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.