Tone of voice and writing style guide
House style Please write in a clear, direct, and active style. We are a global organisation with an international audience, and many readers do not have English as their first language. We have a comprehensive style guide for editors. However, these are the most common rules collated from The BMJ, BMJ Learning, and BMJ Best Practice style guides.
Dates Day Month Year (4 July 1971). Also, The 1960s (not 60s or 60’s), 21st century, and 1998-1999 (not 1998-99). Dehumanising terms Don’t define people by their disease. Say people with diabetes, not diabetics, for example. Developed/developing countries The current term preferred is lower-middle income countries (LMICs). Ideally, though, use the names of the countries or regions to which you are referring, if the list is not too extensive. Dictionaries Our preferred dictionaries are Chambers 21st century dictionary for general usage and Dorlands for medical terms. Exclamation marks Please limit your use of exclamation marks, except in quotes from other sources. Fractions Spell out fractions (two-thirds, not 2⁄3). Hyphenate fractions except for fractions involving one (one third but two-thirds; one quarter but three- quarters). Say one half, one fifth, not a half, a fifth. Full stops We have one rule where we use no full stops in initials or abbreviations, nor after headings or bullet points. Health care or healthcare? Healthcare – always one word, whether adjective or noun. Hyphenation When two words combine into an adjective to describe a noun, they are compound words. You can use hyphens for words with non-, -like, -type, -free and adjectival (or noun) phrases that include a preposition (one-off event) or a compound adjective (evidence-based material). Evidence-based or evidence based? Only hyphenate when combined words modify the noun. So, if you’re saying ‘The project was evidence based,’ you do not hyphenate. Whereas if you were saying ‘evidence-based project,’ you would hyphenate. Inclusive language In writing, treat the phrase, ethnic minority, like any other group descriptor and personalise (people from ethnic minorities, ethnic minority patients).
Abbreviations No full stops in abbreviations (am, pm, no, cf, ie, Dr) Spell out abbreviations the first time, unless they are very common in healthcare (CPD, CME). Avoid using abbreviations in headings No apostrophes in plural acronyms/abbreviations (such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) Ages Use figures for ages (25–40 years, 45–60 years) Bullet points Do not use full stops in bulleted lists. British or US English usage We allow both British and US English, depending on the origin and the primary intended audience. Capitalisation Use minimal capitalisation; only for names and proper nouns Avoid capitalising words unnecessarily (eg, job titles, etc.) Avoid ALL CAPS at all costs! (One exception is study names, which are often long abbreviated names that don’t need to be spelt out) Use sentence case everywhere. (Only capitalise the first letter of the first word in a heading – like you would in a sentence. Proper nouns are also capitalised) Climate Instead of ‘climate change’ the preferred terms are ‘climate emergency, crisis or breakdown’ and ‘global heating’ is favoured over ‘global warming’, although the original terms are not banned. Colons and semicolons Use colons for lists, subtitles, or explanations. Use semicolons to link closely related independent clauses or to separate complex list items. Avoid semicolons in simple lists—use commas instead. Keep sentences short to reduce reliance on both. Commas Use minimal commas, but use Oxford commas before the ‘and’ and ‘or’ in lists. For example, The bishops of Durham, Canterbury, Bath and Wells, and York were invited.
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