Common terms and inconsistencies

Ageing

Use ageing not aging.

Brackets, dashes, slashes and clutter

Avoid overuse of brackets, dashes, slashes and semicolons. Too much punctuation can clutter up text and make it difficult for visually impaired people to read. Stick to short, clear sentences to reduce clutter. For example avoid terms like ‘and/or’, use simply ‘and’ or simply ‘or’. ‘from/to’ should be written ‘from and to’.

British English

We use British English. For example: centre not center. Spell words such as generalise, emphasise, organisation and visualisation with an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’.

Contractions

Try to avoid contractions. ‘Did not’ rather than ‘didn’t’. This is unless you are writing on social media, where fewer characters are needed.

Compared with and compared to

Use ‘compared with’ when you are writing about how 2 things are different. Use ‘compared to’ when you are writing about similarities.

Fetal and fetus

Use fetus or fetal without the ‘o’.

Focused and focusing

Focusing and focused not focussing or focussed.

Healthcare

Use healthcare, one word, unless referring to health and care research or health and care professionals.

Hyphens

Hyphens link compound words such as walk-in or build-up. 

• • Hyphenate co-ordinate, co-operate and ‘re words’ starting with e, such as re-evaluate. The exception is NIHR Coordinating Centre.

  • Do not hyphenate reuse, reinvent, reorder, reopen.

  • Use ‘to’ for time and date ranges, not hyphens.

Italics

Do not use italics. Use ‘single quotation marks’ if referring to a document, scheme or initiative. Only use is in full academic referencing.

Masters degree

Masters degree should be used without the apostrophe and 'masters' should be lowercase unless referring to a specific degree, for example Research Methods Masters degree.

Postdoctoral and predoctoral

Use postdoctoral and predoctoral without hyphens.

Simplest form of a word

Choose the simplest form of a word. ‘While’ not ‘whilst’ and ‘among’ not ‘amongst’.

Wellbeing

Use wellbeing, one word, not well being.

Women and mothers

Use the term ‘women’ or ‘woman’ rather than ‘mother’ in relation to pregnancy stories. Women repeatedly tell us that they do not wish to be classified principally by their mothering status. This is particularly important in early pregnancy, or pregnancy loss stories, as those who go on not to have a baby feel particularly marginalised by use of words such as ‘mother’.