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Style guide

In general, we follow the European Commission’s Web Writing Style Guide and the more detailed English Style Guide. Below are the points that you might find most useful, though, and that relate particularly to the 1+MG Framework.

General style and tone

  • Keep the tone friendly rather than formal, and use “you”. Imagine you were explaining something verbally to someone - how would you say it?
  • Use short, active sentences and short paragraphs (3-4 sentences).
  • Make use of headings and bullet points to break text up so it is easy to scan.
  • Remember that the site is there to help people, so make it clear to the readers how the information can benefit them.
  • Use the words your readers would use. Think of the terms they would use when searching for their problem, and use those terms.

Text

  • Acronyms: spell them out the first time.
  • Ampersands: do not use these in the main text or headings. It is fine to use them in menus, if you need to save space.
  • Capitals: do not use all capitals for emphasis or in headings.
  • Data: treat as singular (“Data is…”). (Whether “data” is singular or plural is contentious - see the Wikipedia article and this Guardian article.)
  • Dates: use Wednesday 7 July 2021 (not Wednesday 7th July 2021, or other variations).
  • Datasets: not “data sets”.
  • Email: not “e-mail”.
  • Email addresses: spell these out and make the email address the link e.g. framework@elixir-europe.org. Do not hide the email address behind a word or phrase like “contact us”.
  • Gender: avoid using gender-specific words like “he” or “she”.
  • Headings:
    • Only the first word is capitalised, unless other words are proper nouns.
    • Headings must be hierarchical. They must go down in order (level one, level two, level three), and not skip a level. It is fine to skip levels when moving back up e.g. you can skip from level four to level two.
  • -ise/-ize: use the “-ise” form.
  • Life cycle: two separate words.
  • Links: make the link text say where the link goes e.g. “the Contribute page”, not “click here”. Avoid using the url as the link text.
  • Lists:
    • A list of short items: introduce with a colon, start each bullet point with a capital and don’t use punctuation at the end of each bullet point:
      • Item 1
      • Item 2
    • A list of longer items following an incomplete introductory sentence (e.g. a sentence ending in a colon): each item ends with a semi colon and the final item ends with a full stop. Do not capitalise the first letter of each item e.g. This is the first part of a sentence that includes:
      • a longer item 1;
      • a longer item 2;
      • a longer item 3.
    • A list following a complete sentence (with a full stop): each item ends with a full stop and each point begins with a capital letter e.g. This a complete sentence.
      • This is item 1 of the list.
      • This is item 2 of the list.
      • This is item 3 of the list.
  • Numbers: spell the numbers one to ten out. After that, write the numbers (11, 12, 13, etc).
  • Quotations: use double quotes for quotations, and single quotes for quotes within quotes.
  • References: use the Nature Author instructions for books and papers. Use “et al.” for more than five authors.
    • Bellin, D. L. et al. Electrochemical camera chip for simultaneous imaging of multiple metabolites in biofilms. Nat. Commun. 7, 10535; 10.1038/ncomms10535 (2016).
    • Lam, J. Data Management. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019).
  • That/which: use “that” when you are defining something and “which” when you are adding extra information about it e.g.:
    • “The cat that was on the table suddenly got up” is telling us which cat it was. It is important to the meaning of the sentence because you are not talking about any cat, just the cat on the table.
    • “The cat, which was sitting on the table, suddenly got up” is giving us extra information about the cat. The information is not necessary to understand the sentence. You can remove the clause and the sentence will still be clear. Clauses starting with “which” usually begin with a comma.
  • Schema/scheme: Use “schema” if you mean a pattern for structuring data. The plural is “schemas”.
  • Titles (the “title” in the front matter of pages): only the first word, proper nouns and acronyms are capitalised.
  • Tool assembly: there are multiple tools in one assembly. The plural is “tool assemblies”.
  • Training: training is an uncountable noun and cannot have a plural. You can write “training courses” and “training materials” but not “trainings”.

Naming of files, tags, keywords, and navigation titles

  • Markdown file names:
    • Do not contain spaces or special characters like &, %, #, (, ), è, é, ê, ë, …
    • Are unique among the website.
    • Are lowercase, except for acronyms.
  • Tags for tools, resources and pages:
    • Do not contain special characters like &, %, #, (, ), è, é, ê, ë, …
    • Are lowercase, except for acronyms.
    • Are short if possible, but distinguishable from existing tags.
    • Can contain spaces.
  • Keywords:
    • Are lowercase.
    • Can contain spaces.
  • Titles in the navigation side panel:
    • First word and acronyms capitalised.
    • Should contain the same words as the filename where this title points to.

How to suggest amendments or additions to this style guide

Open a new issue on GitHub or email tf-toolkit@elixir-europe.org. See also the contribute page.