Style guide

Style has substance.

En dash or em dash? Single or double quotes? Oxford commas: good or bad? (Don’t get us started on that one.) 

Check our style guide for answers to classic grammar quandaries. Or read our two cents on the issues keeping the grammar geeks awake at night. 

If you’re writing for a brand, find out if they have a style guide of their own – they’ll have particular rules on things like capitalisation and formatting dates. 

Spelling

Words we’re never quite sure how to spell

You’re not alone if these trip you up.

Names and titles

What to call The Writer

We're not a fussy bunch, but just so you know...

Numbers

Weights and measures

No space between the number and the measure such as 10kg, 800g, 9lbs, 7oz.

Grammar

Web and email addresses

No need to include the ‘www.’ (so our address is thewriter.com). Roman (which means no italics). Same with email addresses – no italics needed.

Names and titles

Titles of books, films, TV programmes

Use italics rather than quotes.

Grammar

That, who or which?

‘That’ defines a thing (not a person). ‘Who’ defines a person (not a thing). ‘Which’ gives extra information, often in a clause with commas round it.

Grammar

Split infinitives

Split away. We do it all the time in speech. There’s no grammatical reason why we can’t split infinitives in English.

Our two cents

Readability

There’s a readability checker right here on our website. It’ll tell you how easy your writing is to read, and show you how it compares to some famous books and authors.

Punctuation

Quotation marks

Use single rather than double quotes. But it’s okay to use double quotes when you’ve got a nice quote in a large font size.

Grammar

Pronouns

He, she, they. If you’re not sure of someone’s gender, use ‘they’ or ‘their’ as the pronoun.

Grammar

Plurals

We know you know how to make something plural: usually, you add an ‘s’. But there's some weird exceptions.

Numbers

Phone numbers

No brackets around area codes. So it’s 01234 567890 not (01234) 567890.

Numbers

Percent

We use per cent in the UK and percent in the US.

Our two cents

Old-fashioned words

They used to be stylish; they’re not any more. So change these dated words for their modern alternatives.

Spelling

Okay

We spell it okay. Not OK, O.K. or ok.

Numbers

Numbers

The dos and don'ts on writing numbers.

Names and titles

Newspapers and magazines

In London, we italicise the names of newspapers and magazines. Like we do with the titles of books, films and tv programmes.  

Names and titles

Job titles and team names

Use lower case for our job titles, and if you’re not sure.

Punctuation

Hyphens

When to use them, when to leave them out

Words

Foreign words

No need to italicise foreign words that have slipped into common usage (like curriculum, cliché or faux pas).

Punctuation

Exclamation marks

Generally avoid them. They can make you sound like you’re shouting! Or you’re angry!!!

Grammar

Etc

It's a bit jargon-y and you can probably find a better alternative...

Punctuation

Ellipses

If you’re using an ellipsis to show a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or an enigmatic trailing off into silence... then you don’t need a space before it.

Numbers

Dates and times

Getting your days and clocks in order.

Punctuation

Dashes

Is it an en dash, an em dash, or a hyphen?

Numbers

Currency

A few notes on pence and cents.

Names and titles

Compass points

Lower case for north, south, east and west, except when it’s part of a name like South Korea, South Africa or East Anglia.

Punctuation

Commas

Some of comma commentary is pretty straightforward. But there are a few grey areas, mainly around the Oxford comma, comma splices and separating adjectives.

Our two cents

Accessibility

A few notes on using words to help people navigate online.

Punctuation

Colons and semicolons

Henry Watson Fowler said we should use a colon ‘to deliver the goods that have been invoiced in the preceding words’.

Grammar

Caps vs lower case

If in doubt, use lower case. Save capital letters for proper nouns (like Jude or London), acronyms and initialisms.

Punctuation

Bullet points

There are a lot of ways to get these right – the most important thing is to make sure you’re consistent, and that each of your bullets follows on logically from the top.

Our two cents

British vs American English (and other flavours)

With a base in London and New York, we're always flittering between the two. Here's some of the main differences.

Names and titles

Brand names

Write it the way they do.

Punctuation

Brackets

There's a couple of rules to do with punctuation you need to get your head around. (They're easy peasy once you know them.)

Punctuation

Apostrophes

The world is full of apostrophes. You’re probably already confident about how to use them. But if you aren’t (or some cases trip you up), here’s a recap.

Our two cents

‘And’ and ‘but’

Why it's okay to start a sentence with a conjunction.

Punctuation

Ampersands (&)

You'll probably only use them if you're working for M&S.

Grammar

Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms

Make sure everyone's familiar with them. Otherwise, spell it out.