Unless you are preparing a compendium or stocktaking report, you should be able to define your key message in one or two sentences. These lines will be your beacon throughout the publication process. The importance of taking your time to do this cannot be overstated. Everything you do afterwards can be measured against this key message.

If you cannot define one key message, you should consider whether you need several publications to convey your messages.

Poor example:

New reforms to exams in certain rural VET schools in Algeria now involve small- and medium-sized enterprises, state companies, authorities at the local, national and regional levels and trade unions who, based on a new national framework and revised occupational standards, have introduced different ways of mixing classroom education and on the job training so what students learn better reflects what they may meet in the labour market, thus improving the transition from school to work.

Alternative:

ETF research shows that a move from school-based summative evaluation towards formative evaluation with social partner involvement has positively affected the employability of VET graduates in rural Algeria. 

Next, take some time to define your key audience. Just as with your key message, if you cannot narrow your audience down to one group or a few very closely related groups, you should consider several publications.

Poor example:

You are writing the final report of an EU-funded project supporting the introduction of entrepreneurship in VET curricula in Moldova. You are writing it mostly for the European Commission, who have funded the programme, but also for policymakers in Moldova so they can use it to roll out results to a broader audience. They can then use the publication as an instructional guide for the involved teachers. You also want to make sure your colleagues, inside and outside the ETF, can learn from it.

Alternative:

Write a short final report for the project based on the specifications in the Terms of Reference. The funders asked you to write it so they will be eager to read it. You do not need to hold their attention. 
Your colleagues will be unlikely to read your report. Organise a meeting with your colleagues to share the results. If you are incredibly lucky, one or two Moldovan policymakers will read half of the executive summary to the report. No more. Instead, get their attention by interviewing the education minister for a short video about the programme. Post it on Open Space and link to this on LinkedIn. Write a short and concise policy briefing to inform colleagues in international organisations. Post it on Open Space and LinkedIn. This can also double as a refresher for those who were directly involved. It may be worth printing.

Ask the Communications Unit to write a blog about the project.

Develop an online resource for the teachers which explains the importance of entrepreneurship in VET curricula for a country like Moldova and link to practical resources they can use to implement it in their schools.

The previous example already introduced different forms of packaging.

In our day and age, a publication is no longer necessarily something that comes back bound in boxes from the print shop. A publication will often only be published digitally. It can be a PDF file, but also a web page or a blog entry. In fact, it need not be written at all. A publication can (and will increasingly often) be a social media update, a podcast or a video.

But even a traditional publication can come in many shapes: a leaflet, a compendium, a book, a blog entry, a brochure or an article, to name but a few.

Example:

Let us use the same example as we used for narrowing down the message:

You want to write a publication about new reforms to exams in certain rural VET schools in Algeria that now involve small- and medium-sized enterprises, state companies, authorities at the local, national and regional levels and trade unions who, based on a new national framework and revised occupational standards, have introduced different ways of mixing classroom education and on the job training so what students learn better reflects what they may meet in the labour market, thus improving the transition from school to work.

There is probably enough material for several information packages here. For example:

• A final report back to the people who funded the pilot project that gave these results.
• A policy briefing about social partnership for better examination.
• A video for and about VET teachers in Algeria who must get used to the thought that they are no longer the only evaluators of learning results.
• An article about a flagship example of broad community collaboration to improve the skills. 2…

Once the first questions have been answered, it is time to draw up a skeleton. In the world of film and video, nothing is produced without a script. Think of the skeleton of a written document as the script for a film. It is your tool to make sure you will not go ‘off script’. For a large written document, this could be a list of chapters.

Start with the one-line summary you have already defined. Next, expand it to three, five or ten lines that all summarise a chapter. Finally, give each of these lines one paragraph of descriptive text.

Example:

Five times more people read headings than the actual text. People remember information more effectively when it comes in bits and chunks.

The situation becomes even more critical online, where distractions are never further than a mere swipe or mouse click away. One early study showed that the decline in display reading performance could be as high as 40% or more when compared to the same text read from paper. More recent studies, however, show less dramatic results. New generations of readers do not read worse on a screen than on paper but, on the whole, focused reading skills are in decline. As writers, we can choose to decry that and loose most readers or we can take modern reading habits into account when we write.

Many on-screen readers scan pages rather than reading them word for word. Researchers refer to this as nonlinear reading. Readers pick out a few sentences or even parts of sentences to get the information they want. Online readers are far more prone to nonlinear reading than paper readers.

In a recent experiment from the University of Stavanger in Norway, 50 students were given the same text to read. Half of the students read it on paper. The other half read it on a digital reader. There were surprisingly few differences between the two groups, but one stood out: the students who had read from paper were far better at reconstructing the plot of the story. The researcher, Anne Mangen deduced that what digital readers lacked was knowledge of how far they had progressed into the story. They lacked a mental map.

This is important for us who publish primarily online. It means that we need to structure our publications even more deliberately than before.

Most advice for clear writing is staggeringly obvious and deceptively simple:

• Use short, common, everyday words, except for necessary technical terms.
• Keep the style clear and simple and appropriate for the audience.
• Aim at an average sentence length of 15-20 words (even less is better) and keep paragraphs and sentences short.
• Use the active voice.
• Use concrete, not abstract language.
• Avoid jargon, pompous language and ‘official speak’.
• Be consistent in your use of terms and spelling.

Do not overestimate your audience. Yes, they should be able to read challenging texts. But every reader, without exception, will be grateful if you try to keep the text accessible, just as you would be when reading their texts. And that message you wanted to convey has a much bigger chance of coming across.

Excellent software exists for helping you improve the readability of your document. Information on this can be found in the chapter ‘Tools for effective writing’ further down.

Writing concisely

Choosing the right words

Use the simplest, most exact, most specific language your subject allows. The more specific, definite and concrete your words, the more likely you are to hold the reader’s attention.

• Use illustrative examples.
• Explain terms that could be misunderstood.
• Spell out abbreviations on first reference and do not invent them.
• Illustrate the magnitude of numbers with comparisons to familiar quantities.

Repeat a word if it is the best word. Repetition is a device necessary for continuity and clarity; it can hold the paragraph together. However, ban redundancy, which often comes in the form of an adjective that doubles a noun: vast majority, acute crisis, broad consensus, desired objective, period of time, mutual co-operation, urgent necessity, future prospects, estimated at about, introduced a new law, join together, exclusive monopoly, future forecast, false pretext.

Choose vivid, specific verbs over adverbs. Avoid noncommittal language.

Put statements in positive form. Use the word ‘not’ as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion. Negative constructions are often wordy and sometimes pretentious. In addition, they oblige readers to first imagine the positive alternative and then cancel it out.

Culling and pruning

Slash everything unnecessary to the main point.

Eliminate fluff and false starts such as I think, there was, it is.

