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Indian Roads Congress
Special Publication 36
Published by:
the Indian Roads Congress
Copies can be had by V.P.P. from
The Secretary,
Indian Roads Congress,
Jamnagar House, Shahjahan Road,
New Delhi-110011
New Delhi 1991 Price Rs. 40
(Plus packing & postage)
GUIDELINES ON FORMAT FOR IRC STANDARDS
It has been felt that Standards and Specifications brought out by the Indian Roads Congress should follow an uniform format and be consistent in contents. The following general guidance shall be followed unless there are definite reasons to the contrary. In preparing the draft, care shall be taken to ensure that the Standard is not at variance with the contents of other published IRC Standards on linked subjects. In case, for good reasons, a departure from earlier practice becomes necessary, action shall be initiated to examine and reconcile the difference and carry out amendments to the earlier standards also.
Standards shall cover the necessary technical provisions relating to the subject and avoid unnecessary details and repetition.
The Guidelines on Format for IRC Standards was initially prepared by IRC Secretariat and placed before the Highways Specifications and Standards Committee and Bridge Specifications and Standards Committee in their meetings held on 7th April, 1989 and 5th and 6th April, 1990 respectively. The Highways Specifications and Standards Committee had suggested, slight modifications and the same were incorporated. The draft guidelines were then placed before the Executive Committee in their meeting held on 30th August, 1990 and approved subject to certain modifications suggested by Shri N.V. Merani. The Guidelines were finally approved by the Council in their meeting held on 8th December, 1990 at Calcutta.
The following suggested format may be adopted by all the drafting Committees. The actual contents of the Standards ie. Codes/Specifications/Guidelines/Special Publications will be decided by the Committee depending on the applicability of the particular item listed in the suggested format.1
The title shall be short, yet fully indicative of the scope of the Standard Care shall be exercised in the choice of a title even in the early stages of drafting.
The Standard having large number of items should be provided with a index/table of contents as per illustration given below:
| CONTENTS | ||
| Clause/Chapter | Page No. | |
| Notations* | ||
| Abbreviations* | ||
| Terminology* | ||
| 1.0 INTRODUCTION | ||
| 2.0 | ||
| 2.1. | ||
| 2.1.1. | ||
| 2.1.2. | ||
| 2.1.3. | ||
| 2.2. | ||
| 3.0. | ||
| 3.1. | ||
| 3.1.1. | ||
| LIST OF TABLES | ||
| Table-1........... | ||
| Table-2............ | ||
| Table-3............. | ||
| LIST OF FIGURES | ||
| Fig-1............. | ||
| Fig-2............... | ||
| Fig-3............... | ||
| APPENDICES | ||
| Appendix-1...... | ||
| Appendix-2...... | ||
| Appendix-3.... | ||
| BIBLIOGRAPHY (in case of Guidelines and Special Publications) | ||
(*Note — These will be included only where it is considered essential).2
It should contain the following:
A clear statement of the scope of the Standard shall be made indicating the field covered by the Standard. The subject matter of the Standard shall be kept strictly within the limits so outlined To avoid ambiguity in the interpretation of the scope, it is sometimes useful to state explicitly what is excluded
The Notations contained in the Standard should conform to the IRC: 71-1977 ‘Recommended Practice for Preparation of Notations'.
Technical terms and abbreviations used in a Standard shall be those defined in the relevant Indian Roads Congress/Indian Standards on terminology of the particular subject in question, if such exists, otherwise, they should follow the best trade practices in India, keeping in mind international standards and accepted usage abroad.
When definitions of terms and abbreviations are included in a Standard they shall be prefaced by the words ‘For the purpose of this standard, the following definitions and/or abbreviations shall apply’.
Terms and definitions shall be listed in the alphabetical order.3
Definitions shall be unambiguous, precise and given in descriptive form.
Specification clauses shall be as self-contained as possible. The language to be used should be such as to distinguish whether a particular provision is‘obligatory’, ‘optional’ or‘recommendatory’ and ‘informative’ e.g. ‘preferable’, ‘as far as possible’, ‘shall be’, ‘may be’ etc. The sequence of their appearance in a standard and their grouping shall be decided according to actual requirements.
For convenience in reference, the text of a Standard shall be numbered in the international form of Indian numerals and subdivided.
For the purpose of numbering, the Standard shall have the following divisions:
In numbering items, clauses, sub-clauses and sub-subclauses, care shall be taken that ideas having same status are numbered at the same level and that a given idea is not split up into too many unnecessary subdivisions.
Any matter, such as description of a lengthy test method, discussion of any of the requirements of the Standard or its basis not included in clauses and any other matter, which is not suitable for the text of the Standard but is of general interest or assistance in the use of the Standard shall be given as an Appendix.
