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Version: 5.1 (Archived)

Punctuation

Ampersand​

Unless in a title or referring to a title use 'and' rather than an '&', unless it's part of a trademark. Where it is used then it should be & and not &

Apostrophes​

Used to indicate a missing letter or letters (can't, we'd) or a possessive (David's book).

Brackets​

Use (round brackets), not [square brackets]. The only acceptable use for square brackets is to indicate that it is a placeholder eg [name] is replaced with the real name.

Bullet points (ul) and numbered steps (ol)​

You can use bullet points to make text easier to read. Make sure that:

  • you always use an introductory line
  • the bullets make sense running on from the lead-in line
  • you use lower case at the start of the bullet
  • you don't use more than one sentence per bullet point – use commas, dashes or semicolons to expand on an item
  • you don't put 'or', 'and' after the bullets
  • if you add links they appear within the text and not as the whole bullet
  • there is no full stop after the last bullet point

Use numbered steps instead of bullet points to guide a user through a process. You don't need an introductory line and you can use links and downloads (with appropriate markup) in steps. Each step ends in a full stop because each step should be a complete sentence.

eg, etc and ie​

  • Don't use full stops after or between these notations.
  • User testing has shown that some people are not familiar with abbreviations such as eg, so consider your audience before abbreviating.

Ellipsis​

An ellipsis a special character that resembles a set of three periods ( ... ) indicating an omission. In html this is represented by &hellip. There should be a single space on either side. Unless it is at the end of a string where there is no space or period after. Example

  • Read more ...
  • Create some text ... add some pictures.

etc​

  • See eg, etc and ie

full stop​

  • See period

Hyphenation​

Hyphenate:

  • 're-' words only if they start with 'e', eg re-evaluate
  • co-ordinate
  • co-operate

Don't hyphenate:

  • email
  • reuse
  • reinvent
  • reorder
  • reopen

If in doubt, don't use a hyphen.

ie​

  • See eg, etc and ie

Italics​

Don't use italics. Use 'single quotation marks' if referring to a document, scheme or initiative.

Lists​

See bullets and steps

Period​

All sentences end with a period. All tooltips end with a period. Bullet points (ul) do not end with a period. Each Numbered step (ol) ends with a period.

Punctuation​

For quotes, single quotes and speech marks use the character code not the keyboard. Order of precedence is HTML Name, HTML Decimal Code, Unicode Hexadecimal.

Oxford (or serial) comma.​

We don't use the Oxford comma so the final item in a list before the 'and' does not have a comma.

Quotes and speech marks.​

Use " " " at the beginning and end.

Single quotes​

Use either ' ' at the beginning and end.

Use single quotes:

  • in headlines
  • for unusual terms
  • when referring to words or publications, for example: Download the manual 'Understanding ACL' (PDF, 360KB)'

Slashes​

A slash (/) should not have spaces around it eg show/hide not show / hide.

Spaces​

Use only one space after a full stop, not 2.