Strip away prepositional phrases whenever you can use nouns and verbs instead. Abstractions and circumlocutions favour prepositional phrases.

Where possible, hack away weak intensifiers and qualifiers such as very, quite, rather, completely, definitely, so. To convey the nuances, use more specific qualifiers.

Where possible, replace empty adjectives such as appropriate, relevant, specific, suitable, serious, broad, effective, positive, meaningful, obvious, current with more concrete, specific qualifiers.

Reduce wordy uses of the verbs to be, to have and to make: whenever you can replace a form of the verb to be with a stronger verb, do so: are indications = indicates; are suggestive = suggests.

Trim extra verbs and verb phrases. Do not use several words when one verb will do.

Prune phrases such as: the fact of the matter, on this subject, in the context of, as it relates to, at the outset, in conclusion, finally, one might add that, it should be stressed/noted that, it goes without saying that, it is important to add that.

Simple grammatical structures and active voice

Texts sometimes get wordy when ideas are given more elaborate grammatical constructions than they need. Use strong nouns and verbs, then keep your structure simple. Wordiness and verbal evasion make the reader work too hard.

Choose the simplest tenses and moods: present, past, future.

Don’t bury long dependent clauses in mid-sentence. If a subject drifts too far from its predicate*, separated by endless intervening clauses, the reader may give up.

Watch for ‘which’: too many make for a bog of unnecessary words; ask yourself, ‘Can you get along without it? Can ‘that’ replace it?’

Use the active voice: it is shorter than passive structures, and it is more forceful and convincing. Passives are common in official and academic prose more by convention than for efficiency. It is often difficult to find the appropriate subject when a first person I or we is not appropriate, which leads to use of the passive.

Passives can be useful and should be kept if they clarify your meaning or:

• to defuse hostility – actives can sometimes be too direct and blunt;
• to avoid having to say who did the action, perhaps because the doer is irrelevant or obvious from the context;
• to focus attention on the receiver of the action by putting it first;
• to spread or evade responsibility omitting the doer, ‘regrettably, your file has been lost’;
• to help position old or known information at the start of a sentence or clause, and new information at the end.

* In English, the subject and the predicate are the two main constituents of a sentence. Simplified, the subject holds the noun and its modifiers while the predicate holds the verb and its modifiers.

By facilitating the readers’ task, you increase the likelihood that they will actually read your work. One of the writer’s priorities is to organise content so the reader spots and grasps the important information as quickly as possible and then finds it easy to navigate through the rest of the document. You are not writing a novel. Get to the point and don’t use suspense.

Text composition models that work

A certain number of effective models exist for composing information. They can be mixed, matched and applied on any level: overall structure, chapters, paragraphs or even sentences. Varying your approach helps to keep reader attention.

The top-heavy triangle, or inverted pyramid, puts the most important information first – generally the conclusion – and follows it with lesser information in order of priority. Priorities must be established based on importance to the reader and on sustaining reader interest.

The problem -> cause -> solution approach, or situation -> complications/development -> resolution, first presents the dilemma, creating sufficient interest for the reader to read further to understand the causes and solutions.

Chronological order is very useful and logical, but not always effective at keeping the reader reading.

Questions and answers work very well to feed reader interest throughout a work.

Situation -> objective -> appraisal -> proposal works well for a policy brief.

Introduction -> discussion -> conclusions -> recommendations is yet another good overall model. Here, here, the introduction must have all the qualities of an effective lead.

Effective leads and conclusions

First sentences and paragraphs (of a section, a chapter or the entire book) are called the lead. They are by far the most important element in your text. They are your best chance to capture the readers’ attention and induce them to go further. Some say that if you can get people to read the first 350 words of anything, they’ll probably read as much as you want them to. So make the lead good.

A good lead gets to the point quickly: who, what, why, where, when, and how. It gives enough hard details to let the readers know why they should bother reading further. Coaxing works better than reason: make them inquisitive.

Beware of vague, empty words that clog beginnings, such as:

• This paper is intended to provide…
• Before discussing xxx it is important to define…
• In view of the fact that…
• In this next section, it is my intention to deal with…
• It follows from the foregoing that since the beginning of…
• Due to some degree to the fact that it is…

After the beginning, the next most important part is the end. A reader may skip everything in between and head straight for the conclusion. Make it clear, concise and pertinent. And make sure it happens in time: when you’ve said what you have to say, conclude. That is, don’t try the reader’s patience. It should be possible to read the introduction and conclusion together. There should be clear links between the two. Far too often conclusions have nothing whatsoever to do with what was the stated aim of the report. And far too often, conclusions stray back into discussion.

Cohesion

This is one of the classic sections that should be printed in red and all caps. Read it!

To facilitate reader comprehension, put together what belongs together, and do so on all levels: throughout the whole text, within paragraphs and in each sentence.

There are several ways to do this.

Use parallel construction. Present parallel ideas in parallel grammatical form, so each part of a sentence, section or list uses the same grammatical structure.

• Keep to one tense in summaries.
• Put similar ideas and details in similar constructions.
• Use parallel constructions in vertical lists.

Put things in the right place:

• Keep related words together.
• Put main ideas in main (independent) clauses, and subordinate the less important elements in the sentence to the more important.
• Place emphatic words and the most important information at the end of the sentence; in the middle, they’ll be swallowed up.

Monitor your modifiers. A modifier belongs close to the word it modifies. It becomes:

• misplaced when it seems to modify the wrong word: ‘Complete with footnotes, the author had provided his reader with some background information’ – the footnotes provide the reader with background information.
• squinting when ambiguous and can be applied equally to more than one term: ‘Writing clearly is difficult’ — this sentence could mean that it’s clearly difficult to write or that it’s difficult to write clearly;
• dangling if the term it should modify appears nowhere in the sentence: ‘After reading the original study, the article remains unconvincing’.

Make the paragraph the unit of composition. Paragraphs are single ideas that start with the topic or a transition (word, phrase or sentence giving direction) and have a beginning, a middle and an end. According to Fowler, ‘The paragraph is essentially a unit of thought, not of length; it must be homogeneous in subject matter and sequential in treatment.’

Use basic structure: The first sentence states topic; the middle sentence explains or illustrates; the final sentence wraps up, closes.

Give new topics new paragraphs.

Ask yourself this question: Will division ease comprehension?

Example:

Transitions

Transitions are an important tool for clarity and continuity: and, but, while, or, then, such as, on the other hand, however, next, therefore, for example, finally, furthermore, consequently, in addition, nevertheless, meanwhile, accordingly, thus. Use them. You must make certain that the relation between one sentence and the next, and one paragraph and the next, is clear. Often it will be clear without an explicit transition, but do not take too much for granted; relationships between sentences may not be as clear to your readers as they are to you.

Transition words indicate passing of time, addition, contrast or opposition, comparison or similarity, concession or admission, sequence, result and summary. Vary their placement in the sentence in order to avoid repetitive syntax.

