Abbreviations

• Spell out US state names when not used as contact information. When abbreviating, use standard two-letter postal abbreviations for states and Canadian provinces.
• US and UK are used for United States and United Kingdom in adjective form (US users, UK users).
• GmbH, NW are used without periods.
• Inc., Ltd., Ext, are used with periods.
• Most abbreviations are avoided (for example: Corporation, Suite, Street, Avenue).

Acronyms

• Use full phrase or full name of product or company in initial use (follow with acronym in parentheses). Spell out in all uses where there is possibility of confusion.

Dashes

• Put a space on either side of a long (em) dash.

Footnotes

• We do not use footnotes on our pages. Make an identifying reference to the source in the text, and create a separate list of references to accompany the article. References are placed in a list box using a standard bibliographic style.

Italics

• Titles of books and magazines are italicized; titles of software are not.
• Words in languages other than English are italicized.
• Software commands, Java strings and Java classes are in italics.

Parentheses

• Avoid where possible. Use dash or create a separate sentence if you can.

Percent

• Use % symbol.

Punctuation

• Use commas as sparingly as possible.
• Commas in a series or list: do not use comma before “and” or “or” except to avoid confusion.
• Semicolons in a series or list: use semicolon before “and” or “or.”
• Follow Associated Press style.

Spacing of Paragraphs

• Do not use tabs at the beginning of a new paragraph. Separate paragraphs by
  an extra line of spacing.

Spacing of Text

• Use one space between sentences.

Spellings

• Use US rather than British spellings (localization not localisation)

Typographic Conventions

• Use Courier font if available to indicate software code, HTML or XML tags and so on.
• Indicate Java classes, methods and so on, use italics.
• Unicode addresses and standards are put in capitals and full-size numbers.

Web Addresses

• Omit the http:// except where the remaining URL would not begin with www.

For Industry Terms, please reference our Glossary.