KEYWORDS, also called RESERVED WORDS, appear in uppercase letters. THESE KEYWORDS MUST BE ENTERED EXACTLY AS THEY APPEAR. However, many keywords have abbreviations that can also be used.

Keywords are words that are part of the BASIC language thit the computer understands. Keywords are the central part of a command or statement. They tell the computer what kind of action to take. These words cannot be used as variable names.

ARGUMENTS (also called parameters) appear in lower case. Arguments are the parts of a command or statement; they complement keywords by providing specific information about the command or statement. For example, a keyword tells the computer to load a program, while the argument tells the computer which specific program to load and a second argument specifies which drive the disk containing the program is in. Arguments include filenames, variables, line numbers, etc.

SQUARE BRACKETS [] show OPTIONAL arguments. The user selects any or none of the arguments listed, depending on the requirements.

ANGLE BRACKETS <> indicates that the user MUST choose one of the arguments listed.

VERTICAL BAR | separates items in a list of arguments when the choices are limited to those arguments listed, and no other arguments can be used. When the vertical bar appears in a list enclosed in SQUARE BRACKETS, the choices are limited to the items in the list, but still have the option not to use any arguments.

ELLIPSIS ..., a sequence of three dots, means that an option or argument can be repeated more than once.

QUOTATION MARKS " " enclose character strings, filenames, and other expressions. When arguments are enclosed in quotation marks in a format, the quotation marks must be included in a command file or statement. Quotation marks are not. conventions used to describe formats; they are required parts of a command or statement.

PARENTHESES () When arguments are enclosed in parentheses in a format, they must be included in a command or statement. Parentheses are not conventions used to describe formats; they are required parts of a command or statement.

VARIABLE refers to any valid BASIC variable'name such as X, A$, or T%.

EXPRESSION means any valid BASIC expression, such as A+B+2 or .5*(X+3).