Abbreviations
Where these refer to an organisation or company usually known by its initials, give the full title the first time, with the abbreviation in brackets. After that, use the initials only. Where abbreviations are used, there is generally no punctuation:
-
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), subsequently ICI
-
am, pm, USA, UK, CIPD, TUC
-
Avoid abbreviations that use an ampersand, such as T&D and PM&D, except in tables or where a company uses it in its title eg M&S.
Some abbreviations don't need to be spelled out on first use because the abbreviation is generally known to our audience:
The symbols for copyright (©), trademark (™) and registered (®) need to be used on first reference only.
Return to top
Apostrophes
Use apostrophes to show that a letter has been omitted or to indicate the possessive case of nouns.
-
won’t, can’t, didn’t
-
the man’s hat
Don’t use them for possessive pronouns or for the plurals of years or abbreviations.
-
hers, ours, theirs, yours (but 'you're' for 'you are'), its (but 'it’s' for 'it is')
-
1990s, NVQs, PCs.
Return to top
Capital letters
Avoid capital letters as far as possible and don’t use them in text for emphasis.
Use initial capitals for proper nouns such as the names of people, course modules, membership grades and titles of publications (titles of publications should also appear in italics).
Use initial capitals for individuals’ job titles and the names of departments and teams.
- Personnel Department
- Membership Team
- Jane Smith, Management Accountant
- Head of Communications
- The Institute (only when referring to the CIPD)
- The London Branch (when referring to the specific CIPD branch)
Use lower case for small ‘joining words’.
Don’t use capital letters for general references such as members and branches or for geographical regions.
- If you’re a CIPD member, you can access many services on our website.
- We have local branches throughout the north of England.
- There are three managers in that department.
Front covers of reports
On front covers of offline reports, use a capital letter on the first word only. The first word of the subtitle also starts with a capital letter. The title is not in italics.
Titles of publications online
When publishing a document online, or listing it in the A-Z webpage of information resources, use a capital letter for the first letter of the first word of the title. Subtitles follow a colon and start with a lower-case letter. The title is not in italics. Don't include the information type and date unless they are part of the title.
Return to top
CIPD address
Check you're formatting the CIPD's address and contact details correctly.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
151 The Broadway
London
SW19 1JQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 8612 6200
Fax: +44 (0)20 8612 6201
Return to top
CIPD membership grades and designatory letters
Membership grades
When referring to Chartered membership grades use an initial capital for the type and grade of membership. The word ‘Chartered’ always has a capital ‘C’.
The phrase ‘Chartered membership’ should only be used when you're referring collectively to all three Chartered grades of Member, Fellow and Companion.
- Chartered Member/Members
- Chartered Fellow/Fellows
- Chartered Companion/Companions
All other grades of membership have an initial capital for the type of membership and a lower case ‘m’ for the word member/membership.
- Affiliate member/members/membership
- Associate member/members/membership
- Graduate member/members/membership
- Student member/members/membership
Use a lower case 'm' when referring to members/membership generically.
- membership criteria
- members
- CIPD member/members/membership
Also, never capitalise the words ‘grade’ or ‘status’ as these aren’t part of a designation.
Examples
- CIPD Chartered Members are renowned for their skills.
- Find out how you can achieve Chartered membership.
- Only the best candidates will receive Chartered status.
- I expect standards to be upheld by CIPD members.
- A Student member would be eligible to apply.
- Candidates will be awarded the new Associate status.
- We're retaining the Graduate grade until June 2014.
Designatory letters
Don't use any punctuation or spacing between letters. Only CIPD Chartered Members (that is Chartered Members, Chartered Fellows and Chartered Companions) can use designatory letters after their name.
- For a Chartered Member write: Chartered MCIPD. .
- For a Chartered Fellow write: Chartered FCIPD.
- For a Chartered Companion write: Chartered CCIPD
Other designatory letters should follow the format prescribed by the body that has awarded them.
Return to top
Dates
Write dates without punctuation and don’t include ‘st’, ‘nd’, ‘nth’ and so on.
- 1 November 2008
- twenty-first century (hyphenate when an adjective, for example, twenty-first-century methods)
- 1990s
In tables, you can use dd/mm/yy, for example 15/06/09.
Times
Times are written using the 24-hour clock with a colon separating hours and minutes.
- Coffee breaks are at 14:00.
- The conference begins at 10:30.
Consecutive dates or times
Where there are consecutive dates or time spans, don’t leave spaces on either side of the en dash.
Dates that span more than one month are an exception.
Return to top
Use an en dash instead of a hyphen when the words aren’t describing each other, or where they seem to have an equal weighting. Very often they are two nouns.
For example, work–life balance should have an en dash. This is because both nouns are describing the word balance. The word work isn't describing the word life.
Return to top
Use upper and lower case rather than block capitals. Put headings in bold and never underline them.
Return to top
Use hyphens to prevent ambiguity within groups of words. Consult the Concise Oxford Dictionary if in doubt.
