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Government Digital Service Content style guideThis style guide is part of the Design Principles (https://www.gov.uk/design-principles) document.

1. Style points

These style points apply to all content published on GOV.UK and serviceslinked to from GOV.UK.

Follow the Guardian style guide (http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a) if you have a query about a point of style that isn't covered here.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Spell out acronyms at first mention unless theyre well known, eg UK, DVLA,US, EU, VAT, MP etc. This includes government departments or schemes.

If you think your acronym is well known, please provide evidence that 80% ofthe UK population will understand, and commonly use, the term.

Evidence can be search analytics or testing of a representative sample.

The first time you use an abbreviation or acronym, explain it in full on eachpage, and then refer to it by initials. For example HM Revenue and Customs(HMRC). Dont use an acronym if youre not going to use it again later in thetext.

Dont use full stops in abbreviations BBC, not B.B.C.

Quick reminder: Freedom of Information you can make an FOI request butnot a request under the FOI Act.

Americanisms

Dont use Americanisms. You fill in a form, not fill out a form.

Exceptions include where its part of a specific name, eg 4th MechanizedBrigade.

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Organise not organize (this isnt actually an Americanism but is often seen assuch).

Ampersand

Use and rather than an &, unless it's a department's logo image.

Brackets

Use (round brackets), not [square brackets]. The only acceptable use of squarebrackets is for explanatory notes in reported speech, eg a ministers speech:

"Thank you [Foreign Minister] Mr Smith."

Bullet points and steps

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

you always use a lead-in linethe bullets make sense running on from the lead-in lineyou use lower case at the start of the bulletyou dont use full stops within bullet points where possible start anotherbullet point or use commas, dashes or semicolons to expand on an itemyou dont put or, and after the bulletsif you add links they appear within the text and not as the whole bulletthere is no full stop after the last bullet point

Steps

Use numbered steps instead of bullet points to guide a user through a process.You don't need a lead-in line and you can use links and downloads (withappropriate markdown) in steps. Each step ends in a full stop because eachstep should be a complete sentence.

Capitalisation

DONT USE BLOCK CAPITALS FOR LARGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT AS ITSQUITE HARD TO READ.

Lower case is preferable but use capitalisation for:

departments (specific government departments see below)titlesbuildingsplace namesbrand namesThe Earth (ie our planet), Planet Earth and Earth sciences

faculties, departments, institutes and schoolsjob titles, ministers role titles, eg Minister for Housing, Home Secretarynames of groups, directorates and organisations, eg Knowledge andInnovation GroupParliament, the Housetitles of specific acts or bills, eg Housing Reform Bill (but use the act or thebill after the first time you use the full act or bill title)names of specific, named government schemes known to people outsidegovernment, eg Right to Buy, Queens Awards for EnterpriseRt Hon (note lack of full stops)specific select committees, eg Public Administration Select Committeeheader cells in tablestitles of publications (and within single quotes)World War 1 and World War 2 (note caps and numbers)

Dont capitalise:

government never Government, even when referring to an electedadministration, (so not the Afghanistan Government) unless part of a specificname, eg Local Government Associationcivil serviceminister, never Minister, unless part of a specific job title, eg Minister for theCabinet Officedepartment or ministry never Department or Ministry, unless referring to aspecific one, eg Ministry of Justicewhite paper, green paper, command paper, House of Commons papersections or schedules within specific named acts, regulations or ordersdirector general (note no hyphen), deputy director, director, unless in aspecific job titlegroup and directorate, unless referring to a specific group or directorate, egthe Commercial Directoratedepartmental board, executive board, the boardpolicy themes, eg sustainable communities, promoting economic growth,local enterprise zonesgeneral mention of select committees (but do cap specific ones see above)

Capitals for government departments

Use the following conventions for government departments. A departmentusing an ampersand in its logo image is fine but use and when writing in fulltext.

Attorney Generals Office (AGO)Cabinet Office (CO)Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)

Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS)Department for Education (DfE)Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)Department for International Development (DFID)Department for Transport (DfT)Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)Department of Health (DH)Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)HM Treasury (HMT)Home Office (HO)Ministry of Defence (MOD)Ministry of Justice (MOJ)

Dates and times

We use to in date and time ranges not hyphens, en rules or em dashes. Forexample:

tax year 2011 to 2012Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (put different days on a new line, dontseparate with a comma etc)10 November to 21 Decemberdon't use a comma between the month and year, eg 14 June 2012when space is an issue, eg tables, publication titles etc, you can usetruncated months, eg Jan, Feb, Mar, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec5:30pm (not 1730hrs)midnight, not 00:00midday, not 12 noon, noon or 12pm10am to 11am (not 1011am)dont use quarter for dates; use the months, for example: [dept] expenses,Jan to Mar 2013

When referring to today (eg in a news article) make sure you include the dateas well. For example: The minister announced today (14 June 2012) that

Eg, etc, and ie

Dont use full stops after or between these notations.

If you want to use the long form (for example instead of eg, specificallyinstead of ie etc) then this is at the content designers discretion. User testinghas shown that some people are not familiar with abbreviations such as eg, soconsider your audience before abbreviating.

Email addresses

Write email addresses in full, in lower case and as active links. Dont includeany other words as part of the link.

Geography and regions

Compass directions are all in lower case: the north, the south of England, thesouth-west, north-east Scotland, south Wales.

The same applies to wider regions: the west, western Europe, the far east,south-east Asia.