A word of warning: over-elaborate introductions kill the purpose of the transition. Rather than coax the reader on, you cut off the flow: ‘In the next section of this report, it is my intention to deal with the problem of noise pollution’ versus ‘The next problem is noise pollution’.

Readability scores

Microsoft Word’s grammar and spell check function can provide basic readability information including the average number of sentences per paragraph, the average number of words per sentence, and the percentage of passive sentences. Although this tool will not make you write any better than you already do, it can provide interesting food for thought.

Readability tools

Several software packages exist that are much better than Word at checking readability and suggesting writing improvements. These are very powerful tools for improving the accessibility of your documents. We’ve picked out three of the most popular ones here.

Please note that you will want to use this software for readability, not for spell checks. The only software that offers readability advice in the free version is the first: Hemingway Editor.

Hemingway Editor

The two great charms of Hemingway Editor are its price and its simplicity. We like simplicity. Hemingway Editor is no full-blown spelling and grammar checker. It focuses on readability and does so really well.

Unfortunately, it does not integrate with Microsoft Word. You have to copy and paste your text into the app or onto the free page at https:// hemingwayapp.com. It works fine if you split your screen. Use Hemingway Editor in the left half while editing your Word document in the right. (See illustration.)

Grammarly

Grammarly is a very well-integrated spelling, grammar and readability checker. With Grammarly, you’ll even get your Twitter posts and Facebook replies checked in real time. While that may be overkill for many, it does a very good job and it has a friendly interface.

The downside of a very obtrusive spelling and grammar tool is that it can kill your creativity. At the end of the day, it should be you that chooses the words, not a software package.

Grammarly is expensive. There is a free version, but it only checks spelling and as you can see from the illustration, for spelling it is not always the best tool: both suggestions are incorrect.

Pro Writing Aid

Pro Writing Aid is comparable to Grammarly but less slick. It is also less invasive and much cheaper.

The emphasis of Grammarly is more on spelling and grammar, while Pro Writing Aid is better for style and readability. Pro Writing Aid seems to be better at weighing context, which very important.

There is no free version but the annual subscription price is lower than two months of Grammarly. The premium version of Pro Writing Aid has an incredible plagiary check.

Revision

All writing requires revision, and usually multiple revisions. To be thorough, go through three steps:

1. A critical, objective reading, placing yourself in the reader’s position. Ask the following questions:
   1. Have I said what I claimed I would say in my one-line summary?
   2. Is my message crystal clear to someone with the expected starting knowledge of my target audience?
   3. Can I hold the reader’s attention or do I digress too often?

Do not edit while you do a full read-through. It will, take you out of the flow. This is very difficult but essential. Just change your cursor into a highlighter (under FONT on the HOME ribbon in Microsoft Word) and mark text that you need to return to later.

• A review of form: simplify style and make the text more readable and effective.
  • Could I put it more shortly?
  • What can be deleted without loss of meaning or emphasis?
  • Can I replace needless euphemisms and jargon with plain words?
  • Will readers understand the technical vocabulary used?
  • Can I turn negative structures into positive ones?
  • Do the leads get to the point as quickly as possible?
  • Can a vertical list break up a complicated text?
  • Could a table or graph ease comprehension?
  • Can I reduce cross-references?

With the help of readability software you can also check:

• Is every word necessary?
  • Can I shorten or vary sentence length? Over the whole document, make the average
  • sentence length 15 to 20 words.
  • Could I use stronger, more vivid verbs?
  • Do the passives clarify my meaning or would an active form be better? (See above in the section ‘Plain English’.)
• A final reading for spelling and typographical consistency.

Once you are happy, involve others.

Peer review

Nothing is a better test than to submit your document for comment to someone in the intended audience. If you write for teachers in Georgia, find a teacher or two in Georgia. If you write for employers in Algeria, find one or two employers in Algeria.

Peer review is often limited to colleagues who could have written the same text. This is a mistake. While their input is critical in checking for factual errors, they can give no guidance on whether your intended target audience can use your text (unless they are the target audience).

The ETF follows British English usage in spelling. This is a choice. It does not mean one is ‘more right’ than another. It does mean, that when you write for the ETF, you should write in British English and not in US or ‘international’ English.

The ETF uses –ise (rather than –ize) endings in words such as organise and unionise, in line with the standard almost universally adopted in publishing in the UK and Ireland (the notable exceptions to this are the Oxford dictionaries and The Times newspaper).

Watch out for words that are spelt differently in British and American English. There are many, but here are some that are particularly relevant in our line of work:

Use short words

Use short rather than long words. This can help you to develop a good plain English style of writing. These words are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin and are easy to spell and easy to understand. It may be more challenging for native speakers of languages such as French, Spanish  and Italian as they tend to recognise the words that native speakers of English consider more difficult.

Avoid redundant words

Writers often resort to jargon, waffle and clichés to cover up the fact that they have little or nothing to say – or something to hide. In order to develop a clear, plain style of writing, you should be careful to avoid terms which have crept into journalistic and official language.

Avoiding sexist, racist and discriminatory language. English is a language that is particularly sensitive to issues of gender and other areas of potentially discriminatory usage.

Use ‘they/their’ rather than ‘he’, e.g.:

‘Changing technology and production systems makes it difficult for factory workers to remain in their jobs without further training.’

instead of:

‘Changing technology and production systems makes it difficult for a factory worker to remain in his job without further training.’

Avoid sexist job titles. Those ending in -man or -woman can be substituted by a non-gender-specific and often more accurate title, e.g.:  chair instead of chairman/woman, spokesperson rather than spokesman/woman etc.

Refer to ethnic groups by their accurate and self-accepted name if possible (e.g. Roma, Arabs). Do not use ‘black’ as a generic name for all minority ethnic groups.

Avoid terms that refer to some (usually negatively perceived) attribute of people rather than the people themselves, e.g. ‘the unemployed’ or ‘the disabled’. Instead use ‘unemployed people’ and ‘people with disabilities’.

As a general rule, write with nouns and verbs (they give writing its body and colour), not adjectives and adverbs.

As a second general rule, prefer action verbs to abstract nouns.

Using verbs

Verbs keep the reader reading. Choose strong verbs to replace weak ones such as is and are.

Use vivid verbs over drab linking verbs such as seems, appears, feels, looks, sounds, does, get, go, has, put, utilise, prioritise, implement.

Save would, should, could, may, might and can for situations involving real uncertainty. Do not use them to soften your assertions. If you are unsure about something, do not write it.

Using nouns

Do not use five nouns when one or two will do. It is ‘road works’, not ‘ongoing highway maintenance programme’.

