No full stops unless part of an official organisation’s name – USA, UK, but U.S. Consulate
Full stops with abbreviations not ending in last letter – Vic., but Cwlth
Capitalisation
Maximal capitalisation (max caps) definition: capitalise all words except articles, prepositions and conjunctions.
Minimal capitalisation (min caps) definition: capitalise only the first word and any proper nouns and names.
Titles of works
(Defer to CMOS)
Books, poems, articles, works of art: max caps, italics – Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Periodicals/newspapers: max caps, italics – Woman’s Weekly
Song titles: max caps, roman, double quotes – “The Road to Gundagai”
Film, videos, radio, TV programs: max caps, italics – The Brady Bunch Revisited
Episodes: max caps, roman, double quotes – “The Heroin Wars”
Band names: max caps, roman (unless trademarked otherwise)
Personal titles and names
Common civic titles: Miss, Mrs, Mr JW Smith (no full stops or spaces between or after initials)
Roles/titles: capitalise when used as full title or when addressing – Captain Smith, King Richard, Sergeant Baker, Yes, Captain
Ranks/roles: lowercase when used as a role/position – the captain, the king, the guard, the teacher
Honorifics – Sir James, Lady Swanson but sir, ma’am, my lord, my lady
Captions and labels
Roman, min caps. Place below figures / above tables
Commas
Quick guide to most common comma uses
Inside quote mark for dialogue with attribution/dialogue tag – “Thank you,” he said.
Comma before introducing a name – “Hey, Jerry.” “Come on, Sally.”
Comma after an interjection or phrase – “Oh, really?” “Well, I guess not.” “Okay, honey.” “Oh my god, no.”
Comma before “then” when used as a conjunctive adverb – He closed the door, then removed his hat.
Comma before conjunction followed by introductory adverbial phrase/clause – They beat him, and though it hurt, he refused to cry.
Comma after conjunction when used parenthetically – She bent and, nerves jittering, picked up the child.
No comma between two dependent clauses linked to conjunction – I wanted to dance, but my ankle was broken and I had a cold.
Optional comma before short adverbs at end of sentence – He decided he would come too / He decided he would come, too.
No Oxford (serial) commas unless needed for clarity
Dates
Australian date format – Tuesday 25 April 1990
Centuries: spell out – twentieth century
Decades – eighties, 1980s or 80s (no apostrophe – descriptive not possessive)
Eras: roman, capitals, no full stops – 55 BCE (before common era), CE (common era) BC and AD are no longer used
Hyphens and Dashes
Defer to CMOS for hyphenation and numbers
Hyphens
Ages and measurements
Five-year-old child
Twenty-six-year-old man (or 26-year-old man)
One-hundred-metre race (or 100-metre race)
Two-and-a-half-year period but we did it for two and a half years
Six-foot-high fence but the fence is six foot high
Thirty- to forty-foot-high hills (hanging hyphens joins thirty to the compound adjective)
Two and half minutes went past (no hyphen when used as a noun)
Compass points
north-west
south-easterly wind
east-north-east
Dashes
Spaced en dashes for parenthetical (or unspaced em dashes if client prefers)
En dashes for ranges – Thirty–forty trees, june–july
Italics
Dialogue: use sparingly and only for emphasis, else use roman with double quote marks
Foreign or unfamiliar words (first use only if repeated throughout, and only if not in dictionary)
Interiority/thoughts: only use italics if thought is present tense and unclear the prose is interiority
Interiority/thoughts: use either italics or quotes marks, not both
Interiority/thoughts: do not use italics if thought tag is used: He would never do it, I thought.
Onomatopoeia (unless word appears in dictionary)
Text messages: italics and indented
Words and letters as terms: What does incandescent mean? It’s a not an.
Numbers
Use comma delineator
Words or numerals
Narrative: spell out numbers 1–100, or any numbers that can be written in three words or less – five, two hundred, seven thousand, two hundred thousand, twenty-two thousand
Dialogue: use words if more natural – he paid me one hundred and fifty thousand
Numerals when accompanied by abbrev. units or symbols – 8 km 55 ˚C
Ordinal numbers: suffixes not superscript
Numerals and words: if a number over 100 is used in the same sentence as a number lower than 100, use numerals for both – Paul ran 9 kms, while Therese ran 105
Currency
Spell out 1–100 and simple rounded amounts – three cents, fifty dollars, two hundred dollars, million-dollar loan
Numerals above 100 and specific or uneven amounts – $1.15, $250, $75.56, $30,000, $1.4 million
Numerals to avoid large, hyphenated numbers as adjectives – a $100,000 loan (not one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan)
Measurements and Symbols
Metric unless US or imperial style requested or used figuratively – It felt like miles from home
Numerals for quantities accompanied by abbrev. units or symbols – 10 km, 25 ºC, 49˚ (angle), 30%
Words when used discursively, especially dialogue – one hundred per cent
Possessive apostrophes
Descriptive (attributive) phrases
Descriptive phrases about time: no apostrophe – 4 weeks wages, 2 days time but a day’s work (to show singularity)
Descriptive nouns – ladies toilets, visitors centre, directors meeting
Possessive nouns
Singular noun: add an apostrophe and s – the clown’s car, the manager’s office, the tree’s leaves
Plural nouns ending in s: add an apostrophe only – both bunkbeds’ coverings, all the teams’ performances, the Smiths’ boat
Plural nouns ending with es: the Joneses’ house, the bosses’ offices
Individual possession: Jones’s and Smith’s careers
Joint possession: Ahmed and Sasha’s garden
Quote Marks
While some Australian publishers still use single quotes, there is a movement towards double quotes due to issues with text to talk software.