Our preferred style

Abbreviations

An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word. Abbreviations normally end in a full stop, but this can be left out for commonly used abbreviations

Contractions

Contractions are shortened version of words in which the last letter of the original word is present. They don’t need a full stop.

Acronyms

Unless it is commonly understood, define the acronym the first time you use it.

• You may be eligible for the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP).

When you use an acronym in a sentence, say it out loud to see if you should use ‘a’ or ‘an’. If the sound of the acronym starts with a vowel, use ‘an’.

• an ABC documentary
• a UNESCO program

Our style is to use minimal capitalisation. Headings are written in sentence case, not initial caps or upper case (except for proper nouns).

Initial capitals are used for specific titles, not general descriptions.

Avoid using lots of upper-case letters. Bold or italic formatting is a more effective way to emphasise words.

Our style is to use minimal punctuation. That means removing unnecessary punctuation, as long as it doesn’t change your meaning.

Apostrophes

Apostrophes indicate contractions or possessives.

Apostrophes are not used to indicate plurals, except when abbreviations or letters are used as nouns.

Colons and semicolons

Colons are used after a statement that introduces a list, a quotation or an example.

Semicolons link two related but independent clauses. Both halves of the sentence must make sense on their own. If they don’t, don’t use a semicolon.

Semicolons are also used to separate items in a list if commas would make it confusing, for example, when one or more items in the list need their own commas for clarity.

Note that there is a semicolon before the last item in the list.

Commas

Commas are used to separate clauses in a sentence, or items within a list. Our style is to not use a comma before the final item of a list, unless it is needed for clarity.

Hyphens and dashes

Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes all have different uses.

Hyphens are used to join two words that work together to make an adjective, or where a prefix makes a word confusing.

En dashes (–) with a space on either side isolate an explanation or phrase within a sentence. Our style is to use spaced en dashes.

Em dashes (—) are used to signal an abrupt interruption. They are rarely used outside fiction writing.

Quotations

Our style is to use single quotation marks (‘ ’), not double (“ ”). Use quotation marks for:

• direct quotes
• the titles of lectures, speeches, conferences and songs
• the titles of chapters or articles in books or other publications (but not the publication title)
• the first mention of an unfamiliar term, before you define it
• words used in an unusual way, or colloquial terms.

For quotes within quotes, use double quotations marks.