Punctuation and formatting

Ampersands

Use 'and' rather than '&', unless it's part of a:

• brand or product name
• company, organisation or department's name
• logo

'And' is easier for people to skim and understand.

For more information see the gov.uk blog post on 'Ampersands, date ranges and contractions: style guidance'.

Bold and italics

Limit where you use bold as it can hard for people to read and know what to pay attention to.

Only use italics to reference the source of a quote.

If you need to add emphasis, structure your content to reflect how people scan a page:

• use descriptive headings and subheadings that use a logical heading structure in the code (see our guidelines on headings, paragraphs and lists
• put the most important information at the start of sentences and headings
• break lists into bullet points

Brackets

Round brackets

Use round brackets to clarify an acronym or technical term that you'll use from that point onwards, for example: 'customer team member (CTM)', or 'the people you want to sort out your will (known as 'executors')'. Do this at least the first time you use the acronym and consider whether it's helpful to explain the acronym more than once, for example, if the user only reads a certain section of the page.

You can also use round brackets to add information that's not essential to the main point of your sentence. Information that, if removed, would not change the meaning of the sentence.

Do not use round brackets to indicate that something can be singular or plural, like: 'Check which document(s) you need to send to HR'.

Instead, use the plural, as this will cover each possibility: 'Check which documents you need to send to HR'.

If you have a complete sentence that stands alone in brackets, start it with a capital letter and end it with a full stop before the closing bracket.

Do not to overuse brackets, they can disrupt the flow of reading.

Square brackets

Only use square brackets to add clarification to a quote or something you've not written yourself, like, 'It [content]t deserves our full time and attention'.

(If you have a complete sentence that stands alone in brackets, start it with a capital letter and end it with a full stop before the closing bracket.)