Assignments

It’s the pain that a large number of students share: you’ve received your assignment brief from your school/institution and the content you can write… no problem. But that pesky formatting!!! What is “12-point font”? What does “double line spacing” mean? Some schools even impose penalties (deduct marks) if you don’t get this right! This guide has been put together with the aim of removing some of that pain and hassle.
Note: There are more efficient ways of doing this using page styles, however this guide is more suited to the beginner to intermediate level user.
For this tutorial I am using OpenOffice.org, version 3.3.0, but it should be similar in NeoOffice and LibreOffice (v. 3.0 + ).
The steps are:
Setting page margins using page styles
Set up your Cover / Title Page
Insert a Table of Contents
Setting and Using Paragraph Styles – Double Spacing and 12-Point Fonts
Apply the Styles
Write your assignment
Populate your Table of Contents
Assignment Instructions
Normally you will get assignment instructions in a form something like the following. Some institutes like to highlight this very clearly. Some are embedded in the course requirements like this one: