Quick Style Guide

The style guide below references the Australian Style manual for authors, editors and printers (6th edn), and the Australian Public Service Commission, Australian Government Style Manual.

• PREFERRED DICTIONARY: the Macquarie Dictionary Eighth Edition is nationally and internationally regarded as the standard reference on Australian English.

• NUMBERS: one to one hundred is usually spelt out, unless a precise measurement (hundreds of thousands of people; ninety-nine years old; exactly 71.35 kilometres; she was in her thirties); for some books, it is better to spell out from one to ten only.

• DATES: Use 28 August 2019 (not 28 August, 2019, August 28 2019, or 28th August 2019). 
If a day is required, use Monday 28 August 2019 (no comma); the 1990s.

• TIMES: ten o’clock in the morning; 10.15 a.m

• spell out COMPASS POINTS in text; hyphenate compound forms e.g. south-west, east-north-east

• FULL STOPS: Use one space after a full stop (not two). Do not use a full stop after contractions (Mr, Pty, St, Dept), acronyms and initialisms (AusAID, EPA), symbols (km, L), abbreviated names of states or academic qualifications.

• QUOTATION MARKS: Use single quotation marks throughout and double quotation marks for quotes within quotes. Do not italicise quotations.

• DASHES and HYPHENS: Use the em dash, with a space either side, for an interruption ('Three offices — Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide — will take part in the project'). Use the en dash (slightly shorter than the em) to stand for the word 'to' (the Brisbane–Sydney train, 2018–19). Use the hyphen to form compound words (right-wing, long-term). Try to avoid strings of hyphens (e.g. ‘twentieth-century values’ or ‘21st-century values’, not ‘twenty-first-century values’).

• punctuation for DIALOGUE:
  ‘Just one ticket, thanks,’ he said, opening his wallet. ‘Next to the window, if possible.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by “special”, Peter?’ she hissed.

  She gazed up and said, ‘You look great all dressed up.’

  He said, ‘I’m just going to the nursery. You can come too, if you like.’

  She stood up. ‘No, go on without me.’

• punctuation for QUOTATIONS less than a sentence:
  According to Sally, Dave is ‘about as straight as a dog’s hind leg’.

• CAPITALS are for proper names, titles, nationalities, etc. They should not be used for emphasis. Unless they are part of a title, words such as 'environmental impact assessment', 'conference', 'project team' should not have capitals. Official titles of policies, strategies and programs should be capitalised e.g. Port Fairy Planning Implementation Strategy.

• ABBREVIATIONS and INITIALISMS: In general, don't use abbreviations in running text. If you use an initialism or abbreviate the name of a company etc., give the full name followed by the short form in brackets for its first use, then the initialism or abbreviation for later uses. Only use an ampersand (&) instead of ‘and’ where it forms part of a company name. Do not abbreviate country names; write them in full. Do not hyphenate 'cooperate', 'coordinate' and variations of these words. Do hyphenate words where two letters together could lead to misunderstanding or mispronunciation (re-create, co-worker).

• SCIENTIFIC NAMES: In botany and zoology, capitalise all names down to genus level, but not the species epithet. Italicise genus, species, subspecies and varietal names. Do not italicise ‘subsp.’ or ‘var.’. Use lower case and roman type (i.e. not italics) for common names of plants and animals unless the common name includes a proper name (e.g. Norfolk Island pine).

• italics for names of SHIPS (e.g. Cutty Sark, HMAS Sydney)

• italics for titles of BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS and JOURNALS;
  note that short titles keep the capitalised and italicised The, for example:
  The Age, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Times

• italics for titles of OPERAS, FILMS

• titles of SONGS and POEMS to be roman type and in single quotes

• titles of TV PROGRAMS: ‘The Moonlight State’, Four Corners, ABC TV, 11 May 1987

• ENDNOTES at the end of the book rather than footnotes (beginning at number 1 for each new chapter)

• REFERENCE STYLE for endnotes and the bibliography, use the following style and list in alphabetical order by author or authoring body’s name:

  BOOK: Adams, J & Adams, PL 1980, A rock is a hard place, Epoch Publishing, Montreal.

  CHAPTER: Watson, AH 1999, ‘Mastering planning in three weeks’, in GJ Lun, X Wu & R Tan (eds), The planner’s bible, Heinemann, Sydney.

  JOURNAL ARTICLE: Strickland, J 2004, ‘Just the FAQs: an alternative to teaching the research paper’, English Journal,
 vol. 94, no. 1, pp. 96–130.

  NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Seaton, T 2003, ‘Dam nuisance’, Courier-Mail, 20 March, p. 4.

  PAPER: Published 
- Smart, KL 2003, ‘Motorised transport and land use in the twentieth century’, Proceedings of the third Urban Development Association conference, Whitmore Publishing, Hobart, pp. 23–30. 
Unpublished 
- Jonsen, LL & Simkins, BJ 1995, ‘Moreton Bay as a thoroughfare’, paper presented at the 5th Moreton Bay Preservation Society Conference, Brisbane, 3–9 September.

  REPORT: Queensland 2001, The millennium child, Education Queensland, Brisbane. 


  WEB PAGE: Gold Coast City Council 2004, Building and development, http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov .au/t_std.asp?PID=363 1, accessed 26 October 2004.