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!

Language

Set the proofing language of your Word Document to: English (United Kingdom).

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. 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, will be larger in size than the Normal style, and a different font and colour to Normal style. You can use a slightly more stylish font, such as Garamond, 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.

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.

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 C: Source details (with 3 tables)
3. Addendum B: Summaries (10 level 3 headings, linked to questions in Research Questions table)
4. Addendum D: Evaluation of Sources (with 3 tables)
5. Addendum E: Learner Declaration of Authenticity (with details completed)
6. Addendum F: Folder structure screenshot

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.

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):

Top Tip: Keep checking back with your Table of Contents — update the field and check that the Styles have been applied correctly and that the page numbering is correct.

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.

Research Questions table

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

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:

Table captions

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

Table of Figures

Once you have started adding captions to your tables, you can add a Table of Figures beneath the appropriate heading.

Table styling

Style your tables so that they look the same, remember: consistency, consistency, consistency! As a minimum, make the heading row text bold and center aligned.

Once you have your Learner Guide your next step will be to complete your Cover Page.