This content was copied on 3 Oct 2019 from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style
The first time you use an abbreviation or acronym explain it in full on each page unless it’s well known, like UK, DVLA, US, EU, VAT and MP. This includes government departments or schemes. Then refer to it by initials, and use acronym Markdown so the full explanation is available as hover text.
If you think an acronym is well known, please provide evidence that 80% of the UK population will understand and commonly use it. Evidence can be from search analytics or testing of a representative sample.
Do not use full stops in abbreviations: BBC, not B.B.C.
Use the active rather than passive voice. This will help us write concise, clear content.
Address the user as ‘you’ where possible. Content on the site often makes a direct appeal to citizens and businesses to get involved or take action: ‘You can contact HMRC by phone and email’ or ‘Pay your car tax’, for example.
Do not use Americanisms. You fill in a form, not fill out a form.
Exceptions include where it’s part of a specific name: 4th Mechanized Brigade, for example.
Use the -ise rather than -ize suffix: organise not organize, for example (this is not actually an Americanism but is often seen as such).
When adding bank details in content about paying a government body:
use spaces rather than hyphens in sort codes - 60 70 80 (not 60-70-80) do not use spaces in account numbers - 10025634
Use (round brackets), not [square brackets]. The only acceptable use of square brackets is for explanatory notes in reported speech:
“Thank you [Foreign Minister] Mr Smith.”
Do not use round brackets to refer to something that could either be singular or plural, like ‘Check which document(s) you need to send to DVLA.’
Always use the plural instead, as this will cover each possibility: ‘Check which documents you need to send to DVLA.’
Only use bold to refer to text from interfaces in technical documentation or instructions.
You can use bold to explain what field a user needs to fill in on a form, or what button they need to select. For example: “Select Continue. The Verify Certificate window opens.”
Use bold sparingly - using too much will make it difficult for users to know which parts of your content they need to pay the most attention to.
Do not use bold in other situations, for example to emphasise text.
To emphasise words or phrases, you can:
front-load sentences use headings use bullets borough council Lower case except in a name: Northampton Borough Council.
Do not use italics. Use ‘single quotation marks’ if referring to a document, scheme or initiative.
You can use bullet points to make text easier to read. Make sure that:
you always use a lead-in line the bullets make sense running on from the lead-in line you use lower case at the start of the bullet you do not use more than one sentence per bullet point - use commas or dashes to expand on an item you do not put ‘or’ or ‘and’ after the bullets you do not make the whole bullet a link if it’s a long phrase you do not put a semicolon at the end of a bullet there is no full stop after the last bullet point Bullets should normally form a complete sentence following from the lead text. But it’s sometimes necessary to add a short phrase to clarify whether all or some of the points apply. For example, ‘You can only register a pension scheme that is (one of the following):’
The number and type of examples in a list may lead the user to believe the list is exhaustive. This can be dealt with by:
checking if there are other conditions (or if the list is actually complete) listing the conditions which apply to the most users and removing the rest consider broader terms in the list which capture more scenarios (and could make the list exhaustive) creating a journey to specialist content to cover the remaining conditions Steps Use numbered steps instead of bullet points to guide a user through a process. You do not need a lead-in line and you can use links and downloads (with appropriate Markdown) in steps. Steps end in a full stop because each should be a complete sentence.
Use the £ symbol: £75
Do not use decimals unless pence are included: £75.50 but not £75.00
Do not use ‘£0.xx million’ for amounts less than £1 million.
Write out pence in full: calls will cost 4 pence per minute from a landline.
Currencies are lower case.
DO NOT USE BLOCK CAPITALS FOR LARGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT AS IT’S QUITE HARD TO READ.
