Assignment Planning: Formatting

Colleges and training centres have rules about how work is presented - a house style. Before you submit your writing, you will have to make sure that the format and presentation meets the house style. If there is no house style, or no guidelines have been issued, consider using the following guidelines.

No matter what you do, the important thing to remember is to choose something and be consistent. If you choose a particular font, then use that font throughout your document; if you have page numbers, make sure they're on the same location on every page.

Section	Guidelines
Cover Page	A cover page usually includes Title Your name Module name Module code Date of submission
Table of Contents	A list with page numbers of all Chapters Headings & Sub-headings Figures Tables Use a table of contents created by the word processing software that you use; do not create one manually
Alignment	Choose whether your text is aligned with the left margin or justified (aligned with both left and right margins) and use that throughout.
Bullet points	For lists, use bullet points. As with alignment, choose one bullet point style and use it throughout
Figures and Tables	Figures and Tables should be numbered, labelled and included in the Table of Contents. The convention is to have the label underneath the figure and above the table, but the important thing is to be consistent - always above or always below.
Font	Use one standard font. Sans-serif fonts such as Ariel, Calibri, Helvetica and Verdana are considered easier to read than Serif fonts. A 12pt font is standard. Bold and italics can be used for emphasis, but avoid underlining (which should be used only for web links) Paraphrasing Henry Ford, you can use any font colour you like, as long as it is black.
Glossary (as required)	A list of terms appearing in the document and their meaning
Headings	Use heading and subheadings to mark different sections of your documents. Be consistent e.g., (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 not 1, 2, a, 3, B). Headings and subheadings should have meaningful names that indicate the content of the section. Use the headings supplied by your word processing software rather than trying to use a different font-size.
Line spacing	Line spacing should be at least 1.5, preferably 2.0 but be consistent
Margins	The default margins in word processing software (2.54cm) are sufficient
Page Numbers	If you have a table of contents, you will need to use page numbers. Be consistent with the location of the numbers (e.g., bottom left, bottom middle, bottom right) the format (e.g., 1, 2, 3... p1, p2, p3..., Page 1, Page 2, Page 3...)

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