Beware of noun proliferation and nominalisation (deriving nouns from verbs or adjectives). Sometimes verbs can strengthen a sentence by replacing nominalisation. Look for empty verbs followed by nouns and replace them with strong verbs:

• ‘he discovered’ rather than ‘he made a discovery’
• ‘he resisted’ rather than ‘he put up resistance’
• ‘the police investigated’ rather than ‘the police conducted an investigation’
• ‘he does not expect’ rather than ‘he has no expectation’
• ‘the study was careless’ rather than ‘the study tended towards carelessness’
• ‘the policies were different’ rather than ‘the policies showed marked differences’.

There are few rules governing the use of capitals (upper case) in English. Consistency is what matters most. The current view is that OVERUSE of capitals reduces the importance of those words which must appear in capital and SPOILS the appearance of the printed page. Direct messaging, where capitalisation is the equivalent of raising one’s voice, has recently made an even stronger argument against capitals.

Many headings and titles whose words would have appeared in capitals before are now appearing in small letters. The ETF follows this trend, using a capital letter, for example, only in the first word of a book title, and putting the following words in small letters (lower case).

The general rule is to put the first letter of nouns and adjectives in names of specific institutions and their subdivisions in upper case (DGs, departments, committees, working groups) and use lower case for general references. More exact rules are set out below but in many cases you will have to make up your own mind. If in doubt, use lower case unless it looks absurd. In the case of very long titles, opt for small letters to avoid having a string of capital letters, e.g.

• High-level group on the employment and social dimension of the information society
• Joint FAO/EEC working party on forest and forest product statistics

Many ETF staff capitalise names of authorities, probably out of politeness or to be on the safe side. They should be capitalised only when they are used as parts of a name or a title.

Thus:

‘the prime minister spoke’, but ‘Prime Minister Williams spoke’.

‘the education ministry paid for the project’, but ‘the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports paid for the project’.

Another ETF classic is NQF, which is capitalised when abbreviated but not when spelt out as national qualifications framework. Unless, of course, it is the actual name of a specific NQF, as in: ‘the National Qualifications Framework of Armenia’.

Here are some of the basic rules. Put into capitals:

• proper nouns, such as the names of people, places, companies: J. A. Smith, Copenhagen, Rhine Valley (but ‘the valley’), European Environment Agency (but ‘the agency’), Unilever;
• full names of organisations, ministries, departments, treaties, acts: European Commission, House of Lords, Ministry of Labour (but ‘the ministry’), National Employment Agency, High Court (but ‘the court’), Presidency of the Council of the EU, Heidelberg University (but ‘the university’), European Investment Bank, Treaty of Amsterdam;
• the titles of statutory and political positions, such as President of the Republic, Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Member of Parliament, Secretary-General, European Ombudsman;
• titles of adopted or draft legislation: the Working Time Directive, the Employment Act 1990, Trade Unions and Labour Relations Bill 1997;
• the names of political parties: the Green Party, the Christian Democrats, European Parliament Group of the Party of European Socialists;
• names of EU initiatives and programmes: European Social Fund, European Year of Languages 2001, European Works Councils, EU Member States;
• references to specific EC legislation: Directives, Regulations, Decisions, Recommendations, Joint Opinions, White Papers;
• geographical places or areas: the Hague, Sweden, Flanders, the Canary Islands, Pyrenees, the Middle East, Eastern Europe.

Keep in lower case:

• titles or office-holders in an organisation: Mr Smith is chief executive officer; she was appointed deputy leader of the Green Party; they are professors at Oxford;
• titles of books or periodicals (first word only in capitals): Third European survey on working conditions; The social situation of the European Union 2002;
• general references to bodies or concepts; government, cabinet, committee, the press, the right-wing, inter-governmental conference, third world, euro-zone;
• general terms, especially EU-related: social dialogue, labour market, common agricultural policy, European social model, information society, employment guidelines, corporate social responsibility, candidate countries, working time.

(An oddity on the rapid rise is camelCase, where words are separated not by a space but by a capital. The most common ones are proprietary names such as iPhone and eBay but a common one from before the digital age is PhD. In computer programming they have many functions and they are likely to become more common in the years ahead.)

In many cases hyphenation is optional, and the tendency is for hyphens to become less common through usage. The ETF opts for the non-hyphenated style in words and terms such as ‘coordinate’ and ‘macroeconomic’.

Many newly coined terms (‘e-commerce’) or adverb-adjective compounds (‘long-term’) retain the use of hyphens. Some lose them as their usage spreads, such as happened to ‘email’.

Prefixes take a hyphen (e.g. anti-American, non-governmental, self-employed) except where the prefix has become part of the word by usage (e.g. coordination, cofinance).

Don’t overuse hyphens but use them where you must, for example to indicate the relation of words in a sentence. A ‘government-monitoring programme’ means something else than a ‘government monitoring programme’. ‘In-laws we trust’ means something else than ‘in laws we trust’.

Many different rules govern the usage of hyphens. If you are in doubt, consult the Translation Agency’s style guide here.

When words are put together to yield a new meaning, they form a compound. Compound words can be written in three ways: as open compounds (ice cream, ), closed compounds (farmyard, doorknob), or hyphenated compounds (mid-range, long-term).

Compounds are a part of the language that is in constant flux so do not worry about them too much. They always start as separate words, however, so keep them separate if you are in doubt. Some of them grow together as their usage evolves.

A classic ETF example is the word policymaker that has gone through the iterations policy maker and policy-maker before ending where it should be today: policymaker.

Organisations and institutions are singular:

• ‘the Commission has adopted a Directive ‘
• ‘Siemens is restructuring its organisation’;
• ‘the government is urging voters to support the referendum’.

Management is also singular. ‘Company management has introduced a new policy’. So is employer. Staff can be both singular and plural.

In many languages the word education is countable. In English it is not. You cannot have two different educations. Choose ‘two different degrees’ or another alternative.

Good practice, bad practice and best practice are uncountable. Bad practices exist, but mean something slightly different, more like ‘bad ideas’. In most ETF use, the closest you can get to a plural of ‘best practice’ would be ‘examples of bad practice’. 

The rapid pace of digitalisation of the last decades has resulted in a whole new vocabulary, not just in English but in all languages across the globe. There is always confusion about the correct way to spell the new terms and what they mean. Although it is not easy at this stage to set precise rules, as the vocabulary is continually evolving, it may be useful to give a few pointers on generally accepted conventions.

Figures

In general, numbers between one and nine inclusive should be written out in full. Numbers from 10 upwards should appear as figures. In a text with references to lots of figures, it is acceptable to use numbers throughout.

