Writing Playbook

EDITORIAL STYLE GUIDE
Numbers
Figures
Currency
Dates
Time
Formatting
Bullets
Dashes
Double spacing
Italics / bold / underlining
Language
Abreviations
Capitalisation
Punctuation
Hyphenation
Pronouns
Other
Index
TONE OF VOICE
Principles
Confident
Thoughtful
Natural
Proofreading
Before and after examples
Writing for impact

Abbreviations, initialisms and acronyms

Unless the initialism or acronym is very well known, write the words in full on the first mention, adding the abbreviation/acronym bracketed in capital letters after. After the first mention, you can use the abbreviation freely. Never use quote marks around an initialism.

CORRECT
INCORRECT
UK
"HMRC"
VAT
HMRC
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

In headings

Unless the initialism or acronym is very well known, write the words in full on the first mention, adding the abbreviation/acronym bracketed in capital letters after. After the first mention, you can use the abbreviation freely. Never use quote marks around an initialism.

Full stops

Never use full stops within abbreviations, acronyms or initialisms.

CORRECT
INCORRECT
eg
U.S.
etc
E.g.

Internal initialisms

Don’t use internal RSM acronyms or initialisms in external communications – our clients won’t know what they mean.

INCORRECT
ATC
ICE

Writing Playbook