Punctuation basics

Punctuation is used to help make sentences easier to understand. Punctuation should never get in the way of meaning or make sentences more confusing. Wherever possible, focus on refining the wording or structure of your sentences, before relying on punctuation to make them easier to understand. It’s better to have a few short, simple sentences, than one long sentence joined together with multiple commas and dashes.

Brackets

Brackets are used to separate one part of a sentence to the rest. They’re often used to add information. When using brackets, the key thing to remember is that the sentence must make sense without them. ‘Here’s an example of a sentence (with some extra information) that you might use’.

Do not use round brackets to refer to something that could either be singular or plural, like ‘Check which document(s) you need to send to DVLA.’

Always use the plural instead, as this will cover each possibility: ‘Check which documents you need to send to DVLA.’

The only acceptable use of square brackets in customer-facing content is for explanatory notes in reported speech:

“Thank you [Foreign Minister] Mr Smith.”

The only other use for square brackets is in internal documentation. You might use square brackets to highlight dynamic text. This is a piece of text that the system needs to auto populate. For example, when drafting a notification you might say ‘You’ve got a new help request from [first name last name]’. This lets the developers know what information to pull into that gap.

Hyphens

Hyphenate:

• re- words starting with e, like re-evaluate
• co-ordinate
• co-operate

Do not hyphenate:

• reuse
• reinvent
• reorder
• reopen
• email

Hyphens are also used when two adjectives are describing a noun: ‘a well-known business leader’ ‘a dog-friendly office’ ‘a 3-year deal’. If the descriptors come after the noun, they don’t need to be hyphenated: ‘this business leader is well known.’ ‘This office is dog friendly.’

You can also refer to The Guardian style guide for advice on hyphenation.

Semicolons

Use semicolons sparingly. If you’re not sure how to use them correctly, avoid them altogether. In most cases, it’s better to split a long sentence into two shorter sentences instead of trying to join them with a semi-colon.

Spaces

Use one space after a full stop, not 2.