3. Planning

Writing Guidelines

Plan to ...

• Spend about three to four hours to produce your essay. Give yourself time to plan the essay, to write it, to revise it for content and style, and to edit it for grammar, spelling, and mechanics.
• Submit an essay of between 700 and 1200 words. Long essays will not necessarily receive higher scores than short ones. The writing should be concise, but ample enough to answer the question fully, with appropriate evidence, examples, and details.
• Use ordinary words that accurately express your meaning. Sometimes you may need to use rare or fairly technical terms, but you should do so only when those words are necessary.
• Compose your essay on a computer.
• Use a dictionary, spell-checker, and writing handbook, at your option. Keep in mind that these composing tools should not substitute for your own careful reviewing and proofreading. You may also consult a thesaurus and grammar checker, but we discourage their use, because a thesaurus may lead you to substitute synonyms inappropriately and grammar checkers are sometimes unreliable.
• Abide by these restrictions:
  • Do not discuss the reading, the writing assignment, or your essay with anyone.
  • Do not use any outside sources except the reading that you download from this site. Spend your time in planning, writing, and revising an essay, rather than conducting research on the topic. The writing assignment is designed so that you can compose a substantial and appropriate essay without any additional resources.
  • Follow the Caltech honor code.

NOTE: You will find additional guidelines and suggestions when you download the writing assignment.

System Requirements

To participate in the WAFT, you will need access to:

• an email account from the day you register through at least mid-July, and
• a computer with
  • word processing software,
  • an Internet connection (via modem, cable modem, DSL, etc.), and
  • a web browser (for best viewing, use: Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, Mozilla 1.5 or higher, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or higher, or Safari. (We do not recommend Internet Explorer version 5.x for Macintosh or any 4.x version of Netscape Navigator on any platform

You will find your browser's version number in its "About" window.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer — From the Menu bar at the top of your browser window, click Help->About Internet Explorer
• Firefox — From the Menu bar at the top of your browser window, click Help->About Mozilla Firefox
• Safari — From the Menu bar at the top of your browser window, click Help->About Safari

Downloading recent versions of browsers:

• Get Internet Explorer
• Get Mozilla Firefox
• Get Safari

NOTE: Downloading a browser may take several hours, depending on the speed of your modem and Internet connection.

Next: 4. Log In