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The Street City Church

9 Hania Street
PO Box 6218, Marion Square,
Wellington
Tel +64 4 385 7315
Fax +64 4 385 7309
Email office@thestreet.org.nz

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Style Guide

Hi Team

This is the beginning of the official Street City Church Style Guide! This is your little online style guide bible. Please use, refer to and do not sway from this guide.

Is it legible?

When writing in general and specifically for the web, there is a trade-off between controal and accessibility. if you exert absolute control over the appearance of the web site, certain people may be barred from reading your message the way you intended. The following rules of thumb will help increase the legibility of writing.

Avoid italics like the plague

Italics are totally impossible to read on many screens. They show up as an irritating blur. Even on paper, italics slow down reading by 40 percent.

There are, of course, exceptions. See below.

Use very few all caps

SOLID CAPS ARE HARDER AND SLOWER TO READ THAN LOWERCASE LETTERS. THAT’S BECAUSE CAPS ARE ALL THE SAME HEIGHT.

Go easy on initial caps

The modern trend is to use fewer Initial Capitals. Our Great-Great-Great-Grandparents used to Capitalise any Word that Twitched, making them seem Enourmously Significant. It’s considered normal practise to only capitialize the first word in a title.

Reserve underlining for link text

On the Web, conventional underlining equals “click this link.” So never underline for emphasis.

Use left alignment

As on paper, left alignment onscreen is quicker and easier to read than other arrangements. Left alignment doesn’t distort the size and shape of words. It feels reassuring and safe.

So please, please, don’t center or right align text… ever.

Justified text should be avoided as well as it stretches and shrinks to fit the space between the words, creating ugly rivers which again, is hard to read.

Spaces

At the end of a sentence, use one space, not two. Two spaces is what you used in third-form typing. Not anymore.

Dates

If you’re quoting a date, always use this format, ‘day number month, year’. [Friday 1 April, 2006 = good] [1st April 2006 = Bad] [Friday the 1st of April 2006 = Very Bad]

References

When quoting a book, album or a movie, always italicise it.

When quote a song name, always “enclose it with double quote marks.”

Em-dashes

Please try and limit the use of em-dashes [ -- ]. If a sentence is too long and you want to break it up, put a full-stop there and start a new one rather than breaking it up with a wrongly used em-dash.

Numbers

Any numbers ten and below should be written out in words and not numerals.

The thirteen gremlins of grammar

  1. Correct speling is essential.
  2. Don’t use no double negatives.
  3. Verbs has got to agree with their subjects
  4. Don’t write run-on sentances they are hard to read.
  5. About them sentance fragments.
  6. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
  7. A preposition is not a good word to end a sentance with.
  8. Remember to not ever split infinitives.
  9. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
  10. Alway’s use apostrophe’s correctly.
  11. Make each singular pronoun agree with their antecedents.
  12. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
  13. Proofread your writing to make sure you don’t words out.

And, above all, avoid cliches like the plague.