Immediately under the Appendix designation, reference to the relevant clause or clauses of the standard shall be given in brackets, followed by the title of the Appendix.
Tables shall be used wherever tabular presentation would eliminate repetition or show relationships clearly. Tables may be of the formal or informal type. The formal type should be used where large amount of data is presented and which is likely to be examined as a separate unit or referred to elsewhere in the text The informal type should be used where a small amount of material is presented as an integral part of the text
Captions in capitals shall be placed at the top of all formal Tables which shall be numbered in numerals in one consecutive series in a given Standard, including Tables in Appendices. Grouping of Tables as Table 1-A, Table 1-B should be avoided unless they are very closely related and cannot conveniently be consolidated in one Table or made two separate Tables.
All formal Tables should be separated from the rest of the text with thick line across the page one at the top and the other similarly at the bottom of the Table. It is desirable to give Clause numbers below the heading of Tables and Figures in brackets.
As a general rule, the Table may be placed as near the first reference to it as possible without breaking it into the middle of the paragraph.
In general, footnote to the Tables should be avoided Where it is necessary to use footnote to formal Tables they shall be in5
smaller type placed immediately above the bottom thick line and shall be intended To indicate reference to footnote asterisks, daggers, another small symbol should be used, but, where there is a large number of footnotes to a Table, superscript numerals in one consecutive series may be used
Diagrams, maps, graphs, photographs and drawings in perspective in isometric or in third angle projection shall be used wherever it is thus possible to illustrate an idea more clearly.
Illustrations fall into two classes, viz.
Line drawings: should be made in black Indian ink on superior white drawing paper or tracing cloth. Blue-prints are of no use for reproduction and black line prints are also unsatisfactory.
Line drawings are generally classified into two categories:
Diagrams: The matter for the standard is printed in 10 pt. size type (nearly 1.5mm in height); therefore the written matter in diagrams should be so made that the size of the letter when reduced for reproduction should be about 1.5mm. The printed area of a page measures 170 mm deep and 108 mm wide. Therefore, the ultimate size of such drawings will not generally be more than 127 mm x 100 mm. Thus, if a diagram is to be reduced to one quarter of the size submitted by the Committee the lettering on it should not be less than 6 mm in height.
Plates: Plates should preferably be prepared in widths that are multiples of 190 mm. The size of letters used in the Plate should be so chosen that after reduction no letter would be less than 1.5 mm size. Thus if the width is 380 mm, the minimum size of the letter should be 3 mm. The thickness of the letter should also stand corresponding reduction. The title should be in the right hand bottom comer in letters of such size that when reduced, the size will be at least 3 mm.
Scale should be drawn in the Plate below the title to admit of reduction of drawings without altering the correct relation of the6
scale of the drawing. Mere mention of the scale thus ‘Scale of 1/100 (1 cm = lm)’ should be avoided as this would be incorrect when size of the plate is reduced photographically.
Coloured inks should not be used When it is desired to distinguish lines, dotted or chain dotted lines should be used instead of colours.
From the standpoint of pleasing appearance, a rectangular graph or drawing with proportions between 3 by 5 and 3 by 4 is to be preferred to a square one.
The appearance and effectiveness of a graph depend in a large measure on the relative thickness of lines' used in its component parts. The thickest line should be used for the principal curve. If several curves are presented on the same graph, the line width used for curves should be less than that used when a single curve is presented. Co-ordinate rulings should be the narrowest in thickness. Principal reference lines such as the axes should be wider than other rulings but narrower than curves. For the size of reduction that is usually adopted for the Standard it is considered that the thickest line when finally reduced should not be more than 2½ points, i.e. 1 mm width.
“Half-tones” are ordinary photographs and it is necessary to see that prints are clear, slightly over-printed and preferably glazed. Only black and White photos be submitted as coloured photos generally do not give good results in printing. Also photographs which are dim or out of focus do not come out distinctly in reproduction and make a bad “half-tone”. Negatives should accompany the photographs whenever possible. Captions should be written on the back of prints in soft pencil.
All illustration in a given Standard shall be designated as figure (figures) and consecutively numbered in numerals. Grouping of figures as 1-A, B shall be avoided to extent where a figure illustrates a number of parts relating to the same object Captions shall be placed at the bottom of figures. In the script, initial letter of all the principal words shall be in capital.
In preparing the originals, captions shall be typed or neatly printed in hand on the back of the figures in full or in part but the full text of all the captions shall be included in the manuscript.7
Each figure shall be placed as near the reference to it in the text as possible without needlessly breaking into the middle of a paragraph. Necessity for turning over a page to refer to figure shall be avoided
SI units shall be used in all the Standards.8