Numerous authors within partner organisations can be involved in course development. Our goal is to keep the written material across the site as consistent as possible. 

The Oxford English Dictionary is our dictionary of choice and British spellings of common words are always preferred to American spellings. A conversational tone of voice is also preferred.

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

A

Abbreviations

Write words in full on the first appearance, for example, World Wide Web Consortium (not W3C). Unless: 

• the abbreviation or acronym is more familiar than the full form (eg BBC, CIA, UNESCO)
• the full form would provide little illumination (eg DNA). 

For names with initials, avoid points and spaces (eg JK Rowling and WH Smith). 

When abbreviating a phrase, rather than a name or title, use lower case without points or spaces (eg, lbw, mph).

Academic language

Avoid any references to the following terms, which have specific meaning in academia: 

• award
• credit (except when discussing microcredentials, degrees, which lead to academic credit)
• distinction
• lecture
• merit
• module (FutureLearn courses have weeks, activities, and steps) 
• pass (the FutureLearn term is ‘complete’)
• qualification
• unit

American vs British English

Use British spelling; the one exception is "program" not "programme".

Ampersands (&)

Use the word ‘and’ in all circumstances. 

Exceptions: unless citing the name of a company or organisation that uses one (Marks & Spencer), or linking two or more authors within a bibliography. Our subject titles also use ampersands.

Apostrophes

Apostrophes are used primarily to indicate possession, or that letters are missing from a word. It’s easy to misuse apostrophes. The most frequent errors are:

• confusing "its" (belonging to it) and "it’s" (short for "it is" or "it has")
• inserting an apostrophe in plurals. For example, “DVDs” or “1990s” are correct; "DVD’s" or "1990’s" are wrong
• inserting an apostrophe before the S of a word (often a plural) that ends in S: "flies" not "fly’s", "videos" not "video’s"

Plural nouns that don’t end in S use an apostrophe and S in the possessive: "children’s games", "people’s republic".

When you use the possessive of a word ending in S, both "Wales’s stadium" and "Wales’ stadium" are correct, and likewise "Charles’s birthday" and "Charles’ birthday". Be guided by the pronunciation — say it aloud and see what sounds correct. For example, you would say "Hedges’" not "Hedges’s".

B 

Bullet points

If the sentence before the bullets ends with a colon (like this one):

• start each point with a lower case letter (Word might try to autocorrect you)
• don’t punctuate at the end of each line 
• finish the last one with a full stop.

If the bullets are a self-contained list (ie there’s no sentence ending in a colon before them) style them like the following example.

• Capital letter at the start of each one.
• And a full stop at the end of each one.

If your bullet points are all questions, start each point with a capital letter (even if you’ve got a colon), and finish each point with a question mark.

Brackets (parentheses)

Round brackets (parentheses) should be used for digressions, explanations or translations within sentences.

If the end of a sentence is within brackets, put the full stop outside the closing bracket (like this sentence now). 

(If a complete sentence is enclosed within brackets, put the full stop inside the closing bracket like this).

If the text within brackets follows a word that would normally be followed by a comma, place the comma after the closing bracket. For example:

Though she is still very young (only eight years old), she has extensive knowledge of fossils.

Square brackets should be used for insertions in quotations — that is, an editor’s remark that is not part of the author’s original text or speech: "Professor Dumbledore said: ‘Harry [Potter] has my full support.’" If you cannot avoid using brackets within brackets, use square brackets for the internal set.

C

Capital letters

Only use capital letters for proper nouns and not to emphasise a word in body text.

Currency

Use your local currency as the standard currency. Remember that learners will be from all over the world, so consider including international conversions where appropriate. Abbreviate million to m and billion to bn, eg: £50m, $24bn, see also Numbers

D

Dates

Dates should always be written in the following format:

7 December 2011 (day month year, with no commas, and no ‘st’, ‘nd’, ‘rd’ or ‘th’).

See also Numbers

Dashes

There are two kinds of dash: en dash and em dash. The en dash (–) is slightly longer than a hyphen (-) and should be used when describing a range or span of numbers, eg 2012–2013.

