series”; for
“fill”, choose pattern fill, and for lines, choose black.
 In a line chart, right-click on each line, choose “line type” and choose different types of
dashed lines.
No figures with huge arial titles and legends in a document! This looks bad. So this
Source: WTO statistics database, 2014
which, incidentally, uses automatic colors that will be indistinguishable when printed in B&W,
should become
Figure 3: Services exports by sector, Benin, 2010
Source: WTO statistics database, 2014
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Note that the bullet-point list above was made using the “List paragraph” title and then choosing the
type of bullets from the ribbon. Lists should be made only using this style and should be used
parcimoniously, as they are a source of endless formatting problems.
Text boxes should be put in one-cell tables (see button below) rather than Word’s text box tool.
The reason is that a one-cell table will nicely split over two pages if it spills over more than a page,
whereas a text box won’t.
Here is a text box in a one-cell table where the text is formatted according to the “No spacing, box” style.
References
References should be formatted carefully and using exactly the style and the information shown here.
The style is “bibliographic references”. For a journal article, the reference must include the volume
number after the journal title (without a comma) and then the pages (without p.). One convention on
the names, followed here, is to put name, then first name in full for the first co-author, and then the
initial, then the name for co-authors. Let’s say you stick to that convention.
Bjornstad, David, and M. McKee (2006), “Making Enduring Choices: Uncertainty and Public
Policy”; Energy Economics 28, 667-676.
Beghin, John; A.-C. Disdier, S. Marette, and F. van Tongeren (2011), “Measuring Costs and Benefits
of Non-Tariff Measures in Agri-Food Trade”; Iowa State University working paper 11001.
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