How we write

Voice and tone

Our writing is

• active
• straightforward
• human
• polite
• authoritative
• impartial

We

• use plain, familiar language
• use short sentences
• mostly use the active voice
• say ‘we’ when we’re talking about the Council
• say ‘you’ and ‘your’ when talking to readers and customers
• use only simple contractions like ‘can’t’ and ‘aren’t’
• use respectful, gender-neutral language

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

We try not to use FAQs. If people keep asking us the same questions, we need to rewrite the content to answer them.

They are not a good way of providing a summary of useful information – that can be done by structuring page content more effectively. Very often they are used as a ‘cop out’ to get around writing content properly, or rewriting content when something important needs to be added – we should write our content in the best way we can so that people find what they need, to do what they came to our site for.

Other questions

We do not ask questions in headings and text unless we are asking the person reading the information a question.

Scannable content

We make our content easy to read and understand by

• using frequent, informative headings
• having the most important words and phrases at the top of the page so that search engines can find them
• creating lists
• writing short sentences in short paragraphs
• making links clear

Grammar and punctuation

We do not use

• exclamation marks
• semi-colons or comma splices – we’ll write 2 sentences instead, or separate the clauses using an en dash (with a space on either side).

Capitals

We use capitals for proper nouns. The only time we do anything different is if we are talking about a brand name or proper name, like EasySite or Department for Work and Pensions.

We write page titles and headings in sentence case – they are easier to read and understand.

There are words that are commonly written with a capital letter that should not have one.

Commas

We use the Oxford or serial comma if it makes a list in a sentence easier to understand.

En dash

We use an en dash (with a space on either side) to separate ideas in a sentence.

Hyphens

We sometimes hyphenate words to make sure their meaning is clear.

Apostrophes

We do not add an extra ‘s’ after nouns or names ending in ‘s’. Exceptions are okay where the alternative reads more naturally.

Quotation marks

We use single quotation marks for

• short quotations
• direct speech.

We do not use quotation marks around document or publication titles.

Titles of documents or publications

We use sentence case for the titles of documents or publications. We do not use italics to separate document titles from their surrounding text.

Plurals

We do not use brackets or ‘/s’ to refer to something that could be either singular or plural, like ‘Send your completed document(s) to the HMRC’.

We use the plural instead, as this covers both possibilities: ‘Send your completed documents to the HMRC’.

We use plurals as they would be in English – rather than adopting rules from other languages.

For example – ‘formulas’ not ‘formulae’, ‘octopuses’ not ‘octopodes’.

And/or

We do not use and/or. One or other is usually more appropriate, and we use that depending on the situation.

And, But, Or and Because

We start sentences with ‘And’, ‘But’ ‘Or’ and ‘Because’ when we need to. This can make information more meaningful and improve impact where necessary. There is no point getting people to struggle through words like ‘however’, ‘additionally’, ‘moreover’ and ‘alternatively’ when there are simpler alternatives.

Contractions

Contractions make text feel more conversational and friendly. They also make complex sentences easier to read.

When we use them, we only use simple contractions

We do not use complex or potentially confusing contractions like

• should’ve, would’ve, they’ve
• mustn’t, aren’t, couldn’t, haven’t
• it’d, it’ll.

But, the punctuation can make sentences harder to read for some users. We rewrite sentences to avoid using contractions if it fits with the overall tone.

Numbers, dates and times

Numbers

In general

• we use numerals instead of words when we write numbers – this helps users scan our content
• we use commas and no spaces to separate thousands when the number is over 10,000
• when we’re talking about numbers in the millions, we use the word ‘million’ instead of writing out the number in full
• we use spaces to separate groups of numbers when we write phone numbers.

Dates and times

We

• write dates as day, month, and year in full
• don’t use ordinal numbers, like 1st or 3rd, in dates – if they are in text, we say ‘third’ or ‘fifth’
• show time using a 12-hour clock and add ‘am’ or ‘pm’, and don’t include unnecessary zeros
• use ‘midday’ not 12:00 or 12pm, and ‘midnight’, not ’00:00′ or 12am
• show start and end times in full
• spell out the names of days and months in full.

We use ‘to’ instead of an en dash in date and time ranges as it’s easier for people to understand, and for screen readers to read out.

Symbols, currency and abbreviations

Symbols

We use

• & – only if it’s part of a brand name – ‘M&S’
• KB for kilobyte, MB for megabyte, and GB for gigabyte, for example 122KB.

To make our content easier to read, we do not use

• e.g.
• i.e.
• etc.
• other Latin abbreviations like ‘inst’, ‘ult’ or ‘NB’

These are replaced with appropriate phrases, including

• for example
• such as
• that is
• and so on
• January
• Please note or important

Currency

We put the currency symbol before any amount of money we write.

We do not use spaces between the symbol and the amount.

Abbreviations

We expand all abbreviations when we use them for the first time on a page.

GOV.UK style

We follow the GOV.UK writing style guide

• Be concise – make content brief and to the point.
• Meet user needs – publish only what customers need to know to complete their tasks.
• Know your audience – their search terms, questions and how they read a page.
• Do not use frequently asked questions (FAQs) – answer questions in your content.
• Include keywords and meta-description in your content to boost search rankings.
• Use active voice (not passive) – this will help you write with concise and clear language.
• Break up text into subject areas with headings and sub-headings.
• Put the most important information first.
• Good content is quick and easy to read – use simple words that are easy to understand.

You can find the GOV.UK writing style guide on their content design pages.