Acronyms and abbreviations

Abbreviations

Spell out Street, Square, Avenue, Road etc

When abbreviating a phrase, rather than a name or title, use lower case

Acronyms

Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces. However, our style is to use lowercase with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word:

There are a few exceptions:
- the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is capped up as NICE (Nice looks wrong)
- Strategic Health Authority becomes SHA (‘Sha’ looks like a typo)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder becomes SAD (‘Sad’ would be confusing).

For names with initials, avoid full stops and spaces

Use the abbreviated form of a title without explanation only if there is no chance of any misunderstanding. Otherwise, spell it out in full at first reference, or introduce a label:

If in doubt, always use the full name at first reference, followed by the acronym that will be used subsequently: