Our house style

Although some of the University’s publications are prepared by the central Marketing Team, many others are produced by people around the University. This style sheet gives a brief overview of our house style in order to achieve consistency in our written communications.  

It might be argued that there is no right and wrong in a living, evolving language. There is however a need to establish a form or ‘house style’, and to maintain a consistency of style and spelling. What follows may not therefore be definitively correct, but our students and potential students are entitled to expect consistency within a page, in successive pages and in all University publications they receive. All written communications emanating from the University to the outside world should therefore conform to this University house style. Additions and suggested deletions are always welcome.

Typefaces

• Arial 10pt is our chosen system font for use in Word documents.
• Times New Roman is used for headlines in Word documents.
• Arial is our chosen system font for use in PowerPoint.
• All type should be set ranged left.
• Italics can be used in accordance with our house style (see below).
• Bullet points are square and set at 80 per cent.
• Arial is our chosen font for live text on our website.

Capitalisation

Do not over-use capitals. Use capitals for:

• University (meaning the University of Essex);
• Department (when referring to a specific department);
• Vice-Chancellor, Graduate Director, Public Relations Officer (titles);
• Language and Linguistics, Psychology (departments, schools and centres);
• BA English Language, BSc Psychology (courses);
• Applied Linguistics, Brain and Behaviour (modules);
• Bachelors degree, Masters degree, Diploma, Certificate (qualifications);
• The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income (studies, research papers, seminar titles).

Do not use capitals when referring to:

• Subject areas (linguistics, psychology, electronic engineering);
• Career areas (insurance, banking, marketing, advertising);
• The study subject (eg together with a good background in computing).

Italic

• Use italic for the names of courses and module titles when written within a body of text.
• Use italic for titles, ie films, published books and periodicals (Graduate School Prospectus).
• Use italic for foreign words which have not become part of the English language (so pro forma, franc, ibid, ie, eg should not be in italic) but not for proper names or for foreign quotations.

Bullet points

If bullet points follow a colon, always start lower case and end the line with a semi-colon, finishing with a full stop at the end of a bulleted list:

Our Careers Centre will help you by:

• offering interview guidance;
• reading your applications;
• arranging employer fairs.

If the bullets do not follow a colon, always start upper case and end the line with a full stop:

The Southend Campus

• Southend-on-Sea is situated on the South Essex coast. Just 50 minutes from London, Southend is served by excellent transport links.
• Our Students' Union offers the perfect location to spend free time and access advice and guidance.

Spelling

General rule – follow Oxford English Dictionary, using the first version of the word where alternatives are given. Be consistent. Spelling for words which have alternatives and which we use regularly:

• adviser (not advisor)
• program (for computer program), programme (programme of events), otherwise programmer (in both cases);
• practice (noun) but practise (verb);
• coursework (not course work);
• website (not web site);
• helpdesk (not help desk);
• e-mail (not email);
• realise, recognise (not realize, recognize).

Hyphenation

General rule – avoid splitting a hyphenated word over two lines. Hyphenated words which we use regularly:

• full-time (adjective);
• decision making (noun), decision-making (adjective);
• first year (noun), first-year (adjective);
• no one (not no-one);
• A-level (not A Level, ‘A’-level or ‘A’Level);
• E-mail or e-mail (not Email or email).

Numbers

• Except in mathematical formulae and accounts, readers prefer no more than three figures at a time; so for 123,456 write 123,000; for 1,234,567 write 1.23 million or £1.23m (no space between the figure and m).
• Write out in words all numbers at the beginning of a sentence, all numbers up to and including ten, and all numbers if any one in the sentence is spelt out (between nine and fifteen, not between nine and 15). The same applies to ordinal numbers.
• In tables use numerals.
• When currency has to be expressed, use figures (£12).
• Fractions are hyphenated as adjectives (one-third full), but not as nouns (one third of the population).
• Use commas for numbers of four or more digits (1,000).
• Telephone numbers should not have parentheses around the STD code (01206 874227).
• Add ‘+44’ when writing telephone numbers for a non-UK audience (+44 (0)1206 874227).
• Years of courses should be referred to as first year and second year (not Year 1 or 1st Year).

