For all Alphabetize your reference list. Number pages in your paper. Avoid personal pronouns if at all possible. Code examples should be less than half a page. If longer, bust into multiple smaller pieces and explain the pieces as you go. If a code example is not important enough to be explained, in English, then it is unimportant and must be deleted. If there are no code samples (and especially if there are no code samples, no math, no flowchart diagrams), it is time to FREAK OUT. A large part of paper grades depend on good "Depth and Development." How can a paper about programming be technically deep without discussing actual samples of code? Long paragraphs (a page or more) are a big RED FLAG. One topic, one paragraph. If a new topic starts, a new paragraph must start. If every sentence in a blob of text is on a different topic, then the author needs to re-organize the presentation into coherent paragraphs. (For the reader, disorganized, long paragraphs are painful to read.) The number of sources I sent in emails is conservative. I didn't do any investigation of sources that looked iffy; I simply didn't count them. I do not promise to investigate them when grading final papers. Furthermore, Moreover, Therefore... Use of those words should be minimized. Overuse them and the paper starts to read like the work of a 13 year old who has been told they must write X many words and is wedging in as many extra words as they can to make quota.