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Grammar and mechanics

Capitalisation​

  • Capitalise proper nouns: names of people, places, and organisations. Capitalise also geographic terms such as countries and cities, and historic episodes and events.
  • Use sentence case for all headlines and headings.
  • Don't use ALLCAPS unless you're writing an acronym.
  • For email addresses and website URLs, use all lowercase.

Punctuation​

Apostrophes​

  • To make a possessive from a noun that ends in -s, use only an apostrophe (no s).

Example: Matias' Moodle site runs on 4.3.

  • Pluralise acronyms by adding -s.

Example: These URLs are secure.

Ampersands​

  • Don't use an ampersand (&) or a plus sign (+) to mean 'and', unless it's used in a brand name.

Contractions​

  • Use contractions for common phrases, such as 'don't' or 'can't'.

Example: These passwords don't match. Example: Students can't see who marked their work.

Commas​

  • When writing lists, always use the Oxford comma.

Example: This includes user ID, role, and course ID.

Dashes and hyphens​

  • Use an em dash (—) with spaces before and after to offset an aside, and use an en dash (–) to connect a range of numbers or dates.

Example: The newest version of Moodle LMS —released last month— has had 200,000 downloads. There will be 200-250 attendees.

Exclamation marks​

  • Save exclamation marks for key moments in the user journey.
  • Don't use more than one exclamation mark.

Percentages​

  • With numbers, use '%' instead of the word 'percent'.

Example: You've completed 89% of the course.

Periods​

  • Don't user periods in country acronyms.

Example: Their headquarters are located in New York, USA.

Dates, numbers and currencies​

The Moodle software allows users to customise their dates, time and numbers format to their own region and preferences. This section covers the way in which we write dates, numbers and currencies outside of the software.

Dates, months, and years​

  • For long dates, use DD Month YYYY without any leading zeros.

Example: 21 December 1975

  • If you include the day of the week in a date, add a comma after the day.

Example: Friday, December 21

  • For days of the week, use the following abbreviations: Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun.

  • Try to avoid short dates; but if you use them, use DD/MM/YYYY without any leading zeros.

Example: 21/12/1975 or 21/3/2020

Time and time zones​

  • Write 'am' and 'pm' always in lowercase, with a non-breaking space (&nbsp) before them and with no periods between the letters.

Example: 2:00 pm, not 2:00pm

  • For times on the hour, include minutes.

Example: 6:00 pm, not 6 pm

  • Use the 12-hour or 24-hour system depending on the audience you're writing for. If you're writing for a global audience, use the 24-hour format as it's more clear and consistent.

  • If you're writing about a specific time that affects people worldwide (for example, down time for a site or a deadline for a contest), always include the name of the time zone. Or, even better, include more than one time zone.

Example: 'The contest will close at 4:00 pm AWST / 10:00 am CEST' and not 'The contest will close at 4:00 pm'.

Numbers, fractions, and units​

  • Spell out numbers if they're the first word in a sentence.

Example: Three days left to get early bird tickets.

  • To separate thousands and millions, use commas.

  • To indicate decimal points, use periods.

Example: 1,000 (one thousand); 3.14 (three point one four)

  • Always use a country code with phone numbers.

  • For units of measure, use lowercase letters and a non-breaking space (&nbsp) before the unit.

Example: 121 km, not 121km.

  • When you write a decimal, include a leading zero before the decimal point.

Example: 0.75, not .75.

Currencies and money​

  • For currencies, put the symbol before the amount, with no space in between.

Example: €300, not 300€

  • Don't use periods in currency abbreviations.

Example: AUD, not A.U.D

  • Spell out thousand, million, billion, and trillion in full.

Example: 3 million users, not 3M users. Example 10 thousand resources, not 10K resources.

Emojis​

  • Emojis can make your writing more fun, but don't go overboard with them 😉.
  • Be mindful when using emojis that might convey negative connotations or meanings, such as 😡 😒 🤢 👹 ☠️.