Grammar, numbers, punctuation and typography

These should be written out without punctuation: eg, etc.

Things to note: 

• Screen readers can sometimes read aloud eg as ‘egg'. Better alternatives are ‘for example’ or ‘such as’ or ‘including’. 
• Take care with ie, it’s not always widely understood. We use ie to clarify a sentence, so instead try rewriter you sentence to provide this clarity. Otherwise, ‘meaning’ and ‘that is’ are OK alternatives.
• When abbreviating a phrase, rather than a name or title, use lower case (ie lbw, mph).

We should spell out a name in full with the acronym in brackets after it. Then use the acronym on its own eg ‘The Department for Education (DfE) provided funding to the five institutions. DfE is a central government department.’ 

Things to note

Exceptions to this rule include organisations that are known by their abbreviated name: eg UCAS, BBC, NHS.

Acronyms to avoid in external communications:

• Acronyms for Schools (eg SBBS instead of School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences). Write out the name in full the first time and then use ‘School’.
• Higher Education Institutions (HEI): instead use ‘universities’ or ‘higher education institutions’ (Note: lower case) 
• Russell Group (RG). This can be abbreviated in internal communications but should be written out in external communications.

When writing, use the active voice at all times. It’s a much clearer way of conveying a message where the subject of the sentence performs the action (eg who’s done what to whom or, if you’re giving instructions, who must do what).

With the passive voice, the subject receives the action. This can a) make things confusing and b) dilutes the message of the sentence. The passive voice is useful if you need to emphasise the action rather than the actor, or to sound more authoritative. But as a rule, we should use the active voice. 

Active voice example: The dog bit the man.

Passive voice example: The man was bitten by the dog.

Things to note:

If you’re unsure about which voice you’ve been using, look for phrases using ‘by’. This is a good indicator that the sentence is written in the passive voice. 

• Apostrophes are used to indicate a missing letter eg don’t, can’t, won’t or possession eg Jasmine’s book.
• For plurals, words and names ending in ‘s’, add an apostrophe eg ‘Mr Jones’ cat’, ‘the ladies’ luggage’.
• Use in phrases such as six years’ experience or three days’ time, where the time period modifies the noun.
• Don’t use in six weeks old or nine months pregnant, where the time period modifies an adjective. You can check whether this is right by using a singular example eg one year’s experience, one week old.

• We use these between two sentences or two parts of a sentence, where the second explains or expands on the first eg Our founding institutions gave us values that are relevant today: a commitment to social justice and equality.
• To introduce a quote that is a stand-alone sentence eg Bailey said: Queen Mary is an outstanding University.
• To introduce bullet points.

These should be used sparingly in formal writing. If the tone is meant to be chatty, then contractions within reason are fine.

Things to note

When addressing students, you’ll is fine, but try to think of alternative ways of saying what it is you want to say. Eg on our Student life page, it says ‘When you study at Queen Mary, you get to live in one of the world’s most exciting cities’ and not ‘[...] you’ll get to live in one of the world’s most exciting cities.’

Be economical with dashes where possible. Commas can be used in the first instance, as can semicolons.

If you do use dashes, use the n-dash with a space before and (if in the middle of the sentence) after, and as a strong interruption from the main body of a sentence. Eg ‘Our reformer heritage informs our conviction that great ideas can and should come from anywhere and anyone – no matter what their background.’

Hyphens remove ambiguity when used correctly as compound modifiers. A popular example from the fifties is, ‘His face turned an ugly brick-red’. This reads differently to ‘His face turned an ugly brick red’. 

We use hyphens when:

Forming short and commonly used adverbs to avoid confusion eg much-needed, new-found

Using in short compound adjectives that precede a noun, eg kind-hearted person, mid-life crisis. 

No concrete rule exists when using hyphens with prefixes. You can have an antihero who can be anti-establishment. A good, loose rule of thumb is if the lack of hyphen makes the sentence harder to read, then add one in.

Use these very sparingly. However, it is OK to use them in pull-quotes from student or staff interviews and profiles.

• Use fewer when writing about something that can be counted eg ‘fewer students’. 
• Use less when writing about something that can’t be counted or doesn’t have a plural eg ‘less money’, ‘less time’. 

• Use double quotation marks at the start and end of a quoted section with single quotes for quoted words within that section. 
• Where a quote is more than one paragraph long, open each paragraph with a double quote mark, but don’t close with quote marks until the end of the final paragraph. 
• Pull quotes should take double quote marks but should end without a full stop: eg “Queen Mary is the only central London University to offer students a completely integrated residential campus”.