Note the following: East End, West End (London), Middle East, CentralAmerica, North America, South America, Latin America.

Always write out the full name of the area the first time you use it. You can usea capital for a shortened version of a specific area or region if its commonlyknown by that name, eg the Pole for the North Pole.

Great Britain

Refers only to England, Scotland and Wales excluding Northern Ireland.

If you're telling users about multiple areas, use: England, Scotland and Wales.

Britain

Use UK and United Kingdom in preference to Britain and British (UK business,UK foreign policy, ambassador and high commissioner). Note: British embassy,not UK embassy.

Hyphenation

Hyphenate:

re- words starting with e, eg re-evaluateco-ordinateco-operate

Dont hyphenate:

reusereinventreorderreopenemail

If in doubt, dont use a hyphen unless its confusing without it and check theOxford English Dictionary for Writers and Editors.

Italics

Dont use italics. Use single quotation marks if referring to a document,scheme or initiative.

Legal language

If youre talking about a legal requirement, use must. For example, youremployer must pay you the National Minimum Wage (NMW).

If you feel that must doesnt have enough emphasis, then use legalrequirement, legally entitled etc. For example: Once your child is registeredat school, you're legally responsible for making sure they attend regularly.

When deciding whether to use must or legally entitled etc, consider howimportant it is for us to talk about the legal aspect, as well as the overall tone ofvoice.

If a requirement is legal, but administrative, or part of a process that wont havecriminal repercussions, then use: need to. For example: You will need toprovide copies of your marriage certificate.

This may be a legal requirement, but not completing it would just stop theperson from moving on to the next stage of a process, rather than committing amore serious offence.

Links

Front-load your link text with the relevant terms and make them active andspecific. Always link to online services first. Offer offline alternatives afterwards(where possible).

Measurements

Use numerals and spell out measurements at first mention.

Abbreviating kilograms to kg is fine you dont need to spell it out.

If the measurement is more than 1 word, eg kilometres per hour then spell itout the first time it is used with the abbreviation. From then on, abbreviate. If itis only mentioned once, dont abbreviate.

Use Celsius for temperature, eg 37C.

Numbers

Use 'one' unless youre talking about a step, a point in a list or another situationwhere using the numeral makes more sense

Only use the numeral where it's something like in point 1 of the designpatterns", or this:

Youll be shown 14 clips that feature everyday road scenes.

There will be:

1 developing hazard in 13 clips2 developing hazards in the other clip

Write all other numbers in numerals (including 2 to 9) except where its part of acommon expression and it would look strange, eg one or two of them. Usecommon sense.

If a number starts a sentence, write it out in full (Thirty-four hula-hoops found inresearchers filing cupboard) except where it starts a title or subheading.

For numerals over 999 insert a comma for clarity. It was over 9,000. Spellout common fractions, such as one-half, but use a % sign for percentages, ie50%.

Use 500 to 900 and not 500900 (except in tables).

Use MB not KB for anything over 1MB, eg 4MB not 4096KB . For under 1MB,use KB, eg 569KB not 0.55MB.

Keep it as accurate as possible and up to 2 decimal places. For example:4.03MB.

Addresses: use to in address ranges, for example: 49 to 53 Cherry Street.

Millions

Always use million in money (and billion), eg 138 million. Use millions inphrases, eg millions of people.

Ordinal numbers

Spell out first to ninth. After that use 10th etc.

In tables, use numerals throughout.

Money

Use the symbol 75

Dont use decimals unless pence are included for example use: 75.50 butnot 75.00.

Dont 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.

Organisations

All organisations are singular, for example: the government has decided to sellassets.

The definite article can be used when referring to the organisation by its fullname, but shouldn't be used with the organisation's acronym. For example:'You should contact the Driving Standards Agency if...' but 'You should contactDSA if...'

Use local council, instead of local authority where possible.

Quotes and speech marks

In long passages of speech, open quotes for every new paragraph, but closequotes only at the end of the final paragraph.

Single quotes

Use single quotes:

in headlinesfor unusual termswhen referring to words or publications, for example: Download thepublication 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.

Contractions

Use contractions, eg theyve, well. Avoid using shouldve, couldve,wouldve etc these are hard to read.

Spaces

Use only 1 space after a full stop, not 2.

Telephone numbers

Use Telephone: 011 111 111 or Mobile: not Mob:.

Use spaces between city and local exchange etc. Here are the differentformats to use:

01273 800 900020 7450 40000800 890 56707771 900 900077718 300 300+44 (0)20 7450 4000+39 1 33 45 70 90

When a number is memorable, group the numbers into easily rememberedunits, eg 0800 80 70 60.

Titles

Remember all the search engine optimisation points and use colons tointroduce the sub-clause.

Good example:Income Tax reform: impact assessment

Bad example:An assessment of the impact of proposed reforms to Income Tax

Transactions and services

These are pre-transaction pages. Use SEO to define the title, so if peoplesearch for registry office, put that in the summary or body text and thenexplain the proper term is register office.

Give one sentence of what the user can expect from the service this willappear before the button.

What you need to know section:This is where you put information that the user will need to complete thetransaction and information about how long it takes, how much there will be topay etc.

You can add alternatives to the online transaction at the bottom of the page.

For more information on writing for transactions, have a look at the GDSService Design Manual (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design-and-content/resources/writing-for-transactions.html).

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design-and-content/resources/writing-for-transactions.html