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2. The Archer
house style ready reference /2
Hyphens and
Dashes
|
Hyphen |
- |
On keyboard |
Use for
joining words or words and prefixes to create new words or to make
meaning clear
E.g.
re-cover vs recover, brothers-in-law |
|
Short dash
(en rule) |
– |
Alt + 0150 on
Num Pad PC
(Alt + hyphen
on Mac) |
Use without
spaces to indicate a transition between numbers, times, dates or
places
E.g.
London–Brighton rally or 6.30–7.30 pm
Or with
spaces as a pause or parenthesis in punctuation somewhat longer than a
comma – as in this case! Use sparingly or not at all. |
|
Long dash (em
rule) |
— |
Alt + 0151 on
Num Pad PC
(Alt + shift +
hyphen Mac) |
Use as a
blank word or end of word, e.g. "Oh, b— !" Use without spaces. |
Names and titles of books etc.
Italicise
titles of plays, films, books, newspapers, TV programs, individually
named vehicles of transport, works of art., songs and poems. Notice how
such titles have a made-up quality about them.
E.g.
Casablanca, Middlemarch, The Archer, Mozart’s
Jupiter Symphony, The Golden Arrow
Do not
italicise names of streets, restaurants, hotels, pubs, theatres,
organizations, buildings or monuments even when they are foreign.
E.g. English
National Opera, Maddens, rue St Honoré, The Globe Theatre, the Cenotaph
Do not
italicise the objects themselves, such as the Bible, Mozart’s Symphony
No. 41, the House of Commons.
Sometimes
the may form part of the title, Note The Times, The Archer
but the New York Times.
Some shop
names end in s, others ‘s and some with neither. They have
to be learned.
E.g.
Harrods, Boots, Barclays but McDonald’s, Levi’s, Waterstone’s
Numbers
Spell out
numbers up to ten; use figures for 11 upwards, but always spell out a
number that comes at the very start of a sentence (and then note the
hyphen in twenty-one, a hundred and sixty-two etc.)
Present money
as £5, £5.25, £5,000, £5 billion, etc. Present
percentages as 5%, unless at the very start of a sentence, then use
five percent. Present millions as 5 million, 2.5 million,
etc. Hyphenate three-quarters, one-third, but not a half
or a third. Hyphenate the 28-year-old victim, but not the
victim was 28 years old.
Quotes and
speech
Direct speech
is the exact quotation of another person’s words – it must be
exact. See also brackets
Use double
quotes to surround direct speech, including all its own punctuation but,
if the final punctuation mark before the introduction of the speaker would
have been a full stop, change it to a comma. Also use a comma after the
speaker and before the quote (not a dash and rarely a colon).
E.g. He
said, "They should never have done it." OR "They shouldn’t have
done it," he said.
Keep the
punctuation of your own ‘main’ sentence outside the quotation marks. If,
logically, this would result in a full stop on both sides of the end
quotation marks, omit the final one outside the quotation marks. If there
is a full stop on one side and an exclamation mark or question mark on the
other, omit the full stop.
E.g. She
told me, "That’s right." Did she say, "That’s right"? No, she said, "Why
not?"!
Use single
quotes for quotes within quotes and quotes within headlines.
Use single
quotes for sayings and quotations where you are not reporting anyone as
saying them.
Use italics
to identify a phrase of your own that you wish to refer to.
Ordinary
indirect speech (as usually follows ‘that’) needs no special formatting
and no quotation marks.
Semicolons
Semicolons can
be used for joining related sentences or for providing a pause that is
longer than a comma. Use sparingly or for lists within lists.
Singular and
plural
Treat
collective nouns such as ‘party’, ‘crowd’, ‘the public’, ‘the audience’ as
singular when the emphasis is on the body as a whole but plural when the
emphasis is on its individual members.
E.g. ‘The
audience was enthusiastic’, ‘The committee was appointed’, ‘The committee
were divided’.
Collective
nouns for inanimate objects are usually singular, whereas collective nouns
followed by of + a plural noun or pronoun are usually treated as
plural.
Times of day
Show all times
in the 12-hour clock e.g. 2 pm, 4.30 pm. Note no spaces or stops in am and
pm. |