This is fine to do but use this power sparingly. It shouldn’t be a commonplace feature in our writing.

• ‘That’ is used to modify an existing clause. This means another part of the sentence depends on it for meaning. It is used without a comma.
• ‘Which’ is used to introduce a new clause and uses a comma before the ‘which’ and after the clause.

Here are two examples where that and which alter the meaning of the same sentence.

1. Our office, which has a roof terrace, is located in Whitechapel.
2. Our office that has a roof terrace is located in Whitechapel.

• The first sentence tells us that there’s just one office, and it happens to have a roof terrace. 
• The clause ‘which has a roof terrace’ introduces new information but does not change the overall meaning of the sentence.
• The second sentence suggests that there is more than one office, but that the one with a roof terrace is in Whitechapel. 
• The ‘that has a roof terrace’ part cannot be removed because it is the modifier and another part of the sentence (our office) depends on it. If you took it out, it would change the meaning of the sentence.

Rule of thumb

If you took the ‘which’ clause out of the sentence, it should still make sense. So you can check you have used the right word by trying to remove the phrase.

Queen Mary uses Source Sans Pro for all of our copy. If this is not available to download on your computer, then you may use Arial.

To install Source Sans Pro, go to Google Fonts.

If you need to emphasise a word or a point, use bold font. Avoid underlining, italics and using caps for emphasis. These are not accessible font types.

Confusingly, that’s not to say to avoid italics all together! There are rules for when we should be using them:

• Use italics for titles of books, films and journals, as well as foreign language words.
• In the case of an article within a journal, the article should appear in inverted commas and the journal name should be italicised:
• eg Daniels, S., Keiller, P., Massey, D. and Wright, P. (2012). ‘To dispel a great malady: Robinson in Ruins, the future of landscape and the moving image’. Tate Papers, (17), pp.1-16.

• Use title case for publication titles.
• Use sentence case for headings and sub-headings: eg, Fees and funding opportunities.
• Use initial capitals for department names eg, Department of English/Linguistics/Film.
• Initial capitals for event names eg Barts Cancer Institute’s Online Christmas Auction. 
• Use initial capitals for job titles eg Vice-Principal.
• Use initial capitals for lecture theatres, awards and buildings eg David Sizer Lecture Theatre, Teacher of the Year, Queens’ Building.
• Initial capitals should be used for languages eg French, English, Chinese.
• And when talking about specific programmes or degrees, eg Global Health. If you’re writing about a subject in a general sense then keep it lower case, eg ‘Chemistry is often thought of as the central science, bringing together mathematics, physics, biology and medicine’. 

• Headings are a useful way of signposting your copy and breaking it up.
• As mentioned above, we use sentence case for these.
• Use the closest thing you have to a heading size.

• When referring to our Facultie and Schools  in external communications, use their full name in the first instance eg ‘Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry’, and ‘School of Law’.
• For following mentions, it’s fine to use ‘the Faculty’ or ‘the School’. In internal communications, we can refer simply to eg ‘Medicine and Dentistry’, but never externally.

• The word ‘course’ can be used in a general sense, especially when referring to studies undertaken in other institutions.
• When referring to degrees, use ‘degree programmes’ rather than ‘degree courses’.
• If stating what course a student has done or is doing, write it out as follows: BSc Business Management, BA Comparative Literature with a Year Abroad (note the capitalisation of Year Abroad).

Always remember to specify the campus a specific building is located at: eg ‘ArtsOne (Mile End)’ or ‘(Mile End campus)’.

• These should be placed within single quote marks: eg ‘Understanding Human Behaviour’. 
• All newspaper and journal names should be italicised, eg The Guardian.

• Spell out numbers one to nine in words. For number 10 and above, use digits, eg eight and 87.
• Use commas in numbers over a thousand: eg 1,000.
• Use m for numbers in millions: eg £5m and 145m.

These should be bracketed, lower case and unabbreviated: eg ‘(see page 10)’.

• Write these in the following format externally +44 (0)20 XXXX XXXX or +44 (0)7XXX XXX XXX for mobiles.
• Where applicable, internally, extensions alone can be used.
• Include the country code: eg Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 7882 or +44 (0)7749 XXX XXX.

• Use the 12 hour clock: eg 7am and 1.30pm. Note the use of a full stop and no space between the digits and the am/pm.
• Use a hyphen to separate starting and finishing times: eg 7-9am.