Council of Europe English Style Guide
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2013 Better English and style, STYLE GUIDE in print and online 2013 Better English and style, STYLE GUIDE in print and online Editorial Unit Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP) Council of Europe French edition: Typomémo – Mémento typographique français 2013 The Council of Europe English style guide and the Typomémo – Mémento typographique français are available in electronic form (PDF) on the DGA Intranet pages: – on the DLOG portal, in the “Useful links” rubric; – on the Publications production page, in the “Theme Files” rubric. They are also available in the Administrative Handbook. A paper version can be printed using the in-house SCRIB printing system. For complete instructions, please consult the guide “How to print the English style guide using SCRIB”, available in the Administrative handbook. Design and layout: Documents and Publications Production Department (SPDP) © Council of Europe, June 2013 Printed at the Council of Europe Contents Alphabetical listing quick access links: A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 FAQ – Frequently asked questions .......................................................................................................................... 7 1. Sources and reference works ............................................................................................................. 7 1.1. Main reference works ........................................................................................................ 7 1.2. Secondary sources .............................................................................................................. 7 1.3. Other publications .............................................................................................................. 7 1.4. Complementary online sources .......................................................................................... 8 2. Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................... 8 2.1. Initials ................................................................................................................................ 8 2.2. Acronyms ........................................................................................................................... 8 2.3. Official texts ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.4. Mr, Dr, Ltd, eds, etc. .......................................................................................................... 9 2.5. Measurements .................................................................................................................... 9 2.6. op. cit., ibid., cf., p., pp., etc. .............................................................................................. 9 3. Bibliographies.................................................................................................................................... 9 3.1. General ............................................................................................................................. 10 3.2. “Bibliography” and/or “References” ................................................................................ 10 3.3. Author–date references in the text ................................................................................... 10 3.4. Niceties of presenting bibliographies ............................................................................... 11 4. Capitalisation ................................................................................................................................... 12 4.1. Council of Europe style ................................................................................................... 12 4.2. State: initial capital or lower case?................................................................................... 12 4.3. Initial capitals in bibliographies and reference lists ......................................................... 13 5. Word division .................................................................................................................................. 13 5.1. Hyphens and hyphenation ................................................................................................ 13 5.2. Syllable division .............................................................................................................. 13 5.3. Morphological division .................................................................................................... 13 5.4. Our recommendations ...................................................................................................... 13 6. Dashes ............................................................................................................................................. 13 7. Lists ................................................................................................................................................. 14 8. Footnotes and endnotes ................................................................................................................... 14 8.1. Footnotes v. endnotes ....................................................................................................... 14 8.2. Style and formatting ......................................................................................................... 14 9. Numbers, figures, numerals ............................................................................................................. 15 9.1. House style ....................................................................................................................... 15 9.2. In general ......................................................................................................................... 15 9.3. Special cases and exceptions ............................................................................................ 15 10. Punctuation ...................................................................................................................................... 15 10.1. Quotation marks ............................................................................................................... 15 10.2. Square brackets ................................................................................................................ 16 10.3. Ellipses ............................................................................................................................. 16 10.4. Spaces .............................................................................................................................. 16 11. Spelling ............................................................................................................................................ 16 11.1. Hyphenation ..................................................................................................................... 16 11.2. Compound words ............................................................................................................. 17 12. Text formatting ................................................................................................................................ 17 12.1. Italics ................................................................................................................................ 17 12.2. Bold and underline ........................................................................................................... 17 12.3. Superscript, subscript ....................................................................................................... 17 Alphabetical listing ................................................................................................................................................ 19 Appendix 1a: 47 member states of the Council of Europe ..................................................................................... 40 Appendix 1b: states/parliaments observers to the Committee of Ministers and/or PACE ..................................... 42 Appendix 1c: other relevant states ......................................................................................................................... 43 Appendix 2: common acronyms ............................................................................................................................ 45 Appendix 3: commonly used foreign words, Latinisms and a few abbr. ............................................................... 49 3 Foreword The Council of Europe English style guide has been compiled for anyone who writes, prepares, translates, types, lays out, corrects, copy-edits or proofreads documents or publications for the Council of Europe, in-house or externally. It is intended to offer clear guidance on typographical, linguistic and stylistic issues and is based upon rules and standards used in the printing and publishing industries. The inherent challenge has been twofold: to summarise, in one volume, a number of useful rules and guidelines without reproducing information that can be easily found in dictionaries and in the reference works cited at the beginning of this guide (1. Sources and main reference works). The