• Numbers from 1 000 upwards should be separated with a non-breaking space (Ctrl-Shift SPACE) and those from 1 000 000 upwards two non-breaking spaces. A comma can be used instead of a non-breaking space, but not in formal publications.
• In English, decimal points are written as full stops, and not commas (45.25, not 45,25).
• When writing percentages, the percentage symbol (%) should come directly after the figure, with no space between.
• Million and billion should always be written out in full, e.g. 200 million, or 200 billion, rather than using abbreviations (M, m, mn etc.). One billion means 1 000 million.
• Connect ranges of numbers with an en dash: 5 000–6 000; 5–6%.* It is no longer considered wrong to use a hyphen instead. In running text, always use ‘to’ instead of a hyphen or en dash: e.g. ‘Sales rose from five million to six million (not ‘five million–six million’).
• Never start a sentence with a figure: write the number in words instead. Avoid starting sentences or paragraphs with large numbers.
• The code for the euro is the symbol €. EUR can also be used. In running text use the term ‘euro’ (singular and lower case) instead. Currency values should always be given in figures. Use the format €250 million, not any other form. For a full list of currencies and their abbreviations, consult the ISO list.

* You can type an en dash in Microsoft Word by pressing ctrl and the hyphen on the numerical keypad. To type an em dash press ctrl-alt and the hyphen on the numerical keypad.

Dates & Times

Dates

Write dates like this: 1 September 2003, 22 July 1968.

It is not necessary to put commas between items. Months and years should always be given in full: e.g., not 3.12.96, 3/11/96 or 3 December 96, or 3rd December 1996. When referring to decades, write: the 1990s (with no apostrophe), not the 1990’s. For fixed periods, use an en dash: 1994–96; 1999–2002.

Do not mix styles. Write ‘between 1941 and 1945’ not ‘between 1941–1945. Wherever possible, use 2004 and not ‘the year 2004’.

Times

These should normally be given on the basis of the 24-hour clock – e.g., 05.00, 13.30, 23.15, 00.30. In running text, periods of time involving hours should be written as follows: six hours, 8.5 hours. If you go into more detail, spell it out: eight hours and 15 minutes instead of 8.25 hours.

Telephone numbers

Write telephone numbers as follows:

• Use all numbers in their international form, using the + sign as a prefix without a space.
• After the international dialling code and a space, the complete number, including the regional code if there is one, is presented in a single block.
• In the EU, the regional prefix (typically a 0) is no longer to be used as part of the way numbers are written, even if they continue to be used nationally.
• Use a slash to separate different extensions at the end.

Examples:

• Netherlands +31 582268377
• France +33 140587738
• Luxembourg +352 6613212/13/14

Abbreviations are shortened versions of words (e.g. pp. for ‘pages’, fig. for figure, Mr for ‘Mister’).

Acronyms are abbreviations that form a word and are made up or the initial letters (or the first part) of each word (e.g. NATO, NGO, UNESCO).

Choosing whether or not to use an abbreviation can be a delicate matter. If you write for colleagues, spelling out VET or NQF makes no sense. If, on the other hand, you write for employers in tourism, abbreviating ‘vocational education and training’ or ‘national qualifications framework’ makes no sense.

New expressions, such as NEET and Entrecomp, take time to be adopted. Think twice before you assume that your readers know what every abbreviation means.

The days are over when you could get away with spelling out an abbreviation only the first time you introduce it. Remember what we wrote about non-linear readers earlier? Or did you skip that chapter?

Guidelines for use of abbreviations and acronyms:

• Avoid unnecessary abbreviations and acronyms.
• If an abbreviation occurs only once or twice, don’t abbreviate at all.
• Spell out abbreviations that may be unfamiliar to your readers at their first occurrence in every new section.
• Add a list of frequently used abbreviations, unless you are only writing a shorter article or a briefing note.

You can find in this chapter:

• Acronyms
• Abbreviations

Acronyms

In principle, acronyms are put into upper case letters and there is no need to put full stops between the letters. It is common in EU publications to put acronyms of over five letters into lower case (first letter only in capitals), as the examples below illustrate:

• Short acronyms (five letters or less): AIDS, CAP, CARDS, ECU, EFTA, EMU, MEDA, UCLAF, VAT.
• Long acronyms (more than five letters): Benelux, Cedefop, Erasmus, Esprit, Euratom, Europol, Eurostat, Interreg, Mercosur, Unicef.

At first mention, and where appropriate, use the full name of the organisation with initials in parentheses. At subsequent mentions, use only the acronym.

There are always exceptions, such as UNESCO.

With acronyms and abbreviations do not use an apostrophe in the plural. It is NGOs and not NGO’s. It is SMEs and not SME’s.

The base rule is, again, to think about your reader when using acronyms in your text. Too many acronyms will make your text very difficult to read.

Abbreviations

Some abbreviations are determined by international agreement (most notably units of measure), others by usage (names, courtesy titles, compass points, awards and distinctions etc.)

Common examples of abbreviations include: km (kilometre), cm (centimetre), mm (millimetre), g (gram), km/h (kilometres per hour), e.g. (for example), i.e. (that is to say), Vol. (Volume), PS (post scriptum), NB (nota bene).

Keep abbreviations to an absolute minimum in the body of your text. They are more appropriate in notes, source lines, tables, etc.

Do not invent abbreviations!

Member States

Member States should be listed in the following order, based on the alphabetical order of countries in their original languages.

Please note that the country code abbreviations given here were adopted by the permanent representatives of the Member States, and are different from the international standard ISO two-letter country codes. For non-member countries, it is advisable to use the ISO nomenclature.

For tables in multilingual publications, it is usual to list the abbreviated codes in this order as one version of the table is valid for all language editions. This is the accepted practice in EU publications.

Other countries

For a list of other countries, you can consult the table showing countries and ISO codes in the Inter-institutional style guide (Vade-mecum for editors[1]) of the Office of Official Publications of the European Communities.

Currencies

Use the symbol for the most common currencies (such as €, £, $). Use the ISO code for others. Use no spaces and the suffix -m for million, -bn for billion and -tr for trillion.

Examples:

€37bn

RON56m

A note on the euro

Like ‘pound’, ‘dollar’ or any other currency name, the word ‘euro’ is normally written in lower case with no initial capital.

Guidelines on the use of the euro, issued via the Commission’s Secretariat-General, state that the plurals of both ‘euro’ and ‘cent’ are to be written without ‘s’ in English. This is fine for legal texts but in documents intended for the general public, you can use the natural plural with ‘s’ for both terms.

[1] This is the title of the publication, but the expression vade mecum is spelt without a dash.

Letters for signature

Letters beginning ‘Dear Miss Moneypenny’, end ‘Yours sincerely,’ or ‘With kind regards,’.

Letters beginning ‘Dear Sir or Madam’, end ‘Yours faithfully,’ as do letters beginning ‘Dear Mr President’, ‘Dear Secretary-General’, ‘Dear Minister,’.

Letters to ambassadors begin ‘Your Excellency’, and end ‘Yours faithfully,’ or ‘Yours sincerely,’.

Informal openings, such as ‘Dear Vladimir,’ end ‘With kind regards,’ ‘Kind regards,’ or ‘Regards,’.