Where possible, avoid the em dash; they aren’t commonly used punctuation and could confuse people who are not fluent in English. It can be used similarly to commas or other punctuation to separate clauses, eg "The course has started—three months after it was supposed to—and it’s progressing well."

Direct speech

Use double quotation marks for direct speech. Place punctuation inside direct quotation marks.

“Can we please take this meeting outside?”

“I knew I was going to enjoy this course.”

“Can we please take this meeting outside?”

“I knew I was going to enjoy this course.”

Use single quotation marks within a set of double quotation marks eg

“Shout ‘bingo’ as loud as you can,” said James.

See also Quotation marks

E

eg

means 'for example' and should be written without stops.

Exclamation marks

Avoid exclamation marks. They should only be used after an exclamation, eg:

Blimey! I can't believe how many exclamation marks there are in FutureLearn emails.

Ellipses

Ellipses are three stops that are often used to indicate a break in the text or a thought trailing off (eg “He wasn’t sure if the course was worth it . . .”). Each stop should have a space either side of it, unless it is next to a quotation mark. Ellipses can also be used in quotations to omit unneeded material (eg “According to a Shakespeare scholar, ‘Shakespeare was the greatest linguist . . . and the most creative writer of the age’”).

Ellipses should not be used to indicate the reader should read on (eg "Check out our great courses . . .")

Emails

Write 'email' rather than 'e-mail'. 

F

Forums

FutureLearn has discussions where learners post comments, not forums, boards or message boards.

Full stops 

Headers and titles should not feature full stops unless they are made up of more than one sentence.

H

Headers

The names of steps should be written in sentence case. Do not capitalise each word eg:

Put your learning into practice 

A close reading of Twelfth Night 

Hyphens

Adjectives formed from two or more words should be hyphenated, eg:

right-wing groups (but the right wing of the party)

70-year-old judge

state-of-the-union message

I

ie

means 'in other words' and should be written without stops.

Internet

'Internet' should be written without a capital letter unless it is at the beginning of a sentence.

The internet is a valuable resource for lifelong learning.

Internet use is on the rise among over-60s.

J

Job titles

Titles should only be capitalised when associated with a name. Otherwise, use lower case, eg:

Chief Executive George Smith drinks black coffee.

The chief executives of the two companies met before the merger took place.

K

L

Learners

Refer to people on the course as ‘learners’ not ‘students’. ‘Students’ is used for people on degrees only. Where possible, use ‘you’ to refer directly to the reader.

Links

Links should briefly describe the URL they target, eg:

✔️ BBC news article about Somali piracy

✔️ There are some useful articles about overfishing on the BBC.

The visible link should not be a URL or an instruction:

❌ BBC news article about Somali piracy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10349155

❌ There are some useful articles about overfishing on the BBC. Click here.

Include a full stop after the link if it forms the end of a sentence.

When linking out to additional resources to supplement course steps, use the ‘related link’ functionality, which creates links under the heading ‘See also’.

M

MOOCs

Avoid using the term ‘MOOC’ in your course content and course emails.

FutureLearn uses the term ‘courses’ rather than ‘MOOCs’. This is because the term ‘MOOC’ is not widely known, except in certain corporate and academic contexts. In contrast, the meaning of ‘open online course’ is clear to any reader.

N

Numbers

Within your copy, numbers under 11 should be spelled out: one, two, three, and so on. Use figures for 11 upwards.

first to tenth centuries

20th century, 21st century

20th-century ideas

in 100 years’ time

a 29-year-old man

a man in his 20s

20th anniversary

Course weeks and step numbers are a special case. These are written with figures when referring to a specific week or step, and the word 'week' or 'step' should be capitalised, eg:

Week 1, Week 4, Step 3.6, Step 5.2.

