GUIDELINE FOR WRITING PROJECT WORK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR NIGERIAN LANGUAGES, ABA
Your research project contains PRELIMINARY PAGES, CHAPTERS 1-5, REFERENCES, and
APPENDIX (Optional). The preliminary pages of your project work shall be arranged in the following
order: Title page; CERTIFICATION, APPROVAL PAGE, DEDICATION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,
TABLE OF CONTENT, and ABSTRACT. (See the Project template for more guidance).
BASIC FORMATING
1 Margins: Set your document to A4 paper size (8.27 inch x 11.67 inch). Top and bottom margins should
be 1", and left and right margins should be 1.25". No items on your page should project beyond these
margins.
2 Fonts: The text should be 12-point Times or Times New Roman throughout, including preliminary
pages and the main body of the work as well as titles for figures, tables etc. in which the text is smaller
than 10-point (take care when importing from other programs such as Excel or R). The only exception is
footnote, which should be 10-point. Where phonetic characters are used, such may be in Charis SIL or
Doulos SIL font.
3 Line spacing: Preliminary pages should be 1.5 line spacing, the main body of the work should be 2.0
(Double line spacing), while references and appendices should be 1.0 (Single line spacing).
4 Indents and justification
1. Indent the first line of each paragraph 0.25 inches (0.64 cm).
2. Do not skip a line between paragraphs.
3. Text, footnotes, and references must be fully justified.
5 Examples: Examples should be numbered consecutively throughout the paper, independently from
figure/table numbers or section numbers. Begin example numbering at (1). Please skip one line before
and after examples, and use parentheses around the example number. Example numbers should be left-
justified, and example text should be the same font and font size as the rest of the work.
(1) This is an example
The paragraph following the example should generally not be indented.
5.1 Glosses: Functional affixes in glosses must be in small caps and words must be spaced using tabs, not
spaces.
(2) This is an example
DEM COP.3S INDEF example
‘This is an example’
Whenever possible, all glosses should follow the Leipzig glossing rules, available here:
https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/pdf/Glossing-Rules.pdf
6 Headings: All chapter headings in the preliminaries shall be written in upper case and appear on
separate pages in the text.
1
6.1 Section Headings: Number all section headings and subheadings (Eg 1.1 Background to the Study;
3.1 Research Design; 2.1.1 Discourse Analysis, etc). Section headings must be in Sentence Case and
bold.
7 Tables and figures: Tables and figures should be in their actual positions in the work. Please make
sure graphics are not blurry when viewed on screen or when printed.
8 Page numbers: The preliminary pages of your work should be numbered using Roman numerals (Eg i,
ii, iii, iv…), while the main body of the work (Chapter 1-5, reference and appendix (if available)) should
be numbered using Arabic numerals. Numbers should be plain (with no formatting or accent), and should
be located at the bottom right of the page through-out.
9 Citation & References: You may use any common format (LSA, MLA, APA, etc.) for your citation
and references, as long as you use that format consistently throughout the work. Alternatively, you may
consider using the APA (6th Edition) suggested in the Table below.
In-Text Citation References
A journal article According to Imu (2025), … Imu, F. O. (2025). Urhobo Verb Phrase. Nigerian Language Studies,
In ABC (Imu, 2025) 4(2), 93-100.
Imu (2025) stated that “…”
A journal article Harrison and Ogie (2013) Harrison, G. L., & Ogle, K. C. (2013). Linguistic, Reading, and
with DOI stated that… . Transcription Influences on Kindergarten Writing in Children
…. (Harrison & Ogie, 2013) with English as a Second Language. Journal of Writing
Research, 5(1), 61–87. doi: 10.17239/jowr-2013.05.01.3
A journal article Rafieyan et al. (2014) Rafieyan, V., Sharafi-Nejad, M., Khavari, Z., Damavand, A., & Eng, L.
with 3-7 authors suggested… . S. (2014). Relationship between Cultural Distance and Pragmatic
.... (Rafieyan et al., 2014) Comprehension. English Language Teaching, 7(2), 103–109.
A book Labov (2011) said that … . Labov, W. (2011). Principles of Linguistic Change: Cognitive and
… (Labov, 2011). cultural factors. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
A book chapter Kim (2009) found that… . Kim, H. (2009). Improving Techniques for Naïve Bayes Text
“…..,” (Kim, 2009:115). Classifiers. In M. Song & Y. B. Wu (Eds.), Handbook of
Research on Text and Web Mining Technologies (pp. 111–127).
New York: Information Science Reference
An article in a …stated in Mind+ (2011). Mind+. (2011, May–July). 10 Most Popular Blog Providers. Mind+:
magazine … in Dahlan (2013). The True Edu-lifestyle Magazine, 2(5), 39–41.
Dahlan, A. (2013, March). Perlindungan dan Pelestarian Pengetahuan
Tradisional dan Ekspresi Budaya Tradisional Indonesia. Media
HKI, 10(2), 10–15.
An online news Patnistik (2014) reported that Patnistik, E. (Ed.). (2014, 19 Sept). Rakyat Skotlandia Tolak Merdeka
or article with … dari Inggris. Retrieved January 15th 2015 from
author(s)/ http://internasional.kompas.com/read/2014/09/19/13174481/Rak
editor(s) yat.Sko tlandia.Tolak.Merdeka.dari.Inggris
Dissertation/ McNiel (2006) found…. . McNiel, D. S. (2006). Meaning through Narrative: A Personal
thesis/ long …..(McNiel, 2006). Narrative Growing Up with an Alcoholic Mother. MA thesis,
essay University of Ibadan.