With dual signatures, the more important person signs on the left, and slightly above the other person.

Names

Abbreviated titles do not take a full stop when they end with the last letter of the fully spelt out word:

• Mr, Messrs, Mrs, Ms
• Dr

but:

• Prof.
• Dipl. Ing.

In running text, write the full name of a person the first time you mention him or her, without the abbreviated title: thus James Bond first, then Mr Bond (or simply 007).

Initials take a full stop, with one space between: Mr V. S. Hugo. This is no hard and fast rule in English but a style issue agreed for EU writing.

Good writing requires only the minimum of punctuation. If a lot of punctuation is required, it is probably time to revise your text.

The punctuation marks : ; ? and ! should be set close up to the preceding word. Do not separate them with a space. After the punctuation mark, type only one space, not two.

Include full stops after initials in a name, but not after Mr or Ms. So it is Mr C. Dickens.

Colons, semicolons

Use a colon to introduce a list or to indicate that an expansion, qualification or explanation is about to follow. ‘They brought gifts: gold, recycled paper and a bottle of clean air.’

Use a semicolon to mark a pause longer than a comma and shorter than a full stop, where the two independent clauses are not connected by a conjunction such as ‘but’ or ‘and’: ‘He removed the antlers; in their place he hung a portrait’. If in doubt, use a full stop.

Use a semicolon to divide points listed in a sentence if commas do not do the job clearly. ‘The system performs the following tasks: data assessment and analysis; data presentation in maps, figures and tables; and regular updating’.

Parentheses (brackets)

(If a whole sentence is within parentheses, put the full stop inside.) Otherwise the punctuation stays after the parentheses (like this).

Percentages

Do not put a space between the number and the % sign. It is 20% and not 20 %.

While we are at it, there is much confusion about the expressions percentage and percentage point. A percentage point is the simple numerical difference between two percentages while a percentage is a number or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100. So: An increase from 10% to 20% is a 10 percentage point increase and a 50% increase.

Quotation marks

Place full points and commas inside the quotes for a complete quoted sentence, otherwise the point comes outside:

Example: Mary said, ‘Your style guide needs updating,’ and I said, ‘I agree.‘

But: ‘Mary said that updating the guide was “a difficult and time-consuming task”.’

Use single quotation marks for quotes and double quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

Example: ‘He described the bicycle as “totally worthless”.’

In general though, try to find alternative ways of writing quotes within quotes as they are very difficult to read.

When beginning a quote with a sentence fragment that is followed by a full sentence, punctuate according to the final part of the quote.

Example: The minister called the allegations ‘blatant lies. But in a position such as mine, it is only to be expected.’

As you can see, these examples become quite complex. Therefore, always try to find other solutions first.

Quotations longer than four lines can be marked with indentation, preferably set in a smaller font. Opening and closing quotation marks are not needed when presented this way. Use single quotation marks for any quotation within the extract.

Take care with direct speech: readers should be confident that words appearing in quotation marks accurately represent the actual words uttered by the speaker, though ums and ahems can be removed and bad grammar improved. If you are not sure of the exact wording, use indirect speech.

Slashes

Avoid writing x/y since the meaning is confusing.

For clarity use one of these terms: x or y, x or y or both, x and y. Be careful with x and/or y. It is often (ab)used when the writer is unsure. Avoid it.

Use a slash for tonnes/day and km/hr, and for fractions such as: 90/100. Simple fractions are better spelt out: one half, two thirds, three quarters.

Square brackets

Square brackets are used for all editorial additions to quotations. Sometimes a quote is easier to understand if non-essential elements are cut out or a longer section is shortened. Such changes made to a quote are placed in brackets.

Examples:

Original quote: “Trade among countries that are still members of the EU after 1 January 2021 is free of tariffs.”

Edited quote: “Trade among [EU Member States] is free of tariffs.”

Original quote: “I think, although many people may disagree or only partially agree, that we made considerable progress.”

Edited quote: “I think […] that we made considerable progress.”

Emojis

Do not use emojis, other than in text messages. Be particularly mindful of this when writing and responding to emails from your phone. Emojis ‘translate’ very poorly across apps and operating systems. Many proprietary Iphone emojis, for example, are converted to meaningless characters in standard Windows email programmes. This can cause confusion or worse.

Other punctuation resources

In their zeal to be complete, style guides can get so overburdened that they become too difficult to navigate. Just for punctuation, there is a very nice website called The Punctuation Guide. Because it is an American website, the link here goes to the page describing the few but essential differences between punctuation in US English and in UK English.

The punctuation section of the English Style Guide produced by the Translation Service of the European Commission is good but a bit confusing to read. Whenever it is inconclusive, it refers to the online resource of the Oxford Dictionary, lexico.com. Be careful using the Oxford dictionary though, because on spelling advice it deviates considerably from the EU-preferred style. The University of Sussex produces a very good and exhaustive Guide to Punctuation that more clearly lists all the possible punctuation elements.

The title of a work plays a vital role in promoting and selling a publication. It is the element that makes a publication readily identifiable to the public and to journalists. A good title conveys the content of the book and grabs the reader’s attention.

To get the best possible title, start by forgetting your working title altogether. Summarise the central idea, stress what is original about the work and think of key words that capture the essence of the publication. These elements will help you develop a catchy title. Once you have a shortlist of titles, test them out on other people, notably those outside your field.

Chapter titles and headings serve as signposts, showing the reader where they are in the logical progression of the work. They should help maintain interest, and therefore need to be specific and attract attention. Avoid empty labels and abstractions such as “The Problems”, “Facts and Trends”, “Proposed Solutions” or “Current Situation”. Questions work well as headings.

Use vertical lists to break up complicated text. Lists allow you to present information in manageable chunks. Use them to arrange related elements of text in a form that is easy for the reader to grasp.

Elements of a list should refer to things of the same kind. Within the lists, use parallel structures and punctuate the items consistently.

Items in a vertical list need only be numbered if you refer to them elsewhere by number or letter.

List types

The four basic types of listing are illustrated below:

(a) Lists of short items (without main verbs) should be introduced by a full sentence and have the following features:

i. introductory colon

ii. no initial capitals

iii. no punctuation after each item (for very short items) or just a comma

iv. close with a full stop.

(b) Where each item completes the introductory sentence, you should:

i. begin with an introductory colon;

ii. start each item with a small letter;

iii. end each item with a semicolon;

iv. close with a full stop.

(c) If all items are complete statements without a grammatical link to the introductory sentence, proceed as follows:

i. introduce the list with a colon;

ii. label each item with a small letter or small roman numeral;

iii. start each item with a small letter;

iv. end each one with a semicolon;

v. close with a full stop.

(d) If any one item consists of several complete sentences, announce the list with a main sentence and continue as indicated below.

i. Do not introduce the list with a colon.

ii. Use letters or small roman numerals to identify each item.

iii. Begin each item with a capital letter.

iv. End each statement with a full stop. This allows several sentences to be included under a single item without throwing punctuation into confusion.

