1. FORMATS
AND
CONVENTIONS
Information
Processing & Michelle Atilano Ogana Prof. Sheryl Farquerabao
Handling

2. Convention
refers to the rules or guidelines that govern the
way certain sections of a presentation should
appear.
the major aim of conventions is to ensure that
information is displayed in a consistent fashion.

3. The ff. lists should give you some idea of
what to consider:
Word Processing
TEXT
There are conventions governing ordinary
text:
•Paragraph indenting
•Spaces after commas and full stops
•Page numbering
•Location of headings

4. •Date format
•Paragraph spacing
•Line spacing
•Footnotes or endnotes
•Font and style
•Headers and footers

6. Desktop publishing page design
Page design also has certain conventions,
some of which are:
•Text should be easy to read from top left to
bottom right
•Text should be fully justified
•Columns widths should be between 20 and
40 characters

7. •Use of upper case in headings should be
minimal
•Kerning (letter spacing) should be about 1
unit or point
•Sans serif styles should not be over-used
•Serif style typefaces should predominate

9. Letters and addresses
These can be done in a range of formats, such
as:
•Fully blocked
•Blocked
•Semi-blocked
Addresses are normally presented in
Australia Post format.

11. References
When you are writing, and you wish to refer the
reader to other works, references can be
organized in different ways.
You can use the author-date system, a system
of footnotes, or other acceptable conventions.
Ex: Canberra,1994

12. Quotations
When you are quoting another writer:
•If the quote is less than about 30 words,
keep it in the same paragraph and place it
between quotation marks.

13. Example
:

14. •If it is more than about 30 words, indent it
and set it one point size smaller than the
body text.
This is one way of dealing with
quotations, but there are others.

15. Bibliographies
•A bibliography identifies sources that are
relevant to the text, or quoted in the text.
•They usually go at the end of the text, and
follow a consistent style.

16. Example
:
Author, A.A. (Year). Title of work. Publication:
Publisher.
Alexie, S. (1992). The business of fancy
dancing: stories and poems. USA: Hang
Loose Press.

17. SPREADSHEETS AND NUMERIC
OUTPUT
In spreadsheets, some of the conventions of
numeric output are:
•No decimals in whole numbers “123 not
123.00”
•Decimal point aligned
•Currency has two decimal places “123.34 not
123.4567 or 123

18. •Currency indicated by $ sign “$123.09 or as
column or row heading
•Units of measurement indicated in a legend
•Percentage values indicated directly or in
column or row heading.

19. TEXT
REPORTS
Text reports should contain:
•Title
•Author‟s name
•Date
•Column and row headings
•Page numbers
•Legend, if needed
•Software and filename

20. DATABASES
Database reports should all contain:
•A heading
•The author‟s name
•Date
•Sub-headings as required

21. •Alignment of data in columns
•No column or row overflow
•Normal text conventions

23. Formats
term „format‟ refers to the rules or
guidelines that govern the structure of a
specific type of presentation.
For example, a template is used to present
legal word-processed documents.

24. Some common formats include:
•Use of white space in training material and user
guides to enhance readability
•Use of heading hierarchies in reports
•Blocked format for letters
•Standard use of hierarchies in reports

25. Standard use of headers and footers in word-
processed documents.
It is very difficult to outline a range of
standard formats, as there are a great many in
use and the standards or acceptable practice
change.
Sometimes the best way to get a feel for
appropriate formats is to look at examples: