In university and research writing, it is important to follow the convention in your subject and any guidelines given by your university, target journal or publisher. It is also important to be consistent in your language, for example in spelling and punctuation.
An easy way to do this is to use a style sheet. This helps give your text a consistent and professional appearance, allowing readers to concentrate on your content.
A style sheet is simply a reference sheet for writing and formatting your text. It can include style guidelines stipulated by your university, journal or publisher as well as a list that you compile as you write your text. A number of style pointers are given below (for further information, see the relevant Writing Help sections):
English variety
Whether you use British English, US English or other English variety
Spellings
Your spelling where there is more than one possible form, for example judgement or judgment, ageing or aging
In British English, whether you use s or z in words such as organise and organize
Punctuation
Whether you use a comma before and and or in series such as London, Sydney, and New York and Cape Town, Edinburgh or Vancouver
Whether you use a comma after e.g. and i.e. and before etc.
Hyphenation
Whether you use a hyphen with non and co, for example nonconformist or non-conformist, coeducation or co-education
Whether you write a term as one word, hyphenated, or as two words, for example lifetime, half-life and life cycle
Quotation style
Whether you use ‘single’ or “double” quotation marks
Title and heading style
Are your titles formatted consistently?
Figure and table style
Are your figures and tables formatted consistently?
Bullet style
Are your bullets formatted consistently?
Capitalization
Whether you capitalize the first letter of cross-references, for example Chapter or chapter 1, Figure or figure 2, Table or table 3
Italics
Whether you use normal type or italics, for example et al. or et al., in vivo or in vivo
Spacing
Title spacing
Line spacing
Word spacing, for example 10 mm, 5g, p. 55
Numbers
Which numbers you write as words and which as figures
Whether you use a comma or space to divide multiples of a thousand, for example 10,000 or 10 000
Whether you use %, per cent or percent
Dates
Are your dates formatted consistently?
Abbreviations
Have you used the standard abbreviations in your subject?
Have you defined all your abbreviations?
Footnote or endnote style
Are all the reference numbers correct?
Reference style
Your reference style, both in your text and bibliography