There is a trend towards omitting stops, and internal spaces, especially in newspapers, and The Archer follows this trend, omitting stops where permitted and not confusing. Use abbreviations cautiously!

All-capital abbreviations and acronyms normally run without spaces or full stops unless of a single letter or someone’s initials, e.g. RSPCA, BBC, LUL, NE

Words shortened by removing the middle normally run without spaces or full stops

E.g. Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Cllr, St, Revd.

Omit stops from units of measure (except in., gr. for grain, qr. for quarter, a. for acre, st. stone)

E.g. oz, lb, g, l (litre), km, ft, mph, pt, F. Note also plc, PhD, BSc, sic, Ltd

You still need points for e.g., i.e., ibid., ed. and single letter abbreviations

The Archer, along with many other newspapers, omits the stops in am and pm

Delete ‘East Finchley’ after street names; only streets outside East Finchley need their area to be given.

For letters or by-lines, use the postal code, i.e. N2, after the street name e.g. By Fred Bloggs of Chandos Road, N2. Note that Road, Avenue etc. should always be written in full.

If you start a series of sentences or paragraphs with an asterisk the page-setters will interpret this as a marker for bullets and will format as a bulleted list if appropriate. There is no need to format with special styles or hanging indents as this will be done for you.

Follow the original capitalisation for names of organisations. Otherwise never use all-caps. Below refers to initial caps for each word (title case).

Capitalise institutions and organisations, days, months, festivals, holidays but not seasons.

Only capitalise titles of rank when they appear before the name and with no intervening punctuation or when using the title as a synonym for a particular person.

E.g. Councillor Helen Gordon, but one of the Labour councillors, Helen Gordon and the mayor, Vic Lyons

Capitalise the Council, the Government or the Borough when referring to a particular administration but not otherwise.

Additional capitalisation (e.g. Pollution Scare) may acceptable in headlines, but not sub-headings.

A colon is used to link cause and effect or anticipation and realisation and should be used sparingly.

E.g. There are three main modes of transport in London: bus, tube and taxi.

E.g. He asked them a simple question: "Where is East Finchley?"

Type dates as Tuesday 26 November 1950 (day first; no th; no commas). Omit parts of the date that are unnecessary, but always keep the order the same. Decades use 1960s or sixties, not ’60s, no apostrophes.

Try to work your words to provide any emphasis. If you must emphasise a word, such as in reported speech, use italics, as here; never use underline, all caps or bold.

Italicise foreign words, including Latin and Greek classification names, except where the words are completely absorbed into every day English

E.g. en masse or ad infinitum but not cafe or bistro. Note that Anglicised words do not require accents.

Avoid over complex sentences and unnecessary commas as these break up the flow. If using commas for parenthesis, use them in pairs. If using for a pause do not place between subject and its verb.