Standard Form

What is "Standard Form"?

that depends on what you are dealing with!

I have gathered some common "Standard Form"s here for you..
Note: Standard Form is not the "correct form", just a handy agreed-upon style. You may
find some other form to be more useful.

Standard Form of a Decimal Number

In Britain this is another name for Scientific Notation, where you write down a number this
way:

In this example, 5326.6 is written as 5.3266 103,

because 5326.6 = 5.3266 1000 = 5.3266 103
In other countries it means "not in expanded form" (see Composing and Decomposing
Numbers):

561

500 + 60 + 1

Standard Form

Expanded Form

Standard Form of an Equation

The "Standard Form" of an equation is:
(some expression) =

In other words, "= 0" is on the right, and everything else is on the left.

Example: Put x2 = 7 into Standard Form

Answer:

x2 - 7 = 0

Standard Form of a Polynomial

The "Standard Form" for writing down a polynomial is to put the terms with the
highest degreefirst (like the "2" in x2 if there is one variable).

Example: Put this in Standard Form:

3x2 - 7 + 4x3 + x6
The highest degree is 6, so that goes first, then 3, 2 and then the constant last:

x6 + 4x3 + 3x2 - 7

Standard Form of a Linear Equation

The "Standard Form" for writing down a Linear Equation is

Ax + By = C
A shouldn't be negative, A and B shouldn't both be zero, and A, B and C should be
integers.

Example: Put this in Standard Form:

y = 3x + 2
Bring 3x to the left:

-3x + y = 2
Multiply all by -1:

3x - y = -2
Note: A=3, B=-1, C=-2
This form:

Ax + By + C = 0
is sometimes called "Standard Form", but is more properly called the "General Form".

Standard Form of a Quadratic Equation

The "Standard Form" for writing down a Quadratic Equation is

ax + bx + c = 0
(a not equal to zero)

Example: Put this in Standard Form:

x(x-1) = 3
Expand "x(x-1)":

x2 - x = 3
Bring 3 to left:

x2 - x - 3 = 0
Note: a=1, b=-1, c=-3