House style guidelines

• Abbreviations
• Addresses and telephone numbers
• Dates and times
• Job titles
• Measurements
• Money
• Numbers
• References to publications

Abbreviations

Avoid unnecessary abbreviation (AUA).

Use English rather than Latin (‘namely’, rather than ‘viz’).

Do not use full stops in the following lower-case abbreviations: ie, eg, am, pm, p25.

Do not use full stops with people’s initials (T S Eliot) or in acronyms and initial abbreviations (US, UK, NATO).

Except for universally understood abbreviations, spell out the full term with the abbreviation/acronym in brackets on its first appearance in the document. If this is its only appearance, then use of the abbreviation/acronym is not always necessary. Acronyms can be used in headings with no expansion. For the web, use a linked glossary page.

Do not use full stops in abbreviation of units of measurement (mm and kg).

The plurals of abbreviated units of measurement do not end in ‘s’ (kg not kgs).

Do not use full points for contractions that end on the last letter of the word (Dr - Doctor; St - Saint).

Where possible, write Learning and Teaching Scotland in full. When it is necessary to abbreviate it (for example when used frequently on a page) use the abbreviation LTS (in upper case). Historically the abbreviation used was LT Scotland: this is now only acceptable in previous publications and the company’s URL. LT Scotland is closed up (to LTScotland) in web and email addresses.

Addresses and telephone numbers

Contact details should be displayed as follows:

Learning and Teaching Scotland, The Optima, 58 Robertson Street, Glasgow G2 8DU

T: Customer Services 08700 100 297

E: enquiries@LTScotland.org.uk

www.LTScotland.org.uk

Dates and Times

Present dates as follows: 13 March 2007.

Decades should be expressed as follows: 1920s.

Centuries should be expressed as follows: 12th century.

Reduce dates to the shortest form, for example: 1992-3, but note 1914-18 (retain ‘tens’ for clarity) and 1798-1812.

Place BC after the date: 500 BC.

Do not use AD unless by not using it you could cause confusion. In this case, place it before the date: AD 1900.

Use words for a period of time: It took him six months to recover from his operation.

Use ‘am’ or ‘pm’ rather than writing ‘o’clock’. Leave a space between the abbreviation and the numeral; for example, 10.30 am not 10.30am.

Job Titles

In general capital letters should not be used on job titles, for example ‘headteacher’ not ‘Headteacher’.

When mentioning job-holders by name, follow these rules:

if the job title comes after the person’s name, capitalise it (‘Amy Jones, Chief Executive’)

if the title comes before the person’s name, do not capitalise it (‘the chief executive, Ms Jones’).

Measurements

Always use numerals with units of measurement. Do not put full stops after the units. Insert a space between the numerals and units (3 cm).

For ranges use dashes (en rules) instead of ‘to’ and do not repeat the unit (10-12 kg not 10 kg-12 kg).

Units of temperature should be as follows: 12 °C.

Money

Use symbols ‘£’ and ‘p’ rather than writing ‘pounds’ or ‘pence’.

On round figures, miss out the empty decimal places (£1 not £1.00) unless you are writing a pricelist, etc.

In body text, write ‘£2.5 million’ or if abbreviated £2.5m not ‘£2,500,000’.

Do not use pound signs on sums under £1 (55p not £0.55). 

Numbers

Elide ranges of numbers as far as possible (134-5).

Use P4/P5 not P4/5.

Use words for numbers below 10.

Use figures for ages. Some examples:

• This affects all children and young people between the ages of 3 and 18.

• This affects all children and young people aged 3-18.

• This affects all 3-18-year-olds.

Never start a sentence with a figure, eg ‘Nineteen people attended the meeting but only 14 stayed on for lunch.’

Use the symbol % in text and tables (do not spell out in full).

Use a comma in numbers of five or more digits.

References to Publications

Titles and subtitles

Use initial caps for publication titles and subtitles (Focusing on Enterprise in Education: A Paper for Professional Reflection).

In body text, follow the style of the examples below when referring to publications:

• publication with no author: Career Education in Scotland (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2001)

• book or report with author: The Future of Education (Jones, <date>, p [if needed])

• authored article: ‘The State of the Curriculum’ (Smith, <date>, p [if needed]). Full reference should be given in the bibliography or footnotes.

Bibliographies

In a bibliography, references should be written out in full, including subtitles.

Bibliographies should be organised alphabetically by the authors’ surnames, so the names are presented surname first (or by title for those publications with no author). The rest of the bibliographic information should be given in the same order as in the example below. Page references are given only when the entry is for a chapter in a book, or an article in a journal.

Brown, T A, Genomes, Oxford: Bios Scientific Publishers, 1999

Butcher, J, Copy Editing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992

McElligott, A, ‘Crisis in the Cities: the Collapse of Weimar’, History Today, 1993, 43 (5), pp18-24

Footnotes

Footnotes usually consist of additional information or comments, references to other people’s work and sources of quotations.

They should be shown by serial numbers within the text as in this example.

The school has based its questions on HMIE's Journey to Excellence.¹⁸

¹⁸HM Inspectorate of Education (2006) How good is our school? The Journey to Excellence, Livingston: HMIE

Note: footnote serial numbers should be put outside any neighbouring punctuation marks.

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