1 STYLE GUIDE DOCUMENT ID TITLE JACS Guide 31 JACS Style Guide REVISION PREPARED BY DATE PREPARED 1.2 JACS Media Manager 23 February 2017 TYPE APPROVED BY DATE APPROVED Guide David Pryce 1 May 2017 REVIEW DATE 1 May 2019 David Pryce 2 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide Contents 1. THE FUNDAMENTALS 5 1.1 INTRODUCTION 5 1.2 TEMPLATES 6 1.3 POLICY WRITING 7 1.4 WRITING EMAILS 7 1.5 WRITING FOR THE WEB 8 1.6 WEB ACCESSIBILITY 8 1.7 WEASEL WORDS 9 1.8 NON-DISCRIMINATORY LANGUAGE 9 1.9 SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 9 2.0 GRAMMAR 10 2.1 ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE 10 2.2 APOSTROPHES 10 2.3 ARCHAISMS 11 2.4 CAPITALS 11 2.5 COLONS 12 2.6 COMMAS 12 2.7 COMPRISE AND CONSIST OF 13 2.8 FULL STOPS 13 2.9 HOWEVER 14 2.10 PARAGRAPHS 14 SENTENCE AND PARAGRAPH LENGTH 14 2.11 PLURALS 15 2.12 PREFIXES 16 2.13 QUOTATIONS AND QUOTATION MARKS 16 2.14 SEMICOLONS 17 2.15 SINGULAR PROPER NOUNS 17 2.16 SPELLING 17 VARIABLE SPELLINGS 17 2.17 TROUBLESOME WORDS 18 2.18 USING THAT AND WHICH 21 3.0 STYLE 21 3.1 AMPERSAND 21 3.2 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 21 3.3 ALIGNMENT 22 3.4 BRACKETS 22 3.5 BULLET POINTS AND NUMBERED LISTS 22 3.6 CONTRACTIONS 23 3.7 CURRENCY 24 3.8 DASHES 24 Review Date: May 2019 Page 2 of 42 3 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide 3.9 ELLIPSIS POINTS 24 3.10 DATES 25 3.11 DRAFT DOCUMENTS 25 3.12 FONT 25 3.13 FOOTNOTES AND ENDNOTES 25 3.14 GRAPHS 25 3.15 HEADINGS 25 3.16 HONORIFICS, FORMS OF ADDRESS AND RANK 26 3.17 INTERNET ADDRESSES 29 3.18 ITALICS 29 3.19 LAST AND PAST 29 3.20 LOGOS 29 3.21 MARGINS 29 3.22 NON-BREAKING SPACES 29 3.23 NUMBERS 30 3.24 ORDER OF STATES AND TERRITORIES 30 3.25 OVER 30 3.26 SIGNATORIES 31 3.27 INFINITIVES AND SPLIT INFINITIVES 31 3.28 SYMBOLS 31 3.29 TABLES 31 3.30 TIME OF DAY 32 3.31 UNITS OF MEASUREMENT 32 4.0 CORRESPONDENCE – INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL 32 4.1 TYPES OF CORRESPONDENCE 32 4.2 LETTERHEAD AND OTHER TEMPLATES 33 4.3 ADDRESS BLOCK 33 4.4 CONTACT DETAILS 34 4.5 CORRESPONDENCE PREPARED FOR THE MINISTER 34 4.6 ENCLOSURES 34 4.7 HEADERS AND FOOTERS 34 4.8 MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS 35 4.9 FIRST PARAGRAPH 35 4.10 SECOND AND FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS 35 4.11 LAST PARAGRAPH 36 4.12 SALUTATION 36 4.13 SUBJECT HEADING 36 4.14 SIGN-OFF LINE 36 4.15 SIGNATURE BLOCKS 36 4.16 SHORT LETTERS 37 4.17 DOS !ND DON͛TS FOR MINISTERIAL CORRESPONDENCE 37 4.18 BRIEFS 38 5.0 CITATIONS AND REFERENCES 39 Review Date: May 2019 Page 3 of 42 4 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide 5.1 BOOKS 39 5.2 PERIODICALS 39 5.3 COURT DECISIONS 40 5.4 LEGISLATION 40 5.5 A WEB SITE 41 6.0 REVIEW 41 PROPERTIES 42 Review Date: May 2019 Page 4 of 42 5 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide 1. THE FUNDAMENTALS Working for the Justice and Community Safety Directorate demands writing skills of the highest order in support of our strategic goals of delivering a safe community, and fair and accessible justice system. Effective writing and good communications are the hallmark of professionalism. Ineffective or poor communication and writing can also negatively impact on our reputation. The purpose of this Style Guide is to provide a clear set of principles and guides to be consistently applied across the JACS Directorate. By adopting a common style guide, correspondence and communications both within and from the directorate is likely to be more successful in getting its message across and be less likely to require changes or revision, or to reflect poorly on our reputation. Good communications and writing will help ensure we can effectively implement government policies and programs, and demonstrate we are a responsive and professional government Directorate. It is therefore the responsibility of all staff and employees to use the style guide to ensure accuracy, brevity and clarity of message. Supervisors should ensure that the appropriate style is being applied and that the content of the correspondence is factually correct and meets corporate standards, and verify its quality for clearance. Managers and Senior Executives should not need to be focussed on editing or style. Rather, their focus needs to be on ensuring the communications method supports the outcomes that it is trying to achieve. 