Women Love Tech Style Guide is aimed at ensuring high quality content on our technology site for women. Please reach out for more info.
A-Z Style Guide
INTRODUCTION TO OUR STYLE GUIDE
The Women Love Tech Guide has been drafted to help editors and contributors create a unified style across all our channels including website and marketing materials.
1. ABBREVIATIONS
Avoid abbreviations except when absolutely necessary for space reasons.
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| December | Dec |
| Including | Incl |
| Approximately | Approx |
If an abbreviation consists of the first and last letters of a word, the English rule is NOT to include a full stop at the end.
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| Mrs | Mrs. |
| Mr | Mr. |
| Dr | Dr. |
| vs | vs. |
| ie | i.e |
| eg | e.g. |
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| GIF | gif |
| PNG | png |
2. BOLD TEXT
Avoid using bold fonts in running text (bold fonts can be used for headings).
3. CAPITALIZATION (TITLES/SECTION HEADERS )
The first letter of all words in a title/headline/section header should be capitalized.
4. CAPTIONS/CREDITS
Images used to illustrate editorial pieces should be captioned and credited in italics and centred to the image.
5. (OXFORD) COMMAS
Women Love Tech uses the serial comma (Oxford comma).
In a series of three or more terms, a comma is placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction, usually and/or (Sydney, Hong Kong, Lausanne, and London).
6. COMPOUND ADJECTIVES
Use hyphens for clarity when using adjectives and adverbs made by combining two words.
7. CONTRACTIONS
Women Love Tech style allows for contractions (can’t, won’t, hasn’t) if it keeps the tone casual. It is usually preferable that they are spelled out (cannot, will not, has not).
8. COPY SUBMISSIONS
Please format your copy as follows:
- ● Single space between sentences
- ● Single line break between paragraphs
- ● Do not indent paragraphs
- ● In your word-processing program, turn off “word wrap”
- ● Spell-check your work (Grammarly is great. You can download it for free here)
- ● Submit all copy in Times New Roman, 14-point font
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| filled-out | Filled out |
| part-time | Part time |
- ● Check sources, quotes, names, titles, professions
- ● Avoid pasting photos, tables or other visuals directly into Word documents with text. Instead:
- ○ Mark in the text where photos should be placed (i.e. “Photo 1 and Caption text and photo credit”)
- ○ Attach visuals as separate files, with corresponding file names by email.
- ○ Please only submit original photos, images under fair use, creative commons licenses or images for which you own the publishing rights.
- 9. CURRENCIES
Happy Ali uses currency symbols ($, €, ¢). These should NOT be written as text. The currency abbreviation should come before the amount.
It is acceptable to use D instead of $ (HKD, USD).
● USD is preferred in general.
10. DATES
Omit suffixes and spell out days, months, and decades — in that order. En dashes should be used between numerals only.
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| 12 October, 2021 | 12. October/12 Oct/12th October |
| Wednesday, 12 October | Wed. 12 Oct |
| In the Sixties/In the 1960s/In the 60s | In the 1960’s/In the 60’s |
| Wednesday to Saturday | Wed – Sat/Wednesday to Saturday |
| 2 December − 6 December | 2 Dec to 6 Dec |
● Social Media Exception
In order to keep character counts to a minimum, date and month abbreviations are acceptable on social media.
| Use on Social Media ONLY |
| Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. |
| Wednesday, 12 October |
| In the Sixties/In the 1960s/In the 60s |
11. EMAIL and EMAIL ADDRESSES
12. FIRST NAMES/LAST NAMES
Women Love Tech uses first names as the more informal and approachable form of address in the body of text after they have been first cited by their full name.
13. FOREIGN WORDS
Italic font should be used for foreign words even if they are used in mainstream English: the premier boutique for objets d’art.
14. GENDER NEUTRAL PRONOUN
When referring to a transgender person, use the pronoun preferred or considered appropriate by the person in question. If this information isn’t known, please use ‘they’.
15. Women Love Tech
Happy Ali is always spelled out for public purposes. Internally, it is acceptable to abbreviate to HA.