Always use lower case, even in page titles. The exceptions to this are proper nouns, including:
departments (specific government departments - see below) the Civil Service, with lower case for ‘the’ specific job titles titles like Mr, Mrs, Dr, the Duke of Cambridge (the duke at second mention); Pope Francis, but the pope Rt Hon (no full stops) buildings place names brand names faculties, departments, institutes and schools names of groups, directorates and organisations: Knowledge and Innovation Group Parliament, the House titles of specific acts or bills: Housing Reform Bill (but use ‘the act’ or ‘the bill’ after the first time you use the full act or bill title) names of specific, named government schemes known to people outside government: Right to Buy, Queen’s Awards for Enterprise specific select committees: Public Administration Select Committee header cells in tables: Annual profits titles of books (and within single quotes), for example, ‘The Study Skills Handbook’ World War 1 and World War 2 (note caps and numbers) Do not capitalise: government - see government minister, never Minister, unless part of a specific job title, like Minister for the Cabinet Office department or ministry - never Department or Ministry, unless referring to a specific one: Ministry of Justice, for example white paper, green paper, command paper, House of Commons paper budget, autumn statement, spring statement, unless referring to and using the full name of a specific statement - for example, “2016 Budget” sections or schedules within specific named acts, regulations or orders director general (no hyphen), deputy director, director, unless in a specific job title group and directorate, unless referring to a specific group or directorate: the Commercial Directorate, for example departmental board, executive board, the board policy themes like sustainable communities, promoting economic growth, local enterprise zones general mention of select committees (but do cap specific ones - see above) the military
Use the following conventions for government departments. A department using an ampersand in its logo image is fine but use ‘and’ when writing in full text.
Attorney General’s Office (AGO) Cabinet Office (CO) Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Department for Education (DfE) Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) Department for International Development (DFID) Department for International Trade (DIT) Department for Transport (DfT) Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) HM Treasury (HMT) Home Office (HO) Ministry of Defence (MOD) Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Ministry of Justice (MOJ)
Avoid negative contractions like can’t and don’t. Many users find them harder to read, or misread them as the opposite of what they say. Use cannot, instead of can’t.
Avoid should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, they’ve too. These can also be hard to read.
use upper case for months: January, February do not use a comma between the month and year: 4 June 2017 when space is an issue - in tables or publication titles, for example - you can use truncated months: Jan, Feb we use ‘to’ in date ranges - not hyphens, en rules or em dashes. For example: tax year 2011 to 2012 Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (put different days on a new line, do not separate with a comma) 10 November to 21 December do not use quarter for dates, use the months: ‘department expenses, Jan to Mar 2013’ when referring to today (as in a news article) include the date: ‘The minister announced today (14 June 2012) that…’ Read more about dates.
eg can sometimes be read aloud as ‘egg’ by screen reading software. Instead use ‘for example’ or ‘such as’ or ‘like’ or ‘including’ - whichever works best in the specific context.
etc can usually be avoided. Try using ‘for example’ or ‘such as’ or ‘like’ or ‘including’. Never use etc at the end of a list starting with these words.
ie - used to clarify a sentence - is not always well understood. Try (re)writing sentences to avoid the need to use it. If that is not possible, use an alternative such as ‘meaning’ or ‘that is’.
Hyphenate:
re- words starting with e, like re-evaluate co-ordinate co-operate Do not hyphenate:
reuse reinvent reorder reopen email Do not use a hyphen unless it’s confusing without it, for example, a little used-car is different from a little-used car. You can also refer to The Guardian style guide for advice on hyphenation.
Use ‘to’ for time and date ranges, not hyphens.
Front-load your link text with the relevant terms and make them active and specific. Always link to online services first. Offer offline alternatives afterwards, when possible.
Lists should be bulleted to make them easier to read. See bullets and steps.
Very long lists can be written as a paragraph with a lead-in sentence if it looks better: ‘The following countries are in the EU: Spain, France, Italy…’
Use ‘one’ unless you’re talking about a step, a point in a list or another situation where using the numeral makes more sense: ‘in point 1 of the design instructions’, for example. Or this:
You’ll be shown 14 clips that feature everyday road scenes.
There will be:
1 developing hazard in 13 clips 2 developing hazards in the other clip Write all other numbers in numerals (including 2 to 9) except where it’s part of a common expression like ‘one or two of them’ where numerals would look strange.
If a number starts a sentence, write it out in full (Thirty-four, for example) except where it starts a title or subheading.
For numerals over 999 - insert a comma for clarity: 9,000
Spell out common fractions like one-half.
Use a % sign for percentages: 50%
Use a 0 where there’s no digit before the decimal point.
Use ‘500 to 900’ and not ‘500-900’ (except in tables).
