Spelling and punctuation guidelines to help you write content for nsw.gov.au. It includes preferred spellings – including capitalisation and hyphenation – as well as punctuation conventions.
A-Z of preferred spelling and terms
A-G
A
- app – not application
- Australian Government (for national government of Australia) – not Government, Commonwealth Government or federal government
- Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)
C
- compulsory third party (CTP) insurance
- CTP Green Slip
D
- driver licence – not driver's licence or license
- NSW Driver Licence – upper case when referring to the actual product
- drop-down
E
- E-Toll, E-Toll Account, myE-Toll
- EFTPOS
F
- fact sheet – not factsheet or fact-sheet
- federal government – use Australian Government
G
- government
- Green Slip
H-P
H
- homepage – not home page
I
- internet – not Internet
J
- Justice of the Peace
L
- licence (noun)
- driver licence
- license (verb)
- to license, licensed premises, licensing authority
- local council
- local government
- local government area in the first instance, then LGA (never Local Government Area)
- log in (verb)
- Log in with your username
- Log in to your account
- login (noun)
- Your login is your username and password
- login (adjective)
- You have used 3 of your 5 login attempts
M
- mail – use post
- Member of Parliament – never use MP
N
- NSW Seniors Card
- number plates
O
- online
- on-site (adjective), on site
- On-site parking is available
- An officer will be on site tomorrow
P
- passport, passport size photographs
- Police Event Number
- post – not mail
- post to, send by post.
- postcode (one word)
- practice (noun)
- doctor's practice
- Take the boating knowledge practice quiz
- practise (verb)
- To practise for the Driver Knowledge Test, you can download a PDF of questions
- program – not programme
Q-Z
R
- registration, rego
- roll-out (noun)
S
- service centre
- initial capitals when part of a service centre's name – Blacktown Service Centre
- Service NSW
- statewide – not state wide or state-wide
- statutory declaration
T
- terms and conditions – not T&Cs
- trade plates
W
- web page
- website – not site or portal
- wi-fi – not wifi, WiFi or Wi-fi
- written-off (adjective)
- written-off vehicle
- written off (verb)
- re-register a light vehicle that’s been written off
Punctuation
Apostrophes
Use apostrophes in place of missing letters in contractions.
- can't
- don't.
Use apostrophes to show possession.
- your vehicle's number plate (singular)
- your customers' views (plural)
- a week's time (singular)
- in 2 weeks' time (plural).
Don't use apostrophes in plural abbreviations or decades.
- 1990s – not 1990's
- PhDs – not PhD's.
Ampersands (&)
Don't use an ampersand in a sentence, unless it's part of an organisation's name.
Commas
If there are too many commas in a sentence, consider using shorter sentences or a bulleted list.
En dash
Use an en dash (–), and not a hyphen, to explain, show an abrupt change or set a phrase apart within a sentence (similar to brackets).
Learn how to type an en dash and an em dash.
Hyphens
Aim for minimal hyphenation.
Examples:
- Use ‘permit holder’ rather than ‘permit-holder’.
- Use compound words where the usage is common enough: ‘wellbeing’ over ‘well-being’, ‘startup’ over ‘start-up’.
Exclamation marks
Don't use exclamation marks.
Full stops
Don't add a full stop if an email address is at the end of a sentence.
Do use a full stop for other kinds of links that end sentences. The link text should form part of the sentence.
Don't use full stops on:
- contractions such as Mr, Dr or Mrs
- abbreviations
- acronyms and initialisms.
Need any more help?
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