Math Monthly Journal Research Program for PLEM Majors
Math Monthly Journal
Research Program for PLEM Majors

Writing Your Textbook | PLEM Academy

PLEM Academy Writing Your Book — Resume Building Program

PLEM Academy · Resume Building Program

Writing Your Book

Turn your education into a textbook you can proudly bring to an interview. Follow Professor Jonathan D. Tullis as you plan, write, format, and edit a career-focused book that documents your learning and supports your professional resume.

Develop your manuscript one lesson at a time—from organizing chapters and preparing your document to explaining your projects, citing sources, and preparing your finished book for publication.

Start with the first lesson below. Open each dropdown to follow the instructions and build your book step by step at your own pace.

Lesson 1 — Format Your Textbook in Microsoft Word for Print

PLEM Academy · Writing Your Resume Textbook

Prepare Your Manuscript Before You Begin Writing

Follow Professor Jonathan D. Tullis as he prepares a reusable Microsoft Word document for a printed textbook. Establish your page layout, text styles, headings, and navigation so you can build your manuscript on an organized foundation.

The demonstration uses How to Get a Job at NASA Before You Graduate as the example manuscript. Apply the same organizational approach to your own career-focused textbook.

Your goal for this lesson: Create and save a reusable manuscript document with consistent formatting, placeholder front matter, heading styles, an automatic table of contents, and print-oriented headers and page numbers.

What You Will Learn

  • File organization: Create a primary book folder and use descriptive, ordered filenames for your manuscript components.
  • Textbook page layout: Start with an 8.5 × 11-inch document and arrange inside and outside margins to accommodate binding.
  • The Normal style: Set a consistent body font, size, alignment, and paragraph spacing. The demonstration begins with Palatino Linotype at 13 points.
  • Front matter and page breaks: Prepare a title page and placeholders for the copyright page, table of contents, and preface.
  • Heading styles: Distinguish chapters, sections, and subsections using Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3.
  • Automatic navigation: Insert a table of contents based on your heading styles.
  • Headers and page numbers: Set up different odd and even pages, outside page numbers, and understated running text.
  • A reusable default document: Save a master copy you can duplicate as you develop your book.

Follow Along

  1. Create a dedicated folder for your textbook and save your initial Word document inside it.
  2. Set your page size and binding-oriented margins.
  3. Modify the Normal style before adding substantial content.
  4. Add your working title and front-matter placeholders, separating pages with page breaks.
  5. Create sample chapter, section, and subsection headings and apply the appropriate heading styles.
  6. Insert an automatic table of contents and check that your sample headings appear.
  7. Arrange your odd and even headers and page numbers, then review the first-page header settings.
  8. Save your reusable default document and duplicate it before adapting individual manuscript components.

Make the layout your own. The font choices and heading sizes shown are Professor Tullis’s preferences. Check your selected printer’s specifications before finalizing page size, margins, and submission files.

Connect This Lesson to Your Resume Project

Your textbook will explain the career path you are researching, the skills you are developing, and the original projects that demonstrate those skills. Consistent formatting helps readers navigate that work and gives you a repeatable structure for future chapters.

Document your setup and explain your design choices as part of your project record. Use original portfolio material, and check applicable course policies and permissions before sharing assignments or third-party content.

AI Summarization of This Lesson

AI-generated summary of the supplied transcript; not a verbatim transcript.

Professor Jonathan D. Tullis begins the Writing Your Book series by organizing project files and preparing a reusable Microsoft Word manuscript. His example book focuses on pursuing a job at NASA before graduation.

The demonstration covers an 8.5 × 11-inch layout, binding-oriented margins, modification of the Normal style, title and front-matter placeholders, page breaks, and three levels of heading styles. Those headings are used to generate an automatic table of contents.

He then configures odd and even headers, outside page numbers, and subdued running text. The formatted document is saved as a default copy that can be duplicated for additional manuscript components.

The lesson also demonstrates how the book-writing library connects to the PLEM Academy WordPress page and its individual dropdown lessons.