Typographical house style
Alongside the visual corporate style guidelines, we also try to work to a set of spelling and grammatical principles. The purpose of this is to present a consistent image in what we say and how we say it.In order to achieve this consistency across the University, we recommend the following guidelines in what you write.
Use of capitals
Avoid overuse of initial capitals in the body of your text, as too many upper case letters interrupt the flow of body text.There are, however, particular instances where capitals should be used.
- Place names, countries, languages, nationalities (English, French, European), and for historical periods (Victorian, Tudor, the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, Neolithic).
- North and South are capitalised if part of a commonly-used area— South Africa, West London, the East Midlands—but not if they are descriptors—southern England, the west of Scotland.
- Months and days of the week take capitals but seasons of the year do not (autumn, spring, summer, winter).
- Generic names, as opposed to specific names, do not require capitals, so ‘this University’ but ‘other universities’; ‘Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities’, but ‘universities in Oxford’.
Numbers
In descriptive writing, the numbers one to nine are usually spelled out while numbers 10 and above use numerals. (Similarly, use fifth and ninth but 16th and 19th.)However, in reports or when making statistical statements, numerals are the norm.
- ‘One’ is always spelled out, as are all numbers that begin a sentence. Where a sentence contains numbers below and above 10, use numerals for both.
- For numbers over 999, it is conventional to use a comma after each third figure from the left: 1,670; 1,234,567. An alternative when reproducing large numbers is to use upper case K to express thousands and upper case M to express millions.
- In referring to centuries, use ordinals: 8th century, 19th century.
- For sums of money and units of assessment, always use numerals: 3 metres, 6 mph, £8.
General guidelines
Word endings in ‘-ise’ and ‘-ize’
For the sake of consistency, our preferred ending in all such cases is ‘-ise’.
Phone numbers
The Brunel style for telephone numbers is the international dialling code for the UK in the following form: +44 (0)1895 274000.
Use lower case for the whole email address, ie andrew.kershaw@brunel. ac.uk, not Andrew.Kershaw@brunel.ac.uk
Dates and time
The Brunel style for dates is the simplest form, ie 1 September 2010 (not 1st September 2010 or September 1st 2010).- In expressing time, we use the 12-hour clock rather than the 24-hour clock (2 pm rather than 1400 or 14.00).
- 12 noon or 12 midnight, not 12 am or 12 pm.
- 1890s or 1940s, not 1890’s or 1940’s.
Abbreviations
In line with the modernity and simplicity of our logo, publications and web pages, we do not use punctuation for abbreviations.- ie, etc, am, pm
- HND, BA, BSc
- Dr, Prof, Mrs
Use of italics
The usual convention is to use italics for book and journal titles, plays, newspapers, and titles of pieces of music.
Hyphens
- A-level, not A level or A Level
- postgraduate, not post-graduate or post graduate
- email not e-mail, and eBusiness, eCommerce rather than e-business, e-commerce
- online, not on-line
- part-time, full-time,
- en suite, not en-suite or ensuite
- Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor
Bits and pieces
- the Web and the Internet (ie upper case)
- homepage, not home page
- website, not web site
- coursework, not course work
- focusing and focused, not focussing and focussed
- and, not &
- Master’s, Pre-Master’s
- judgement, not judgment
- ageing, not aging
- digitise, not digitalise