- the 12-year-old children (children of 12 years old)
- the 12 year-old children (12 children of one year old)
Describing words (adjectives) coming before a noun are hyphenated:
- up-to-date work
- a well-written book.
When these words come after the noun, leave the hyphens out:
- the work is up to date
- the book is well written.
However, some combination words - such as compound adjectives ending in -ing and -ed - have a hyphen whether they come before or after the noun:
- the decision-making team
- the team involved in decision-making.
- paper-based information
- information that is paper-based.
Compound adjectives ending in -ly, generally an adverb (such as tightly) and a past participle (such as controlled), don’t usually have a hyphen:
- tightly controlled spending
- spending that is tightly controlled.
Return to top
We have two styles for bullet lists. You can use both styles within the same document, but avoid using both styles in the same list. Choose one style per list and stick to it.
Bullets that are a continuation of a sentence
With these, you start a sentence and then break it with a colon followed by your bullet points. The items in the list should use lower case and they don’t need commas or semi-colons after them. You should end the list of bullets with a full stop after the last item.
You have to be quite disciplined when composing copy in this style to ensure that you keep all the points short. It can be easy to slip into full sentences halfway through!
Example
In all cases images should be:
-
people-focused
-
bright
-
dynamic.
Bullets that form full sentences
For these, start each item with an upper-case letter and end with a full stop.
Before writing full-sentence bullets, consider whether they’d be better as a paragraph instead.
Example
-
Just over a quarter of respondents say that employees found to have used illegal drugs would be reported to the police.
-
Slightly more than half of respondents state that it would depend on the circumstances, with 12% responding that it would depend on the type of drug used.
Numbered lists
When using numbers rather than bullet points, don’t put brackets or full stops after the number. You should only use numbered points for full sentences and therefore the points must start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. Only use numbered lists when you need to indicate a process or sequence.
Return to top
Spell out a number if it comes at the start of a sentence.
Write numbers up to and including ten in words (unless they are in a table) and write numbers over ten as figures.
When there's a mixture of low and high numbers in the same sentence, stick to one style for all the numbers for consistency.
When writing percentages, use a figure and the per cent symbol, %. If the percentage comes at the beginning of a sentence, write it out in full.
International telephone numbers should be written in this style:
Return to top
Use single quote marks for reported speech and to cite words and phrases:
- 'The conference was a great success’, he said.
- He is a management development ‘guru’.
For a quote within a quote, use double quote marks:
- ‘He calls himself a “guru”,’ she said.
Return to top
References in indexes/further reading sections
Referring to publications in text and on webpages
When mentioning the complete title:
- use upper case for all the main words of the title
- subtitles follow a colon and have an upper-case letter on the first word only
- put the whole title in italics.
Examples
- This is a summary of the findings from the CIPD’s Absence Management annual survey report 2008.
- A new member-only tool is now available: Learning and the Line: Assessing and enhancing the role and contribution of line managers in learning, training and development.
- Compare the findings with those in the CIPD’s Diversity in Business: A focus for progress survey report March 2007.
- The June 2008 CIPD Labour Market Outlook survey report showed that 37% of businesses are planning to recruit additional staff.
When you’re writing about the topic of a particular publication, and you’re not referring to its title, use lower case and plain text.
Examples
- Please read the CIPD’s annual survey report on absence management.
- Don’t miss the new guide on bullying at work.
If you’re not referring to the title of a document, please consider whether it’s appropriate to include the complete title. For instance, if you think your reader might want to find the publication online it would be helpful to refer to the title in full.
Press releases are exempt from these rules as they need to be written in a more media-friendly style.
Publications in the CIPD Bookstore follow a different set of rules. For clarification please contact the Publishing Team.
Referring to areas of the website
When mentioning areas of the CIPD website use upper case for all the main words. Don't use italics.
- Go to the Learning and Development area for more information.
- Join in the discussion in the Communities.
Return to top
Spelling
The preferred spelling is the first version given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, with the following exceptions.
Words ending in ‘ise’ or ‘isation’
The first version in the Concise Oxford Dictionary uses ‘z’, but our house style is to use ‘s’:
- organise
- specialise
- organisation
- specialisation.
Online terms
Use the following style:
- website
- online
- email
- e-commerce
- e-learning
- the Internet (but an/our intranet).
When you start a sentence with a word beginning with ‘e-’, you should use an upper-case ‘E’ and the second letter stays lower case.
- E-learning is a popular training topic.
Further guidance
Return to top
When referring to a web or an email address, don't put a colon before it but do put it in bold. Don’t use any punctuation at the end of a web or an email address. When referring to a CIPD web address, drop the 'www' from the address.
- Catch up with the latest news at cipd.co.uk/news or sign up for regular updates by email.
- Catch up with the latest news at cipd.co.uk/news
- Email the team for more information contactus@cipd.co.uk
Return to top