Australian English spelling

Do not use alternate Webster’s American spellings. Use an Australian dictionary such as the Macquarie dictionary or Oxford Australian dictionary, or change your Grammarly settings to Australian English.

Use Australian metric measurements such as kilometres, centimetres, tonnes, celsius, kilograms, litres and millilitres. Convert imperial or American measurements that are used in any imported texts.

Grammar, tone and address

Be consistent with the following grammar elements:

• Make a decision about using the Oxford comma or not, and then be consistent throughout.
• Ensure that the tone is consistent and is appropriate for the audience
• Choose between past and present tense
• Choose first-person or third-person when referring to the author
• Choose a consistent address to the reader ie addressing the reader as “you” and “your” or choosing in impersonal style. e.g. This guide referes to ” the textbook”, not “your textbook”.

Use a grammar checker such as Turnitin, Word or Grammarly to identify grammatical errors.

Bold

Bold type makes the text stand out from the surrounding Roman type. The contrast can help readers notice important words, identify differences and find those words again.

Use bold type to make difficult or important words stand out.

Italics

Minimise the use of italics and bold as any change to the shape of letters makes them more difficult to read.

Use italics for:

• the full titles of published works
• standalone texts
• legal cases and acts
• words in a foreign language
• scientific names
• words that convey an emotion that you want to emphasise.

Numbers and numerals

Numbers as numerals are generally easier for people to scan. Numbers as words remain a convention that people expect in some types of content.

In general, use words for all numbers less than ten (including zero) and numerals for ten and above.

Use numerals to express a measurement (1 kilometre) or a comparison  (2.5 times higher).

Any number that starts a sentence should also be expressed as a word.^[1]

Dates

Express dates in the full Australian format where possible.

Capitals

Minimise capitals in all headings, chapter titles and book titles. This includes the first letter of the first word after a colon.

Capitalise all proper nouns, acronyms and first words of sentences as per normal grammar conventions.

Lists

Introduce all lists with an opening sentence.

• Use bullet points for unordered items.
• Use numbered lists for a sequence of steps or ranking items.
• Be consistent with no full stops at the end of list items.
• When using a lead-in sentence, place a full stop at the end of the last list item sentence.

Brackets

Use brackets to enclose parts of the sentence that aren’t essential to the meaning. The sentence must be grammatically correct if you were to remove the content enclosed in the brackets.

Use brackets sparingly as too many brackets make the sentence too complex. Consider removing the content in brackets and writing a separate sentence.