Use MB for anything over 1MB: 4MB not 4096KB.
Use KB for anything under 1MB: 569KB not 0.55MB.
Keep it as accurate as possible and up to 2 decimal places: 4.03MB.
Addresses: use ‘to’ in address ranges: 49 to 53 Cherry Street.
Ordinal numbers Spell out first to ninth. After that use 10th, 11th and so on.
In tables, use numerals throughout.
Lower case if the service name starts with a verb - write the sentence so the user knows what action they can take. For example: You can visit someone in prison by booking online.
Only use upper case if the name of the service you’re referring to contains named thing. For example: You can apply for Marriage Allowance.
In long passages of speech, open quotes for every new paragraph, but close quotes only at the end of the final paragraph.
Single quotes Use single quotes:
in headlines for unusual terms when referring to words or publications, for example: ‘Download the publication ‘Understanding Capital Gains Tax’ (PDF, 360KB)’ Double quotes Use double quotes in body text for direct quotations.
Block quotes Use the block quote Markdown for quotes longer than a few sentences.
Do not use semicolons as they are often mis-read. Long sentences using semicolons should be broken up into separate sentences instead.
Do not use long sentences. Check sentences with more than 25 words to see if you can split them to make them clearer.
Read more about short sentences.
use ‘to’ in time ranges, not hyphens, en rules or em dashes: 10am to 11am (not 10-11am) 5:30pm (not 1730hrs) midnight (not 00:00) midday (not 12 noon, noon or 12pm) 6 hours 30 minutes Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. You should consider using “11:59pm” to avoid confusion about a single, specific time.
For example, “You must register by 11:59pm on Tuesday 14 June.” can only be read one way, but “You must register by midnight on Tuesday 14 June” can be read in two ways (the end of Monday 13, or end of Tuesday 14).
Page titles should:
be 65 characters or less be unique, clear and descriptive be front-loaded and optimised for search use a colon to break up longer titles not contain dashes or slashes not have a full stop at the end not use acronyms unless they are well-known, like EU town council Lower case, even when part of a name: Swanage town council.
Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK so please avoid using these words:
agenda (unless it’s for a meeting) advancing collaborate (use working with) combating commit/pledge (we need to be more specific - we’re either doing something or we’re not) countering deliver (pizzas, post and services are delivered - not abstract concepts like improvements or priorities) deploy (unless it’s military or software) dialogue (we speak to people) disincentivise (and incentivise) empower facilitate (instead, say something specific about how you’re helping) focusing foster (unless it’s children) impact (do not use this as a synonym for have an effect on, or influence) initiate key (unless it unlocks something. A subject/thing is not key - it’s probably important) land (as a verb only use if you’re talking about aircraft) leverage (unless in the financial sense) liaise overarching progress (as a verb - what are you actually doing?) promote (unless you’re talking about an ad campaign or some other marketing promotion) robust slimming down (processes do not diet) streamline strengthening (unless it’s strengthening bridges or other structures) tackling (unless it’s rugby, football or some other sport) transforming (what are you actually doing to change it?) utilise Avoid using metaphors – they do not say what you actually mean and lead to slower comprehension of your content. For example:
drive (you can only drive vehicles, not schemes or people) drive out (unless it’s cattle) going forward (it’s unlikely we are giving travel directions) in order to (superfluous - do not use it) one-stop shop (we are government, not a retail outlet) ring fencing With all of these words you can generally replace them by breaking the term into what you’re actually doing. Be open and specific.
Read more about plain English and words to avoid.
Lower case. Only use upper case when using the full title: Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, for example.
Upper case when referring to the Agile Manifesto and principles and processes, otherwise use lower case.
Do not use hyphens in ages unless to avoid confusion, although it’s always best to write in a way that avoids ambiguity. For example, ‘a class of 15 16-year-old students took the A level course’ can be written as ‘15 students aged 16 took the A level course’.
Use and rather than &, unless it’s a department’s logo image or a company’s name as it appears on the Companies House register.
Used in a technical context, not “back-end” or “back end”.
One word, lower case.
Use 2 words when referring to an article published on a blog. A ‘blog’ is the site on which a blog post is published.