In all other contexts, the words 'week' and 'step' don't need capital letters, eg:

last week, in this step.

Ordinal numbers under 11 should be spelled out, eg:

the third week, the second step.

See also Dates, Currency

O

online

Write 'online' rather than 'on-line'. Do not use a capital letter, except at the beginning of a sentence or in a title.

Oxford comma

Use the Oxford comma.

Harry bought apples, oranges, and bananas.

Learners want to be informed, engaged, and inspired on a course.

P

Podcast

An audio step or a link to an audio file should not be referred to as a podcast.

A podcast is an audio series with regular installments received by subscribers automatically.

Personal titles

Titles like Dr, Mr, and Mrs should be written without stops.

PS

Use ‘PS’ for trailing thoughts at the end of an email, after the signature. Use capitals, and do not use stops.

Percentages

Use figures and the percentage symbol, eg:

100%, 5%, 0.3%

Q

Quotation marks

Use single quotation marks if you are separating a word or phrase from the rest of the sentence, eg:

‘They’re’, ‘their’, and ‘there’ are easily confused because they’re homophones.

His new book is called ‘The Magic of Online Learning’.

See also Direct speech

S

Singular and plural

Treat collective nouns as singular, unless it confounds meaning. For example, ‘the team has’ rather than ‘the team have’.

For words ending in ‘o’ there are no hard-and-fast rules, though the principle is that with most words just add an ‘s’. There are exceptions. There are a few general patterns, too. If a word is a short version of a longer word, just add an ‘s’: memos, photos, demos. The same applies to words that clearly have their roots in another language, such as stilettos, calypsos, chinos, bistros, casinos. And where a word ends with two vowels just add an ‘s’, as in videos and cameos.

The best way of checking is to take the first version offered by the Oxford English Dictionary. So we would use: avocados, banjos, flamingos, ghettos, manifestos, mementos. Those taking an ‘e’ include: buffaloes, cargoes, dominoes, echoes, embargoes, haloes, heroes, mangoes, mottoes, potatoes, tomatoes, torpedoes, vetoes, volcanoes, tornadoes and mosquitoes (though Tornados and Mosquitos when talking about the planes).

Students vs learners

Refer to people on the course as ‘learners’ not ‘students’. ‘Students’ is used for people on degrees only. Where possible, use ‘you’ to refer directly to the reader.

T

Tautologies

Avoid tautologies, whereby the same thing is said twice in the same sentence using different words. Some common examples are:

advance warning

armed gunmen

universal panacea

she has given birth to a baby boy

mutual cooperation

fixed phone line

local resident

crew members

past history

exact replica

pre-conditions

pre-planned

Times

Use the 24-hour clock, eg 09:30, 14:00.

To make timings clear for international learners, give specific times for events in UK time using GMT, or GMT+1 during British Summer Time.

You can join our Google Hangout on Monday 12 December at 20:00 GMT

We will be live streaming a panel discussion on Wednesday 7 May at 20:00 GMT+1

Titles

Use title case for titles, ie capital letters at the beginning of principal words. This applies to titles of FutureLearn courses as well as any titles mentioned in course text. Do not use capital letters for prepositions, articles or conjunctions unless they are the first word of the title. Do not use italics. See also Headers.

U

Unlimited

Unlimited should be written with a capital letter, including when it is used to describe a group of learners.

Upgrade

A learner upgrades a course, rather than upgrading on a course.

V

W

Website

Write ‘website’ rather than ‘web-site’ or ‘Website’ (unless starting a sentence).

World wide web

‘world wide web’, rather than ‘World Wide Web’.

Weeks

FutureLearn courses are divided into weeks, activities, and steps, not units, modules, lessons or lectures. See also Numbers.

Y

You vs we

Address learners as ‘you’:

On this course, you will learn how the world was formed.

Z

Z vs S

When in doubt, favour the UK spelling of words and use s instead of z, eg customise, organisation. See also American vs British English.