Styling, spelling and grammar

Acronyms and initialisms

Acronyms and initialisms are unavoidable in our sector. But we can limit our use of them and help declutter our text and aid understanding.

If you will use an acronym later in your text, write out the name in full the first time you use it, with the acronym in brackets afterwards, such as Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). 

However, if you do not use the acronym later in the text or page, there is no need to spell out the acronym in brackets. For example if you use ‘Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRC) but do not then use ‘HDRC’ in your text, there is no need to include (HDRC). 

The NHS and the NIHR are exceptions - you can refer to the NHS and the NIHR without a bracketed explanation. 

Bullet points and lists

Use lists to break up your text and make it easier to read.​

Bulleted lists should be short and snappy. If possible, limit your list to no more than 6 items.​ Each item in the list should be roughly the same length.

Lists with a lead-in line

Use a lead-in line with a colon. The bullets should make sense running on from the lead-in line. In effect, the list is 1 continuous sentence.

Example

A pharmacist can recommend:

• creams to ease pain and irritation

• antiviral creams to speed up healing time

• cold sore patches to protect the skin while it heals

Each bullet point starts lowercase and has no punctuation at the end, including after the last point. Do not use semicolons at the end of each bullet point.

Do not include more than 1 sentence at each bullet point.

Avoid ending a bullet point with 'and' and 'or'. Use the lead-in to let people know the options.

Full sentence lists

If your content dictates you should use a list of full sentences without a lead-in line, you should add punctuation to each sentence. This may fall underneath a heading, rather than a lead-in line.

Example

Key facts

• Paracetamol takes up to an hour to work.

• The usual dose of paracetamol is one or two 500mg tablets at a time.

• Do not take paracetamol with other medicines containing paracetamol.

• Paracetamol is safe to take in pregnancy and while breastfeeding, at recommended doses.

Each bullet point should be distinct information, starting with a capital letter and ending with a full stop.

Capital letters

Use capitals sparingly.

NIHR functions such as ‘host organisation’ or ‘committee meeting’ do not need capitals. Save capitals for proper nouns and names.

For example University of Leeds or Centre for Engagement and Dissemination can also be the university or the centre.

Use a capital for the first word of a heading, but not all words in headings need to be capitalised.

Most diseases are written in lower case. Diseases named after people or places are capitalised. The Ebola virus was named after the Ebola river in Zaire, Alzheimer’s disease is named after a German doctor. The coronavirus does not have a capital letter, but COVID-19 is an abbreviation of COronaVIrusDisease-2019 and is capitalised.

Dates and times

Use upper case for months: January, February.

Do not use a comma between the month and year: 4 June 2017.

There is no need to use date suffixes such as 3rd or 4th.

Write times as 3pm 4:30am. When writing for an international audience, it is worth stating UK time to avoid potential confusion.

Use ‘to’ in date and time ranges - not hyphens or dashes. For example: tax year 2011 to 2012 or 10am to 11am.

When referring to today (as in a news article) include the date: ‘The minister announced today (14 June 2012) that…’

Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. Use “11:59pm” to avoid confusion about a single, specific time.

There is further guidance for dates in the gov.uk style guide.

Numbered lists

Use numbered lists instead of bulleted ones to guide people through a process or to show an order. Each point starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, without a lead-in line.

Example

How to gargle with salt water

1. Dissolve half a teaspoon of salt in a glass of warm water.

2. Gargle with the solution then spit it out – do not swallow it.

3. Repeat as often as you like.

Numbers, results and percentages

Use numerals for all numbers including 1-10. Research shows people find numerals easier to read and readers scan text for numbers, plus it helps reduce characters. 

For numbers over 999, use a comma, for example, 1,000. It is ok to use numerals at the start of a sentence but, if it looks confusing, consider rewording your sentence. 

The exception is to spell out 'one' when it means 'a' or to avoid repeating a word.

Example

We also use 'one' in phrases like:

'one or the other'

'one of the most common'

'one at a time'

Use % with a number, not ‘percent’ or ‘per cent’.

Do not mix fractions and percentages in the same sentence. Choose whichever is most appropriate.

Quotes and speech marks

In long passages of speech, open quotes for every new paragraph, but close quotes only at the end of the final paragraph.

Use single quotes:

• in headlines

• for unusual terms - only for the first mention

• when referring to words

• when referring to publications

• when referring to notifications such as emails or alerts

For example: The new ‘maternity early warning score’ is based on patient data. 

Use double quotes in body text for direct quotations.

Writing about ethnicity 

We follow the government guide for writing about ethnicity. For example, use ‘ethnic minorities’ or ‘people from ethnic minority groups’ to refer to all ethnic groups except the White British group. Ethnic minorities include White minorities, such as Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller groups.

We do not use the terms BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) and BME (Black and minority ethnic) because they emphasise certain ethnic minority groups (Asian and Black) and exclude others (Mixed, Other and White ethnic minority groups). The terms can also mask disparities between different ethnic groups and create misleading interpretations of data.

Following a gov.uk update, we should capitalise 'White' and 'Black'. 

For more information about writing about ethnicity and using inclusive language, our Research Inclusion team has a separate guide which is available via NIHR Learn.

Writing about funding

When a project is fully funded by the NIHR you can refer to it as ‘NIHR-funded'.

If a partner organisation has provided a significant proportion of the funding, refer to it as ‘co-funded’ by the NIHR.

If the NIHR has not provided any direct funding for the project but has provided infrastructure or other support such as expertise, refer to it as ‘supported by the NIHR’.

If referring to collective pieces of funded and supported research, it is ok to say ‘NIHR research’ for simplicity. 

Please see specific terminology guidance for writing about funding in NIHR documentation.