Revised 2007-11-27

International Consulting Office

Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk

Guidelines for the form and layout of STAC

reports
1 Background
For all publications, a number of decisions need to be taken regarding the form.
This covers many aspects, like page size and paper quality, margins, fonts for the
titles and text, various standards for tables and charts.
There may be institutional rules to follow, and if the publication is part of a series,
this series may have its own rules. If a national usage has developed, it may be
preferable to follow this (to some extent). Often, there will be a certain amount of
freedom for the editor, but definitely, consistency within a publication is
required. One of the more important reasons for this is that the reader would be
distracted, perhaps irritated, if the usage kept changing inside the publication. We
wish the reader to be concerned with the contents, and the form should mainly be
there to assist him or her in this endeavour.
In this note, we have collected most of the aspects on which decisions must be
taken, and also provided proposed guidelines in many cases. The proposed
guidelines have been termed default rules, which means that they are strongly
recommended. Explicit decisions should be taken if it is preferred to do something
else.

2 Contents of a STAC report

2.1 Standard list of contents
The standard list of contents for a STAC report is the following
List of contents
Summary of main results
Background
Methods and data quality
Results
Annex: Questionnaire

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk
2.2 Some details about sections in the report
The list of contents may also include a separate list of tables and charts. An
alternative is to place this list at the end of the report. Default rule: directly after
the list of contents.
The Summary of main results will include some of the more important and
interesting results of the survey, including data.
The Background section will include a brief summary of the circumstances, the
need for information, that lies behind the survey. In a STAC course, there is often
a letter to the course participants outlining the task - do not include this letter, but
summarise it in the Background section, and do mention the institution it comes
from.
The section on Methods is, in essence, a description of how the survey was
performed. Some features, like population, sampling procedure, definitions used,
will point to limitations in the use of the survey, and it is therefore important that
these are made clear. It is natural to follow (in the main) the same order as in
Phases of a survey.
The Results is the main part of the report. It will contain all the findings, and this
is where most of the tables and charts will be reported. The subdivision of this
section will often follow the questionnaire. The analysis of the data should usually
be included here. In STAC course reports, the analysis is often limited to some
short comments, for lack of time.
Numbering of the sections is useful, particularly in order to let the reader
understand the structure of the report, but also for reference. However, in
statistical reports, the numbering should be limited to two (or, if absolutely
necessary, at most three) levels - otherwise the reader is likely to find it
cumbersome.

3 Checklists for text, tables, charts

In the following pages we have expressed the details of what must be remembered
about text, layout, tables and diagrams. The rules that are given should all be
considered as default rules. There are also some general guidelines and useful
observances.
First of all, and last of all:
KEEP YOUR READERS IN MIND !
Make your report easy to read and pleasant to look at!

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk

TEXT

Remember...
Keep your readers in mind!
Decide on fonts and margins before you start writing anything
Default rules: top and bottom margins: 25 mm
left and right margins:
30 mm
main text font:
Times New Roman12 p (or 11 p)
titles
see below
Use titles on two or at most three levels.
Use 1, 2, 3 etc for numbering the titles of the main sections (chapters), 1.1, 1.2
etc. for subsections.
Title fonts should be Arial 18p bold and Arial 14p bold for first and second
level titles, and Times Roman 12p bold for third level titles.
Titles begin in the left margin.
More empty space above than below a title. Not too little space below the first
level titles.
The right hand side margin of the text may be straight or not. Default rule:
straight right margin.
Paragraphs - default rules: Start paragraphs at the left margin; insert a blank
line between paragraphs.
Page numbers - default rule: centered at bottom of page.
Numbering of tables and graphs: think of what is most convenient for the
reader.
The usual way is to number the tables and the charts separately (e.g., Table 1,
Table 2, Table 3,..; Chart 1, Chart 2, Chart 3). This is the default rule.
Sometimes letters are used instead for the series of charts (Chart A, Chart B,
) For the reader, it is even more convenient to use only one set of numbers (
e.g., Table 1, Table 2, Chart 3, Table 4,...), but this break with the usual way
appears to be difficult to accept.

EXAMPLE:
The text on pages 1 and 2.
3

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk

TABLES
Remember ...
Titles should describe in a concise way what is shown in the table, be
easy to understand, as short as possible, and include units.
Separate lines for table number and title.
Write the title in line with the left-hand edge of the table.
Font - The whole table in Arial
Title in Arial 10 or 9 points, bold
Text and numbers in tables Arial 9 points normal
The word Source itself in italics
Horizontal lines only, thin.
Try to have space between the columns
Separation of thousands, in accordance with the national usage (e.g. 12 600,
or 12,600).
Makes it easier to read.
If the whole table contains percentages, write Percent at the end of the title
If the table shows percentage distributions we need to add the information of the
size of the respective groups.

EXAMPLE
Table 1
Marital status by level of education. Percent
Educational level
None
Grade 1-7
Grade 8-12
Post Matric
Total
Number of persons
in thousands

Marital status
Single Unmarried
3
9
17
38
69
46
11
7
100
100
880

240

Married
6
38
33
23
100

Other
14
18
41
27
100

Total
8
30
47
15
100

1 022

99

2 241

Source: Road Traffic Safety Survey 1998. Statistics South Africa. STAC-course

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk

CHARTS

Remember ...

Charts should be self-contained. Titles should describe in a concise way what

is shown in the chart, be easy to understand, as short as possible, and include
units.
Make charts as simple as possible. Dont use three dimensional charts.
Write the title in line with the left-hand edge of the chart.
Choose restful patterns. Try various shades of grey. Test your printer!
Different shades must be easily distinguishable and arranged from dark to light.

or

Use grid lines. Make them unobtrusive. They are placed at regular intervals,
not too close. Grid lines are intended to help the eye to make comparisons and
to read approximate values.
Dont use numbers in bar charts.
Scale values are chosen so that they refer to a natural numerical system.
Standard practice is to build on the numbers 1, 2 and 5. This means that
the intervals on the scale are chosen as multiple of 1, 2, or 5, or alternatively
10, 20 or 50 etc.
If you want to compare two charts - choose the same scale
All text in charts should be written horizontally
Make a frame around the plot area. Dont shade the plot area.
Include units used on axes.
Separation of thousands, in accordance with the national usage, e.g. 12 600
or 12,600.
No ticks on the x-axis in a bar chart (y-axis in a horizontal bar chart).
Font - Title in Arial 10 or 9 points, bold
Text in charts Arial 9 points normal
The word Source itself in italics
5

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk
Legend. We must clearly state what each area, pattern or curve represents.
Areas in legends should be put in the same order as they occur in the chart.

Revised 2007-11-27
International Consulting Office
Roland Blom
Thomas Polfeldt
Birgit Henningsson
Peter Vorwerk

CHARTS
EXAMPLE
Chart 1
Opinion on the most important reason for pedestrians
not following traffic rules, by gender
%
60

40

Lack of knowledge

20

Ignorance
Inconvenience
Don't know

0
Male

Female

Source: Road Traffic Safety Survey 1998. Statistics South Africa. STAC-course

Main types of charts

Qualitative and Quantitative, Discrete variables
Bar charts
Horizontal bar charts
Grouped bar charts
Stacked bar charts
Pie charts - An alternative to bar charts when we
want to compare proportions
Quantitative, Continuous variables
Histograms
Population pyramids - Two horizontal histograms,
one for men and one for women
Line charts - for developments over time

Mainly from
Graphing statistics & data: Creating better charts
SAGE Publications 1996
Wallgren-Wallgren-Persson-Jorner-Haaland
Statistics Sweden