Always lower case unless it’s part of a proper title: so upper case for the Judicial Executive Board, but lower case for the DFT’s management board.
See change notes in the content design manual.
Not “change log”.
Not “check box”.
Upper case.
Lower case.
Don’t use “click” when talking about user interfaces because not all users click. Use “select”.
Lower case.
Not “third-party software”. Also use “commercial” for types of software, for example “commercial word processor”.
Lower case.
Lower case.
Hyphenated.
Lower case.
Use lower case when writing about local councils in general. Use capitals for the official name of a local council, for example: Reading Borough Council.
When referring to a country or territory, use the names listed in the country register or territory register.
Lower case.
Treat as a singular noun: The data is stored on a secure server.
Not “datacentre”.
Not “dataset”.
Not “datastore”.
Lower case except when in the title: the Department of Health and Social Care.
Similarly, use “WebOps”.
Lower case unless part of a title like Edexcel L2 Diploma in IT.
Upper case.
Upper case.
Lower case in text. Upper case in titles: Spencer Tracy, Director, GDS.
Lower case. No hyphen.
One word.
Write email addresses in full, in lower case and as active links. Do not include any other words in the link text.
Not “end point” in the context of APIs.
Lower case.
Lower case.
Lower case.
Upper case because Excel is a brand name.
You can make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, but not a request under the FOI Act.
Not “front-end” or “front end”.
Not “Ghz”.
Lower case unless it’s a full title. For example: ‘UK government’, but ‘Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’.
Also ‘Welsh Government’, as it’s the full title.
Lower case.
Lower case.
Lower case: national recovery guidance.
Not “help desk”.
Lower case.
Upper case. No need to explain the acronym if it’s used in content for a technical audience.
Stands for “Infrastructure as a Service”. Explain the acronym at first use.
In technical writing, don’t write ‘identification’ or ‘identifier’, unless it’s part of a standard abbreviation. For example, ‘unique identifier (UID)’.
Upper case.
Always lower case.
Lower case.
When used in the technical context (for example ‘internet protocol’), there’s no need to explain the acronym.
Upper case when referring to The Kanban Method, otherwise lower case.
Not “lifecycle” or “life-cycle”.
See sign in or log in.
Used in a technical context there’s no need to explain the acronym.
Lower case.
Not “meta data”.
metaphors See words to avoid
Not “Mhz”.
When talking about software, not “migrate over”.
Always use million in money (and billion): £138 million.
Use millions in phrases: millions of people.
But do not use £0.xx million for amounts less than £1 million.
Do not abbreviate million to m.
Note the spelling.
Separate with a slash. Only use in tables.
For the programming language, not “.net” or “.Net”.
One word.
Not “Open Source software” or “OS software”.
Do not use slashes instead of “or”. For example, “Do this 3/4 times”.
Stands for “Platform as a Service”. Explain the acronym at first use.
Lower case.
Upper case.
Upper case.
This can be abbreviated to PAYE Online within the PAYE Online for employers area of the website.
Upper case.
Upper case. No need to explain the acronym.
Use per cent not percent. Percentage is one word. Always use % with a number.
Lower case: Troubled Families programme, Sure Start programme.
Lower case.
Lowercase, the same as GitHub does in its documentation. GitLab uses the term “merge request”.
In the context of APIs, not “restful” or “Restful”.
Lower case.
Lower case.
Stands for “Software as a Service”. Explain the acronym at first use.
Two words, lower case.
Upper case when referring to the framework and method for developing products, otherwise use lower case.
Lower case, even when referring to the armed forces services or the services.
One space after a full stop, not 2.
Lower case unless used as the full title: Standing Order 22.
Upper case.
See Bullet points and steps
Not “sub domain” or “sub-domain”.
Shorten as “2FA”. Do not confuse with “multi-factor authentication”.
Never HM government.
Upper case.
Upper case. No need to explain the acronym.
Lower case ‘user’.
Not “user name”.
Upper case. No need to explain the acronym. When describing a VPN that is always on, write it like this: ‘always-on’ VPN. Note the single quotes and hyphen.
One word. Not ‘web chat’.
One word.
Not “webserver”.
Lower case.
Lower case, no hyphen.
Upper case, because it’s a brand name.