University of Memphis Paper Format & Writing Requirements

University of Memphis at a glance

The flagship public university of Memphis, home to a top-ranked criminology program, the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law on the Mississippi riverfront, and the FedEx Institute of Technology.

The campus sits in Memphis, Tennessee, operates as a public institution, and enrolls about 22,000 students — a scale that directly shapes how writing support works. Founded in 1912 with an acceptance rate around 72%, University of Memphis pairs selective admissions with the large-course writing loads typical of its category.

Citation styles University of Memphis actually requires

University of Memphis courses predominantly require APA 7 or MLA 9 or Chicago 18. 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 18: used across the university's signature programs

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

The ENGL 1010/1020 sequence anchors first years, criminology and law majors add policy-paper and case-brief loads, and the Writing Center in the McWherter Library tutors across every college.

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 Memphis papers that surprise new students

• Founded in 1912 as West Tennessee State Normal School, the campus opened with four buildings and a dairy herd that supplied the dining halls into the 1930s.
• The law school sits in a restored 1920s federal courthouse directly on the Mississippi riverfront, a mile from the campus, and its courtroom stays in session as a working moot facility.
• The FedEx Institute of Technology grew out of the city's logistics identity, and its innovation labs pair computer-science students with the corporate research campus across the street.

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 Memphis students face most

• Research Paper — most frequently assigned across University of Memphis's programs
• Essay — most frequently assigned across University of Memphis's programs
• Case Study — most frequently assigned across University of Memphis's programs
• Term Paper — most frequently assigned across University of Memphis's programs
• Literature Review — most frequently assigned across University of Memphis's programs

Popular programs at University of Memphis include criminology and criminal justice, business (fogelman college), music (rudi e. scheidt school) — each pairs the assignment list above with its own capstone or practicum expectations, detailed on our subject pages.