Most important of all: do not mix these list styles.

There are two styles of lists used in documents: bulleted lists and numbered lists. You should use Microsoft Word template styles to create these. They exist in three levels in the template.

All lists should have the same layout throughout the publication. Separate lists from running text by using extra space above and below.

Bulleted lists

The bulleted list is ideal for giving a neat presentation to items. Avoid using this style, however, for lengthy items of over one sentence long, and avoid overusing the bulleted lists feature.

Example:

The key facts about temporary agency work in the EU are:

• temporary agency work was the most rapidly growing form of atypical employment in the European Union during the 1990s;
• between 1.8 and 2.1 million workers work for temporary agencies in the EU, corresponding to 1.2% – 1.4% of the total number of people in employment;
• agency work is highly concentrated among young people in the labour force, with those under 25 years of age making up between 20% and 50% of all agency workers;
• with the exception of the three Nordic Member States, the majority of agency workers are men.

Numbered lists

Numbered lists should generally be used only where there is some particular reason to allocate a specific number to each item in the list. This may be to indicate an order of priority, or to list a number of points already given numbers.

Example:

The four issues most frequently included in collective agreements in 1996 were:

1. pay (covered by 96% of agreements)
2. working time (78%)
3. pensions (45%)
4. training (27%)

Sublists

Within both numbered and bulleted lists, there is a facility for numbered or bulleted sublists. The same rules apply as for lists. Do not use sublists unless you absolutely have to. They tend to make the logic of the text difficult to follow, thus defeating the purpose of the use of lists.

Whenever you need to present a significant amount of data, especially numerical, you should consider creating a table or graph. The chief purpose of tables is to assemble and present information so that it can be quickly and clearly understood.

Choose a clear table over lengthy summaries in words. However, if you use a table, don’t repeat the data in your text: commentary should offer analysis, draw conclusions or point out trends.

A few pointers:

• Make tables concise and simple. A series of short tables may be more useful than one long and complex table.
• Make tables consistent in terminology, abbreviations, and format.
• Make tables clear and readable.
• Omit redundant material or superfluous notes.
• Choose pertinent, short and clear titles. Just a noun or noun phrase is better than a long sentence.
• Explain abbreviations.
• Give data source(s).

Graphs, in the broad sense of the word, are diagrams that display data graphically. They are vivid and concise. Choose a graph over a table if you can. Graphs need to be instantly understandable and convey information that will be useful to the reader. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is it pertinent?
• Does the presentation really benefit the information?

Number tables, graphs and maps separately. Number consecutively within any chapter or appendix in a one-point system: chapter or appendix number followed by table or figure number, for example Table 2.1. (first table in Chapter 2); Figure 3.4. (fourth figure in Chapter 3).

The table of contents may include up to three levels of titles and headings. Fewer is better though.

The table of contents the main points of your text. Readers use it to judge whether the text will be worth reading. This means their style and content must be considered carefully.

Below is an example of a table of contents with two levels of headings.

Type all headings with an initial capital letter for the first word only (and of course any other word which must be in capitals). Example: ‘An overview of European-level initiatives’.

The aim of headings is to break up the text and capture the reader’s attention. Try to create short, descriptive headings and keep the style consistent throughout the text. Avoid a proliferation of headings as this can confuse the reader and pose design problems.

Block quotations should be indented and separated from surrounding text by spacing: you do not need to use quotation marks. The text should formatted normally, not printed in italics.

Do not overuse excerpts from other works or from case studies. It is usually better to summarise their idea in one or two sentences. It is unfair to present the reader with a long series of quoted material with little explanation or description.

When it is important to quote in a foreign language, you should quote in the original and follow this directly (not in a note) with an English translation in brackets.

Try to limit the use of bold and italics to the strict minimum. The use of bold, for example, to highlight key phrases in the text is best avoided. In general, use italics sparingly and avoid using it for emphasis, as too much becomes counter-productive.

Do not use italics and quotation marks together.

In English the use of italics is restricted to:

• titles of books, plays and films;
• titles of newspapers and periodicals;
• foreign words and phrases (e.g. Länder, Mitbestimmung, perestroika, carte blanche, per se, inter alia) apart from those that have been assimilated into the English language such as, arguably, inter alia.

Extensive use of bold and italics will be stripped out at the production stage.

Footnote references should ideally be placed at the end of the sentence, or at least at the end of a clause within a sentence. You should number footnotes consecutively through the whole work, and not separately within chapters.

Please keep the number of footnotes to a strict minimum and make the notes brief. Discursive notes should be avoided. Incorporate the material into the main text instead or omit it altogether.

Do not use footnotes as a medium for disseminating a mass of technical information.

Above all, do not put bibliographical references in footnotes: use the Harvard author-date system for these (see the section on compiling a bibliography) and include a list of references at the end of the work.

A footnote reference should appear as a superscript figure, like ^this. Stick it to the last letter of the word, without using a space to separate the two. Place it before any punctuation.

Example:

Sidebars and boxes allow you to present ancillary information such as, for example, details or case studies. They also allow you to present information that is just far enough away from the main theme to create confusion if integrated in the flow of the text. All boxed materials must clearly link to the main text but not be an essential part of it.

Sidebars can also be used to summarise the main elements of a paragraph beside the main text. This can help readers decide whether they should read the main body of text.

Notes

Notes can provide additional information, commentary or cross-references and lighten up your text. Use them sparingly and only for nonessential information.

Formatting and fonts

Typographical embellishments, such as boldface print, uppercase letters, small caps, italics and underlining can draw attention to specific parts of the text, making it easier for the reader to navigate in the text. However, they can quickly distract, cluttering the page and defeating their intended purpose. Keep them to a minimum. Your pages should look clean and coherent, not flashy. Stick to one typeface and size, and only use typographical variation for good reason.

Glossaries and indexes

A glossary is a useful tool in a book containing a lot of technical vocabulary. It is an alphabetical list of important terms, with explanations and definitions. It is not a substitute for explaining them at first occurrence in the text. A glossary should also not be an excuse to complicate the jargon unnecessarily.

An index makes information accessible by pointing to all the specific places in a book where pertinent information appears. The most basic type of index is composed entirely of main entries, with no subentries, but most publications benefit from an index with subentries. Main headings are the words the reader is likely to look for when consulting the index. Subheadings are used to make the information easier to find, keeping the headings from being followed by long lists of page numbers. text.

Make sure every reference in the text tallies with the references list or bibliography at the end of the work, especially the date of publication.

