You can do a huge amount of work in your PAT Phase 1 report before you even have your Topic: the format of the PAT remains almost 100% consistent from year-to-year! Grade 11’s and 12’s should already be familiar with much of the process, Grade 10’s: some of the instructions may seem a bit odd until you see your final PAT and understand that it is all part of the process!

In this post:

1. Language
2. Styles
3. Cover page
4. Minimum headings
5. Page numbering
6. Table of Contents
7. Research Questions table
8. Source Details tables
9. Table Captions
10. Table of Figures
11. Table styling

1. Language

Set the proofing language of your Word Document to English (United Kingdom). You must use formal language, that is, Standard British English. All your dates must be in long date format, for example: 11 September 1971.

2. Styles

Start setting up your styles before you begin adding content to your document — you can always update them later. You must use at least 3 styles: Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3, and of course, you will also automatically be using the Normal style.

• Normal style should be font size 12 (not the deafult, 11). Be sure to use a straightforward, easy-to-read font like Arial, Calibri, etc. Set your line and paragraph spacing appropriately.
• Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 should use the same font style and colour as each other and must be larger than size than the Normal style. You can use a slightly more stylish font, such as Garamond, for your headings, but do not use any of the more outlandish fonts, like Algerian, Broadway or any of the cursive fonts which are hard to read and do not suitable in a professional context.
• Use different font sizes, with Heading 1 being the largest and Heading 3 the smallest.
• Set the before and after paragraph spacing for your heading styles (add at least 6pt after).

It is a good idea to use placeholder text in your document so that you can fine-tune your formatting right from the beginning — even your Normal style should be modified!

3. Cover page

For now, simply add the following to the first page (which will become your Cover Page).

• your full name & surname, eg. Another Learner
• your grade, eg. Grade 10
• the full name of your school, eg. Wittedrift High School
• the full subject name: Computer Applications Technology
• the text PAT Topic (to be replaced when actual Topic is announced)
• the due date, in long date format, eg: 25 July 2021

Do not use abbreviations and capitalise as necessary.

4. Minimum headings

Each year, with very little change, the following pages and headings will be necessary — go ahead and create them (remember to use Styles to format them: the 1st level numbered headings should be Heading 1 & the 2nd level numbered items should be Heading 2). Each heading should be on a new page. Your Appendices must be in a separate Section so you can insert a Section Page Break after your Bibliography rather than the usual Page Break.

1. (Cover page)
2. (Table of Contents)
3. Table of Figures
4. Focus Question
5. Task Definition
6. Introduction
7. Discussion & Analysis
8. Findings
9. Conclusion
10. Bibliography
11. Appendices
1. Addendum A: Research Questions (with table)
2. Addendum B: Source details (with 3 tables)
3. Addendum C: Evaluation of Sources (with 3 tables)
4. Addendum D: Summaries (10 level 3 headings, linked to questions in Research Questions table)
5. Addendum E: Learner Declaration of Authenticity (with details completed)
6. Addendum F: Folder structure screenshot
7. Addendum G: Questionnaire

5. Page numbering

You should set your page numbering up as well — pop over to the post dealing specifically with automatic Page Numbering in Word for all the details.

6. Table of Contents

Even before you have your topic or any content you can have a document with an automatic Table of Contents similar to the one pictured below (remember: the Table of Contents feature relies on the correct use of Styles):

The Grade 10 Learner Guide for 2020 specifies that you create your Table of Contents manually using tabs with leader lines. If you use the automatic Table of Contents instead, you must ensure that you demonstrate the skill of creating tabs with leader lines elsewhere to fulfil the PAT requirement.

7. Research Questions table

Add your Research Questions table, 3 Source details tables, Source evaluation tables and Learner Declaration to your outline as well.

8. Source details tables

You must provide the full details of 3 of the sources. 2 of those sources must be websites, the 3rd must be a source other than a website. Create tables for these details in Addendum C: Source details.

You will need 2 tables like this one:

And a third table similar to (the headings will vary depending on what type of source you choose later) this one:

The source details in the source details tables will be used to create your sources in your Word document. Therefore, if you need to know what information to collect for a less common type of source, simply open the Source Manager, click the add source button and select the relevant type of source from the drop-down to see which fields are required for that type of source.

1. Select the References menu tab
2. Click on the Manage Sources button
3. Click on the New button
4. Select the type of source from the Type of Source drop-down
5. View the input boxes that you will be required to complete for that specific type of source

9. Table captions

All of your tables must have captions. You can add them now.

1. Select the table by clicking inside then table then left-clicking on the table selector at the top left of the table.
2. Right-click the selected table and left-click the Insert Caption option.
3. Add you caption.
4. Select the Position (I prefer the caption to be below the table)
5. Click on OK.

10. Table of Figures

Once you have started adding captions to your tables, you can add a Table of Figures beneath the appropriate heading. The Insert Table of Figures command button is on the References menu.

11. Table styling

Style your tables so that they look the same, remember consistency, consistency, consistency!

The instructions for additional table settings are in the post Phase 3 Final Report, but you should deal with them now and then check them again in each Phase!

Next step: Cover Page.