Plain English

Capital letters slow down readers and make your content harder to follow. According to Gov.uk, capitals can be up to 18% harder to read.

It is often tempting for people to capitalise words unnecessarily just because they are “important”. Do not do this.

Here are some common instances that do not need capitalisation:

• university
• policy names
• job titles, unless you are writing the title in full, “Herbert McTavish, Professor of Molecular Medicine”, or “Chief Executive Nicola Haddock”
• organisation or department, unless you are using the full name, “Institute for Medical and Biomedical Education”
• academic subjects.

Where possible, avoid using words or phrases that would require further explanation. This will be unavoidable in some situations but follow these rules to keep your content readable.

• Always write out the full name first and include the acronym in brackets, “Institute of Medical and Biomedical Education (IMBE)”.
• Do not use full stops after common abbreviations, such as eg, ie, am/pm, etc, Mr, Mrs, Dr, Prof.
• Avoid the ampersand, unless it is in the name of an organisation, “P&O Ferries”.

Readable content is also designed to avoid visually confusing information. Unnecessarily bolding, italicising or underlining your content will make it harder to read.

You should:

• replace italics with double quotation marks
• use bold sparingly, as large amounts of bold text on a page makes it harder for users to identify important information
• avoid underlining altogether, as this can be confused with hyperlinked content.

Short sentences increase comprehension levels. According to Readability Guidelines, the general rules are:

• the ideal sentence length is 15 words
• the maximum sentence length should be about 25 words
• any sentence more than 40 is too hard to understand easily.

The simpler your vocabulary, the better. Using plain English allows users to quickly scan your content to find what they’re looking for. It also opens your content to as many users as possible.

Do not use a complicated word when there is a simple alternative. Readability Guidelines provides these examples:

• “buy” not “purchase”
• “help” not “assist”
• “about” not “approximately”.

Where you cannot avoid a longer word, consider providing the user a glossary on the page.

Bullet lists provide an easy way to:

• emphasise certain information
• break complicated sentences into simple ideas
• create scannable content.

Try not to overuse the bullet lists, as this creates confusion about what on the page is actually important. The formatting of a bullet list will change depending on your lead-in line.

If your lead-in line is an incomplete sentence, make sure:

• all bullet points start with a lowercase letter
• all points make sense following the lead-in line
• the lead-in line ends with a colon
• the list only contains one full stop, used on the last point.

If your lead-in line is a complete sentence, it should stick to the following rules.

• Every bullet point starts with a capital letter.
• All bullet points end with a full stop.
• Every line makes sense as a standalone sentence.

Use an active voice when writing your content. This makes your pages easier to read and understand.

The easiest way to write in an active voice is to use a conversational tone. Readability Guidelines suggests, “Picture your audience and write as if you were talking directly to them, with the authority of someone who can help and inform.”