16. MEASUREMENTS
Measurements should always be communicated as numerals, not text, and have a space between the number and the unit (e.g. ‘60 m.’, ‘30 kg’).
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| Email/E-mail | |
| editor@womenlovetech.com | edtior@WomenLoveTech.Com |
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| 60 m | 60m |
| 30 kg | 30kg |
17. MOVEMENTS
Please use uppercase for artistic movements such as Expressionism, Cubism, and Modernism. No italics are necessary.
18. NUMBERS/NUMERALS
Spell out numbers one to nine, use numerals for 10 and above.
Commas are used as separators in large numerals, except for page numbers (2,014 people).
If a number begins a sentence, either spell it out or try to recast the sentence to begin with another word:
● ‘Thirteen per cent of the cost was guaranteed’ could instead be ‘The cost was guaranteed, up to 13 per cent.’
Other exceptions are:
| Exceptions | Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| Time | 2 hours | Two hours |
| Age | 25 years old | Twenty-five years old |
| Money | USD 500 | Five hundred dollars |
| Percentages (see #20) | 2 per cent (with space) | Two percent/2 percent |
| Years | 2020 | Twenty-twenty |
| Days of the month | 1 October | First of October/First October |
| Dimensions | 4 m in length | Four metres in length |
| Very large figures | One million and above | 1,000,000 and above |
19. PERCENTAGES
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| 30 per cent | 30% / 30 percent |
| 5 per cent | Five percent |
20. PUNCTUATION
Slashes/Ellipsis/Colons/Semicolons
Punctuation marks such as back- and forward slashes, as well as ellipses, should not be preceded nor followed by a space.
Quotation Marks/Quotes
As a general rule, Women Love Tech style uses double quotes (“), not single quotes (‘) for all needs.
Single quotation marks should be used when there is a quote within a quote: ● Robyn asked, “Did Jonica say ‘Women Love Tech is the best’?’”
When using quotation marks to indicate direct speech followed by punctuation, the punctuation should sit INSIDE the quote.
● “Art is not what you see,” he said, “but what you make others see.”
21. SPELLING
We use British spelling. You can set your Outlook and MS Word spell checker to ‘English (British)’ to catch the differences.
Below are some common spelling errors to be aware of:
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| Slash/ellipsis | Slash / ellipsis |
| Like this: | Like this ; |
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| catalogue/dialogue | catalog/dialog |
| colour/favourite | color/favorite |
| Organiser | Organizer |
| Programme | Program |
22. TIME
The number followed by am or pm. No space between the digit and am/pm. Use a colon to designate half past, etc. No space between colon and numbers.
Exception:
12 noon and 12 midnight (number + space + noon or midnight) both noon and midnight lowercase.
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| 9am | 9a.m./9 am/09.00am |
| 2pm | 14:00 |
| 12 noon/12 midnight | 12noon/12midngith/12 Noon |
| 11:30am to 3pm/2pm to 3pm | 11:30am to 3pm/2pm to 3pm/ 11.30am-3pm |
| 2-3pm | 2 to 3pm |
23. TITLES
Italic fonts should be used for artwork titles, film titles, and book titles.
● Join us for a special screening of Bridgerton
24. TONE OF VOICE
● Engaging
We are deeply involved with our community, highlighting the most relevant, interesting, uplifting and positive stories/videos/podcasts/cartoons for our audiences
● Dynamic and curious
We curate our contributors’ rich knowledge of the world in simple, direct communication for an audience that wants to find out, explore and experience our stories
● Inviting
Our features are welcoming, inclusive, and accessible bringing together a diverse world of information that is cool, current, exciting. We don’t talk down
● Confident
We have credibility, integrity, and vision
● Thought-provoking
Our stories are purposeful and optimistic
25. UNITED STATES/UNITED KINGDOM
26. URLs
http://www is not to be used in URLs.
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| United States/US | USA/America |
| United Kingdom/UK | Great Britain |
| Do Write | Do NOT Write |
| Women Love Tech | www.WomenLoveTech.com https://www.WomenLoveTech |