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

Figures

Write numbers one to nine as words, 10 and above as digits. When writing a range, just use digits. ‘First’ to ‘ninth’ are also words, but 10th and above are written as digits, without superscript.

CORRECT
INCORRECT
three days
eleven
11th
3 days
second place
3 - 13

Percentages

Percentages are an exception. Use the digits, even if it’s below 10. And use the % symbol.

CORRECT
2%

Fractions

Write fractions as words and hyphenate them, eg ‘A shareholder with a two-thirds majority voted against the proposal’.

But don’t do this in titles as it takes up too much space, eg ‘2/3 of shareholders vote against proposal’.

Headings

Headings and titles are another exception. Use the digits.

CORRECT
BoE set to change rates in 3 days

Millions/Billions

We tend to use the written word ‘million’, unless it’s for currencies, quantities, measurements and inanimate objects, in which case, we use ‘m’. The same rules apply to billion and trillion, which are written as bn and tn. (See currencies section for guidance.)

CORRECT
INCORRECT
300 million people
20m miles
300m people
£500 million

Writing Playbook