PMU199S

Document Format Standards

Citation standard

Please use the science standard (numbered note system) for formatting references.

Document format

Please submit written work to me in Rich Text Format (.rtf), Portable Document Format (.pdf), or plain text (.txt).

If buying Microsoft Word is beyond your budget or you prefer not to use Microsoft products, the free LibreOffice is a good alternative.

Regardless of how you prepare your written work, please convert it to a .rtf or .pdf before submitting it to me by e-mail. How this should be achieved depends on your OS and what version of Word you are running, but it should go something like the following: choose File from the menu, then choose Export or Save As, then select the file type as .rtf or .pdf.

I discourage the use of Microsoft Word. Here is why:-
Distributing Word documents via email is a serious security hazard to the sender, and to recipients. Most Word users are unaware that any Word document may include information that is not visible to the preparer but is readable by certain (easily obtainable) hacking tools. Information inadvertently included in a Word document may be confidential to the sender or their organization or both. Accidental release of confidential information can happen when the preparer uses a template from one Word document - i.e., erases the text, but keeps the formatting - to create another document. The original information is still there in the bloated Word file, and even someone with my teeny hacking skills can extract it.