Author

• When the same author has published more than one cited work in the same year, you can avoid ambiguity by adding ‘a’, ‘b’, etc. to the year of publication (Jones, 1999b).
• If there are two authors, give the surnames of both before the date. ‘…effects of positive reinforcement (De Vries and Magnon, 1995)’.
• For references with more than two authors, give the name of the first author, followed by ‘et al’, in the text (Jones et al, 2004) ‘Three investigations (Lloyd Evans et al, 1989).
• Separate different publications with a semicolon (Densch and Lindberg, 1997; Ribero et al, 2000).
• If there are references by two different authors with the same surname, avoid ambiguity by including their initials in the text reference: (P. Blanc, 1986; L. Blanc, 1978).

Organisation as author

• If the work has been produced by an organisation (say, Eurostat) and the author’s name is not given, use the name of the organisation in place of the author’s name (Eurostat, 2002).
• Use the abbreviated form of such organisations if possible when citing them in the text: (ILO, 1998), and list them alphabetically by the abbreviated form in the list of references. However, the full name should be given in brackets in the references list: ILO (International Labour Organisation), The future of urban employment, Geneva, ILO, 1998.
• Note that where there is no accepted abbreviation for an organisation (e.g. European Commission) you must write out the name of the organisations in full (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2001).

Unpublished works

• For unpublished theses, use the form: ‘The work of Rogers (unpublished thesis, 1995) has led us to query…’ Give more details in the list of references.
• For works you know are in the process of being published, use the form: (Cappelli, in press).
• In the list of references, give as many details as possible. When your manuscript is in proof, remember to check whether the work has been published yet. If so, update the reference both in your text and in your list of references!

Page numbers

• Only include the page numbers in the reference if this is helpful for the reader: (Smyth, 2002, pp. 31–35). The correct range connector here is an en dash.
• If different parts of a document are cited at different points in the text, give the appropriate page or section numbers in the text. ‘Vasquez (2002, p. 73) shows’.

Supply all the necessary bibliographical information when you submit your manuscript. Make sure the information is accurate and consistent. Incomplete entries should be picked up at the production stage by an editor who will compile a list of queries before the manuscript goes for typesetting. Dealing with such lists of queries inevitably slows down production, so providing a full copy and accurate references from the start will greatly increase efficiency.

References to ETF publications require particular attention. The ETF’s name in full comes after the author’s name. See also the sample entries below.

Include a reference for each work mentioned in the manuscript. Remember works mentioned in illustrations, tables and captions.

Separate each element in the entry with a comma (see samples further down).

Author

• List references in alphabetical order of author.
• Use the form: ‘Smith, D.G., Brown, A., and Eliot, F.’
• For works with two authors, give the names of both. If there are more than two authors, just give the first author followed by ‘et al’.
• To mention the translator or editor, use the form ‘(trans. G. Fraser)’ or ‘(P. Hordern ed.). Use ‘ed.’ if there is one editor and ‘eds’ if there are more than one. The latter is spelt without a full stop because the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the word.

Title of work

• Put the title of a book or journal in italics. Put the title of articles, papers or chapters of a book in quotation marks.
• Use lower case for all words in title, except first word and proper names.
• Give journal titles in full and avoid acronyms unless they are well known.
• Treat the spelling of titles as a quotation and do not change them to the house style! This means retaining American spelling in the original entry, e.g. International Labor Review.
• To distinguish the volume, use the form ‘Vol. 1’. (Note: capital ‘V’ and full stop.)
• If the edition is not the first edition, use the form ‘(2nd edn)’ ‘(revised edn)’.

Name of publisher

• Use the simplest form, e.g. ‘Sage’ not ‘Sage Publications Ltd’.
• It is important to note that the ‘official’ publisher of European Union bodies such as the ETF and the European Commission is the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities in Luxembourg and this should be mentioned in the entry (see samples below) In the case of official or working documents, such as the COM series, the entry may simply cite European Commission, Brussels, as the publisher.

Place of publication

• This is found on the title page of the book.
• If the book is still in the process of publication, add ‘(in press.)’ as the last item (following the place of publication).
• If the title page gives more places of publication, use the first city as the place of publication.
• There is no need to give this if it is obvious from the publisher’s name but watch for titles published by branches abroad, such as ‘Oxford University Press, New York’.

Date of publication

• Follow the year mention by ‘a’, ‘b’ if you are citing more than one item published by the same author in the same year.

Page numbers (if necessary or available)

• When referring to a particular chapter or paper or section in a book, give the page numbers.
• Give the full range of relevant page numbers, e.g. ‘49–50’, not just the first page.
• Insert ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ before the page numbers, e.g. ‘pp. 9–11’ or ‘p. 33’.

(Note the indentation in each line and the differences in quotation marks!)

 Noe, R. et al, Human resource management: gaining a competitive advantage, 2nd edition, McGraw Hill, Boston, 1997.

 Scharpf, F.W. and Schmidt, V.A. (eds.), Welfare and work in the open economy, volume I: From vulnerability to competitiveness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

Complete book

Part of a book

 Regini, M., ‘Social pacts in the European Commission: report on industrial relations in Europe’, in Biagi, M. (ed.), Towards a European model of industrial relations? – Building on the first report of the European Commission, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2001, p. 163.

 Abraham, K.G., ‘Restructuring the employment relationship: The growth of market-mediated work arrangements’, in Abraham, K.G, and McKersie R.B., New developments in the labor market: towards a new institutional paradigm, Harvill, Cambridge (Mass), 1990, p. 85.

Article in a periodical

 Traxler, F., ‘Collective bargaining in the OECD: developments, preconditions and effects’, European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1998, pp. 207-26.

 Swank, D., ‘Funding the welfare state: Globalisation and the taxation of business in advanced market economies’, Political Studies, No. 46, 1998, pp. 671-92.

ETF or European Commission publication

 Masson J. R., European Training Foundation, Thirteen years of vocational education and training reform in the acceding and candidate countries, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2003.

 European Commission, Employment in Europe 2001: recent trends and prospects, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2001.

 European Commission, Increasing labour force participation and promoting active ageing, COM (2002) 9 final, Brussels, 2002.

Foreign language publication

 Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, Plan de acción para el empleo del Reino de España, Madrid, 1998.

 Fagan, C., O’Reilly, J., and Rubery, J., ‘Le temps partiel au Pays-Bas, Allemagne et Royaume-Uni: un nouveau contract social entre les sexes?’ in R. Silvera (ed.), Les nouvelles frontières de l’égalité: hommes et femmes sur le marché du travail, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, 1998. pp. 263–76.

 Weber, W., ‘Erfolgs- und Vermögensbeteiligung’ in Handwörterbuch des personalwesens, E. Gaugler and W. Weber (eds.), 2nd edition, Schäffer-Poeschel, Stuttgart, 1992.

Unpublished work or work in production

 Esping-Andersen, G., ‘Welfare states at the end of the century: the impact of labour market, family and demographic change’, Paper given at the OECD Conference ‘Beyond 2000: the New Social Policy Agenda’, 12–13 November 1996 (unpublished).