University of Hawaii at Manoa Paper Format & Writing Requirements

University of Hawaii at Manoa at a glance

The flagship of the University of Hawaii system, famous for oceanography and astronomy (SOEST), Shidler's international business programs and deep Pacific and Asian studies collections.

The campus sits in Honolulu, Hawaii, operates as a public institution, and enrolls about 18,000 students — a scale that directly shapes how writing support works. Founded in 1907 with an acceptance rate around 84%, UH Manoa pairs selective admissions with the large-course writing loads typical of its category.

Citation styles University of Hawaii at Manoa actually requires

UH Manoa courses predominantly require APA 7 or MLA 9 or Chicago. That is not a trivial preference: it decides your title page, heading levels, in-text punctuation and reference format on every graded document.

• APA 7: used across social science, nursing and business courses
• MLA 9: used across humanities and writing-sequence courses
• Chicago: used across history, fine arts and some social science seminars

Verify against the specific course syllabus anyway — instructors can override departmental defaults, and the first paper is where they enforce it.

The writing requirement, decoded

ENG 100 is universal, and the general-education 'Focus' system tags writing-intensive (WI) sections where writing drives a major share of the grade — degree audits catch seniors who skipped them. The Writing Center in Kuykendall Hall tutors around Laulima submission schedules.

Plan the sequence early: composition requirements compound, and students who defer them discover the advanced seminars — where the writing-intensity lives — conflict with major courses later. The registrar's degree audit shows exactly which flags remain; check it each semester.

Three things about University of Hawaii at Manoa papers that surprise new students

• The UH system runs its own Sakai-based portal called Laulima instead of Canvas or Blackboard, so draft exchanges and peer reviews happen in Laulima forums with their own quirks.
• Papers citing 19th-century Hawaiian-language newspapers use a translated-title citation format drawn from Hamilton Library's Pacific collection — most mainland transfers have never seen it.
• Travel Industry Management majors intern at Waikiki properties and write guest-experience audit reports graded against each property's own service standards.

None of these appear in the course description. All of them appear in the rubric. Students who learn them in week one report smoother first-semesters than students who meet them at the deadline.

Assignments University of Hawaii at Manoa students face most

• Research Paper — most frequently assigned across UH Manoa's programs
• Essay — most frequently assigned across UH Manoa's programs
• Literature Review — most frequently assigned across UH Manoa's programs
• Term Paper — most frequently assigned across UH Manoa's programs

Popular programs at UH Manoa include international business (shidler), marine biology, astronomy — each pairs the assignment list above with its own capstone or practicum expectations, detailed on our subject pages.