Editorial Standards and Guidelines
Leicester City Council requires that any application supplied must include communications that are clear and accessible to everyone we deal with. This includes people with reading difficulties and also those who do not use English as their first language
Follow the guidelines set out below
Abbreviations and acronyms
It’s best to avoid acronyms. But where you have to use one, give the name in full first, then the abbreviation in brackets. After that you can use the abbreviation on its own.
The Local Government Association (LGA)
Don’t use LCC as an abbreviation for Leicester City Council. Either spell out the words fully or refer to ‘the city council’.
Some abbreviations are so common that you do not have to spell them out in full: Ofsted, the BBC.
When you write addresses on separate lines, don’t use commas:
Leicester City Council
New Walk Centre
When the address is in body text, use commas to separate the different parts, EXCEPT the city or county, and the postcode:
Leicester City Council, New Walk Centre, Welford Place, Leicester LE1 6ZG
Use bold for headings and emphasis. Don’t underline or use lots of words in capital words.
Use square bullet points not round.
Don’t use bullets within the body text of articles in magazines or newsletters.
The punctuation of bulleted lists varies depending on whether it’s a list of short points, or writing in complete sentences.
can be just a word or two
don’t start with a capital letter
don’t have a comma after each line
finish in a full stop.
When you write a list of full sentences:
Make sure that every point is a full sentence.
Start each one with a capital letter.
End each point with a full stop.
Using too many capital letters makes text harder to read – especially for people with visual impairments. Never use a capital letter just because you want to emphasise the importance of something (such as the Council, or the Project).
Use capital letters for the full titles of organisations and specific places:
Leicester City Council
Belgrave Children’s Centre
But lower case for shortened forms, job titles and general services:
the council, the city council
Rory Palmer is councillor for Eyres Monsell ward
City mayor Peter Soulsby
Mark Bentley, head of communications and digital media, said: …
There are many children’s centres in Leicester.
Don’t use capitals for:
every word in a heading
benefits or taxes (council tax, housing benefit)
Put dates in the following order: day, date, month, year. You don’t always need the day or the year.
Grammar and spelling: common mistakes
affect and effect. Lots of people confuse these two. ‘Affect’ is generally used as a verb, while ‘effect’ is usually a noun. For example:
councillor and counsellor
principle and principal
principle = ethical standard or the basic way something works. “We are committed to the principle of conservation.”
principal = most important,or head of a school/college. “Our principal aim is to…”
compliment and complement
We don’t use italics because they make text hard to read. Use bold if you want to highlight something.
Only use the decimal point if there are pennies, not for round numbers.
Write numbers in full from one to nine. Then use figures from 10 to 999,999. Similarly, spell out one million to nine million, but 10 million, 50 million and so on.
If you start a sentence with a number, spell it out.
Thirty tenants came to the meeting.
Figures for school years
Write ‘per cent’ in full in copy. Use % symbol in tables or bulleted lists.
Apostrophes: use these for three reasons.
To show where letters are missing
You’re in Leicester. I’m cold.
To show possession or belonging
The teacher’s idea. The organisation’s structure.
But in the plural, the apostrophe goes after the s: the teachers’ idea (shows that more than one teacher shared the idea).
In some expressions of time.
She have us one week’s notice.
We will do that in two weeks’ time. (plural again)
Note that the possessive ‘its’ does NOT have an apostrophe:
The council and its staff.
Colon: use immediately before a quote, or a list, or before explaining an idea in more detail.
He said: “When will it be ready?”
Comma: use commas where there would normally be a pause in speech.
He had a great many interests, such as golf and table tennis.
Also to separate items in a list: The centre offers dancing, aerobics and basketball.
You can also use them instead of brackets, to break up parts of a sentence.
(The school, which was 40 years old, needed repairs.)
Quote marks: use “double quote” marks for speech. Use ‘single’ for quotes within quotes. Always put the full stop or question mark in a quote within the quote marks.
Semi colon: use when you want a bigger break than a comma gives you, but not as big a break as a full stop. We often use them to separate sentences that are linked but contradictory.
His one ambition was to go skiing; unfortunately it was too expensive.
Don’t use the symbol ‘&’. Write ‘and’ in full, unless it is part of a recognised name B&Q, where is would appear odd to write and in full. If a sentence is long and has too many ands in it then consider breaking it up into a list or separate sentences.
Write Leicester landline numbers like this:
Other landlines with five digit area codes:
Mobile numbers should have a space after the first five digits:
We use the 12 hour clock, not 24 hr. Write numbers as follows, with no space between the figures and ‘am’ or ‘pm’. DO use a space before 12 and ‘noon’ and ‘midnight’. Don’t write ‘o’clock’.
5.30pm (use a full stop between hours and minutes, not a colon)
Always use UK spellings, not US. Some common mistakes below:
Weights and measures
Use figures for units of measurement, except at the beginning of a sentence.
Change: First draft
Author: Yasin Jassat