Writing conventions
The Church has a few conventions which should be followed to help keep things consistent between different authors.
Some of these may differ from your personal preference, but whenever you are writing on behalf of the Church you should try to stick to these wherever possible. Whilst some of these decisions may seem arbitrary, many of them have a particular reason.
You should also familiarise yourself with the entries in the Glossary, as these cover our preferred language and naming conventions for things.
- Numbers
- Currency
- Dates and times
- Telephone numbers
- Spaces after full stops
- Quotes and quotation marks
- Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms
- Titles
- Lists
- Number and date ranges
Numbers
Always follow British conventions. Use a comma to separate thousands. Decimal places are separated using a full stop.
Yes: 1,234 12,345,678.90
No: 1234 12345678,90
Currency
Where the value is a whole number, do not include anything after the decimal point. Write numbers as above, using British conventions.
Yes: £8 £6.50 £19.99 £12,500
No: £8.00 £6 50p £19-99 £12500
Dates and times
A lot of what the Church communicates involves sharing when something is happening with people. To make this easier to understand, everything should present dates and times in a consistent manner.
Dates
To avoid ambiguity, it is preferred that dates are written in full including the day of the week wherever possible, for example, “Sunday 25 December 2016”. Do not include an ordinal (ie “st”, “nd”, “rd”, “th”).
If you need to save space you may leave out the day of the week, shorten the name of the month, or both. For example, “25 Dec 2016”. However if you do this please make sure that every date in the same context is written the same way.
If you have to use a short date, it should be written in the British standard day/month/year, where the year is written in full, for example, “25/12/2016”. The exception to this is where you are naming files on a computer, where the format year-month-day is preferred (ie “2016-12-25”).
Comparative dates such as “next Sunday” can be problematic as people may interpret them differently. Wherever possible you should spell out the exact date, or use the form “this Sunday” if the date is less than a week away and the thing you’re producing has a short lifespan (such as a notice sheet).
Times
Times should be written using the 12-hour clock, with a full stop between the hours and minutes. You should always include the minutes, even if the time is on the hour.
The “am” or “pm” should be in lowercase, with a space between it and the time.
At midday, the preference is to use “12.00 noon” instead of “12.00 pm”.
Yes: 12.30 pm 7.00 pm 10.00 am 3.30 pm 12.00 noon 9.30 pm
No: 12:30 pm 19:00 10 am 3.30p.m. 12 pm 9.30pm
Telephone numbers
A telephone number should be written using spaces, which makes it easier to read. For example:
0113 496 0123
07700 900123
020 7946 0123
01632 960123
You should always write telephone numbers including the full area code, even when you expect them to be locally dialled, for example, 0113 264 5790.
Spaces after full stops
There should only be a single space following a full stop. Using two or more spaces after a full stop is discouraged.
Quotes and quotation marks
Quoting people
We prefer using double quotes for direct quotations of what a person said, including at the beginning of block quotations and pull quotes.
He said “I couldn’t possibly comment”.
“I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Where a quotation covers multiple paragraphs, only place a closing quote on the last paragraph.
Punctuation ending a sentence should go outside the quotation mark, unless what you’re quoting is a complete sentence in itself.
Quoting books and other sources
When quoting a book or other source which isn’t direct speech, make sure it is at the very least in a paragraph on its own and preferably indented. If the medium you’re using has a style for block quote, use that.
Give citations at the end of the quote, conventionally with an em-dash followed by the reference in italics.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
— John 14:6 NIV
Quotes within quotes
If you are nesting a quote within a quote, use single quotation marks.
“I couldn’t possibly comment, but they said ‘I think this is a great idea’.”
Quotes as emphasis
Do not use quotation marks to emphasise a word, as this will often be interpreted as the word being used ironically.
No: We ‘always’ use your donations to further our work.
Quotes to indicate irony, sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek
Use single quotes for this purpose.
Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms
The preferred style for abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms is not to include full stops between letters.
Yes: eg ie am pm PCC
No: e.g. i.e. a.m. p.m. P.C.C.
Don’t assume that a person will always know what an acronym means; you might understand that the APCM is the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, but people unfamiliar with how the Church works at an administrative level won’t be. If in doubt, always spell out what an acronym means the first time you use it.
By being included on the electoral roll, a person has the right to attend and vote at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM). To be eligible, a person needs to be at least 16 years old at the time of the next APCM…
Titles
We prefer using sentence case for titles, as seen throughout this style guide.
Lists
Place a full stop at the end of items in lists wherever the item makes sense as a complete sentence. Otherwise, do not use full stops.
When listing names, sort alphabetically by given name unless there is a good reason to sort by family name.
Number and date ranges
Where space allows, write ranges of numbers and dates with the word “to” between them.
Yes: 1 to 100 10 to 15 October
No: 1-100 10-15 October
In the case of times, use “from … until” wherever space allows.
Yes: from 10.00 am until 2.00 pm.
No: 10.00 am - 2.00 pm