1.1 INTRODUCTION Effective communication underpins everything we do across JACS. Whether it is briefing Ministers or senior officials, seeking government approval for initiatives or activities, to provide important information or responses to others, or to respond to inquiries from key stakeholders. In our everyday working lives, there are many communication channels but the primary format remains in writing (ie briefs, reports and emails). By conveying a message in plain English using a clear, succinct and appropriate style, the author is more likely to achieve the outcome being sought – that is to persuade or convince another person to do something (ie to note the information, to agree to an action, or to respond to a request). The style guide is intended to assist by providing a common approach that can be used by all staff and employees, and form the basis for consistency in approach across all levels of the Directorate. When communicating a message, it is always best to start with the end in mind and to consider your final audience. Who are you actually communicating to (ie a Minister, the Director-General, a colleague or key stakeholder)? Individual style preferences create confusion for staff, as well as inconsistency, and cause inefficiencies to occur around the processing and clearance of corporate communication processes. By applying this style guide, it is anticipated that correspondence will be of a high standard, consistent in style and quality, and help JACS to achieve its corporate objectives as well as to maintain a strong reputation for the quality of our advice and work. We write to tell someone something they should know and/or to persuade them to do something. Two critical tasks for the writer are thinking about the task and editing the product. All writers should ask themselves four questions before they start writing a response. Why am I writing this? Who is my audience? What do I want to achieve? What will work best with this particular audience (style/tone/succinctness)? Review Date: May 2019 Page 5 of 42 6 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide Keep the essential !͛s in mind: Accuracy – double check your work. Brevity – no clutter or unnecessary repetition; no long words when short ones will do. Clarity – make your point; your readers should know quickly what the document is about. A quick checklist Think before you write. You are writing for a reason and an audience. Start with the end product in mind. How would you respond to the audience? Put yourself in your audience͛s position/ Would they understand the message/s you are sending? How would you react to the message you are sending? Use familiar language that your readers will understand. It is not what you know; it is what your readers need to know. Don͛t assume they already have the knowledge/ Most importantly - Read and re-read what you have written. Writing, unlike speaking, offers you a second chance. Make the most of this. Consider asking another person to check your work. 1.2 TEMPLATES Templates can be accessed via Microsoft Word or the ACT Government Design and Branding Guidelines website. To access briefing templates when in Microsoft Word, go the Microsoft Office button on the top left of the screen/ Then click on ͚New͛, ͚My templates͛ and select the ͚JS͛ tab/ The briefing templates are named: A. DG-DDG rief Template0 B. Whole of Government Brief Template0 C. Ramsay Arrangements Brief D. Rattenbury Arrangements Brief E. Gentleman Ministerial Brief F. Berry Ministerial Brief G. Barr Arrangements Brief H. CM through JACS Minister Brief I. Assembly Templates. To ensure you are able to use spell check and activate the drop down boxes it is important to save the above documents as a ‘Word Document’ rather than the default 97-2003 Word document. You are able to change your settings in Microsoft word so that all documents will have a default setting to save documents as ͚word͛. To do this when in Microsoft Word, click on the Microsoft Office button on the top left of the screen and within the window click on ͚Word Options͛ in the bottom right/ lick on the ͚Save͛ option and in the new screen, use the drop down box to select ͚Word Document (*.docx)͛/ Select OK/ Review Date: May 2019 Page 6 of 42 7 ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate Style Guide When downloading material from Microsoft Word or the ACT Government Design and Branding Guidelines website do not save to your general drive. You should always download a new version each time. There are a number of templates available on the guidelines website. letterhead arrangements brief and speech event proposal media alert media release communications strategy government logos power point presentations. 1.3 POLICY WRITING Policy writing is made up of multiple directives referred to as policy statements. Here are some useful writing guidelines.