[Apart from formatting changes, the following is verbatim from Roggio (n.d.)¹⁾.]

An algorithm is a procedure for solving a problem in terms of the actions to be executed and the order in which those actions are to be executed. An algorithm is merely the sequence of steps taken to solve a problem. The steps are normally “sequence,” “selection, ” “iteration,” and a case-type statement.

In C, “sequence statements” are imperatives. The “selection” is the “if then else” statement, and the iteration is satisfied by a number of statements, such as the “while,” “ do,” and the “for,” while the case-type statement is satisfied by the “switch” statement.

Pseudocode is an artificial and informal language that helps programmers develop algorithms. Pseudocode is a “text-based” detail (algorithmic) design tool.

The rules of Pseudocode are reasonably straightforward. All statements showing “dependency” are to be indented. These include while, do, for, if, switch. Examples below will illustrate this notion.

Examples:

1.

If student's grade is greater than or equal to 60
    Print "passed"
else
    Print "failed"

2.

Set total to zero
Set grade counter to one
While grade counter is less than or equal to ten
    Input the next grade
    Add the grade into the total 
Set the class average to the total divided by ten
Print the class average.

3.

Initialize total to zero
Initialize counter to zero
Input the first grade
while the user has not as yet entered the sentinel
    add this grade into the running total 
    add one to the grade counter 
    input the next grade (possibly the sentinel)

if the counter is not equal to zero
    set the average to the total divided by the counter
    print the average 
else
    print 'no grades were entered'

4.

initialize passes to zero
initialize failures to zero
initialize student to one
while student counter is less than or equal to ten
    input the next exam result 
    if the student passed
        add one to passes 
    else
        add one to failures 

add one to student counter
print the number of passes
print the number of failures

if eight or more students passed
    print "raise tuition"

For looping and selection, The keywords that are to be used include Do While…EndDo; Do Until…Enddo; Case…EndCase; If…Endif; Call … with (parameters); Call; Return ….; Return; When; Always use scope terminators for loops and iteration.

As verbs, use the words Generate, Compute, Process, etc. Words such as set, reset, increment, compute, calculate, add, sum, multiply, … print, display, input, output, edit, test , etc. with careful indentation tend to foster desirable pseudocode.

Do not include data declarations in your pseudocode.