Hibu Writer's Style Guide
Adhering to certain rules of grammar and mechanics helps keep our writing clear and consistent. This section will lay out our "Hibu style," which applies to all of our content unless otherwise noted in this guide.
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase; abbreviations of phrases are often composed of the first letter of each word of the phrase (i.e., acronym). To maximize clarity, use abbreviations sparingly.
Also consider readers’ familiarity with the abbreviation before using it. Although abbreviations can be useful for long, technical terms in scholarly writing, communication is often garbled rather than clarified if an abbreviation is unfamiliar to readers. In general, use an abbreviation if (a) it is conventional and readers are likely to be more familiar with the abbreviation than with the complete form and (b) considerable space can be saved and cumbersome repetition avoided.
To ensure brand consistency, it is important to include the name of the business (NOB) on every page of the website as callout text or in the copy. However, this does not apply to pages that do not contain callout or copy text, such as blog pages.
Balanced Lists
Unbalanced Lists
Title Case: Major words are capitalized, and most minor words are lowercase.
Sentence Case: most major and minor words are lowercase (proper nouns are an exception in that they are always capitalized).
Major Words: Nouns, verbs (including linking verbs), adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and all words of four letters or more are considered major words.
Minor Words: Short (i.e., three letters or fewer) conjunctions, short prepositions, and all articles are considered minor words.
When two words are used together to yield a new meaning, a compound is formed. Compound words can be written in three ways: as open compounds (spelled as two words, e.g., ice cream), closed compounds (joined to form a single word, e.g., doorknob), or
hyphenated compounds
(two words joined by a hyphen, e.g., long-term). Sometimes, more than two words can form a compound (e.g., mother-in-law).
The most common spelling quandary writers face is whether to write compounds as separate words, one word, or hyphenated words.
Hyphenated Compounds
There are a great many grammar rules regarding hyphens in compound words. One important rule of thumb to remember is that in most cases, a compound adjective is hyphenated if placed before the noun it modifies, but not if placed after the noun.
Example: a long-term solution
Example: an up-to-date user guide
But…
Example: This is not a good solution for the long term.
Example: This user guide is not up to date.
This is just one of many rules concerning hyphens in compound words and it is often necessary to consult the dictionary to determine whether these terms should be hyphenated or not.
They’re great! They give your writing an informal, friendly tone.
Headlines that are two or three lines deep can create a tricky problem -- line breaks, or the place where one line ends and another begins. Avoid bad breaks caused by dangling verbs, adjectives or propositions. Review all heads and subheads and to make manual line "breaks for sense." Breaking for sense means breaking a line where one might logically pause when reading it aloud. This includes keeping adjectives with their nouns, breaking after punctuation, keeping proper names or hyphenated words on one line, etc.
Examples:
No
Yes
No
Yes
Use parentheses ( ) around area code, followed by a space, then phone number with no spaces.