[Year 12 IPM] formats & conventions

[Fusinato, Margaret M]

How strange. The email from Mike appeared in my email in box tonight and as I scrolled down I see this is a reply to one sent by Mark. The one sent by Mark hasn't arrived yet? And no wonder the kids get confused over formats and conventions - it sounds confusing put like this. Think I will just make up my own list of examples to go with the definitions. 
 
Margaret Fusinato
Trafalgar High School

________________________________

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Mike Brookes
Sent: Wed 26/10/2005 6:42 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management Teachers'Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IPM] formats & conventions



Hi All
To clarify/be picky..right aligning/decimal
aligning/centering/justifying is formating data - the convention is in
which format is customarily used to display numeric data-- i.e. the
convention is to format numbers so that the decimal points line up or
the convention is to format currency with a leading $ sign and two
digits after the decimal point.
Same with headings - displaying in bold/italic etc is formating, the
convention might be to format headings in bold, 14pt Arial, centred on
the page.

Yours in Confusionism
Mike Brookes

Mark Kelly wrote:
> Hi Margaret
>
> I tell my kids that formats are totally different to conventions.
>
> Formats define how information is structured and laid out (e.g. in a
> graph, a table, as text, as a web page, as an icon).
>
> Most conventions indicate how information is formatted or presented
> (e.g. bold headings, right-justified columns of numbers, using page
> numbering, underlined web links, how envelopes are addressed).
> Other conventions dictate what content appears, such as the Tax Office's
> mandatory conventions on what has to appear for a piece of paper to pass
> as a legitimate tax invoice.
>
> So, a table is a FORMAT for presenting statistics.  Right-aligning the
> columns of numbers in the table, using bold row/column headings and
> providing row/column totals would be CONVENTIONS.
>
>
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