Dates

• Friday 12 November 2010 (no ‘th’ and no comma).
• Century numbers are usually spelt out (the fourteenth century or fourteenth-century if used as an adjective); in tables or headings, figures may be used (14th century or 14th-century).
• Decades should be expressed as 1960s (not 1960’s or ’60s) or thirties (not ’thirties).
• 2010-11 (not 2010/11) to denote an academic year.

Times

• 3.30pm (not 3:30pm, 3:30 pm or 1530).
• Where the top of the hour appears with a fraction of the hour, the time should be written in full, ie 9.00am to 9.30am.
• Where only top of the hour appears, a shortened version may be used, ie 10am to 11am.

Abbreviations

• Avoid unnecessary abbreviations.
• It is not grammatically necessary to place full stops after abbreviations where the last letter of the abbreviation is the last letter of the spelt-out word: Mr, Dr, St (for street or saint), Ltd, Bros.
• It is not necessary to use full stops in or after abbreviations where there is no likelihood of confusion: BT, eg, ie, etc, am (time), AM (frequency), GCSE, BSc, MA, PhD, UN. But is advisable to include them in:W.H.O. (World Health Organisation), no. (number).
• Spell out what an abbreviation stands for the first time you use it in text: World Health Organisation.
• When they appear in text, &, and, %, ie and eg should be spelt out in full as ‘and’, 'and', ‘per cent’, ‘that is to say’ and ‘for example’. In tables, headings, when writing notes or when you need to save space, the abbreviations may be used.

For abbreviations of qualifications and awarding institutions, see either the Association of Commonwealth Universities guidelines (available from the Research Office) or the University Calendar and Research Interests list (both of which are available on the web).

Apostrophes

• Use apostrophes to show possession (the student’s notes, the University’s history).
• Add only an apostrophe if the things or people possessing already end in ‘s’ (Students’ Union, lecturers’ offices).
• Do not use apostrophes for plurals unless it is to denote possession (in the 1960s, MAs, Masters, PhDs).
• Use an apostrophe to show that a letter is missing (isn’t, can’t, it’s).
• Pronouns like his, hers, ours, yours and theirs don’t need apostrophes.
• Exceptions are when needed to avoid ambiguity (mind your p’s and q’s, a list of do’s and don’ts).

Inverted commas (quotation marks)

• Use double inverted commas for direct speech, ie when writing a student profile – “I decided to come to the University of Essex because it offered me the perfect course.”.
• Use single inverted commas when highlighting a word in a sentence – At Essex 22 per cent of research is rated as ‘world-leading’.

Punctuation

• A comma is usually unnecessary before ‘and’, although there are exceptions where the insertion of a comma will help the reader to see how the sentence is constructed, and to put a pause exactly where it should be.
• Don’t use more than one full stop; if the last word in a sentence is an abbreviation, you don’t need an extra full stop.
• Do not confuse hyphens (-) with dashes (–). Dashes are longer and have different uses, ie to show ranges and can be used instead of colons.

Format for University contact details

The examples below are the preferred formats for contact details.

In print and e-mail signatures:

University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

T 01206 873333
F 01206 873598
E someone@essex.ac.uk
www.essex.ac.uk
 

On University websites:

University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

Telephone 01206 873333
Fax 01206 873598
E-mail someone (non Essex users should add @essex.ac.uk to create a full e-mail address)
Website www.essex.ac.uk

Commonly used words in the University house style

• University of Essex (this should not be written as Essex University).
• Colchester Campus/Loughton Campus/Southend Campus (with upper case C for Campus) (if referring to all campuses this should be a lower case c).
• The Gateway Building
• Vice-Chancellor.
• Pro-Vice-Chancellor.
• Undergraduate.
• BSc Biological Sciences, not BSc in Biological Sciences.
• Honorary Degree probably specific, therefore initial caps, similarly...Honorary Graduand initial caps (until the degree is presented, then Honorary Graduate).
• Professor (no abbreviation).
• Dr (no full stop).
• First or 1, Upper Second or 2.1, Lower Second or 2.2, Third or 3, Fail.

This style sheet is maintained by the Head of Corporate Marketing. If you have any questions regarding the use of the University's house style, please e-mail ‘branding’. Non Essex users should add ‘@essex.ac.uk’.