A-Z House Style Guide
- capacity building #
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Avoid using, especially in supporter communications. Capacity building implies a transaction from people with more power to people with less; it is also jargon that is not often used by most people outside international development circles. It is much better to be more specific and descriptive, such as sharing learning and knowledge, community organising and movement building, community-led change and investing in capacity.
- capitalisation #
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Seasons (summer, winter) stay lower case.
Headlines: if two words, capitalise both words eg Washing Feet. If more than two words, only capitalise the first word eg We are family.
Song titles, products, packs book names and so on (ie names of things): capitalise all but transition words, and use italics eg Washing Feet, Diamonds on the Inside, Mean Bean Challenge.
Exception: if we are part of a larger campaign, we will write its name according to what has been decided by the group.
Exception: Use title case for Google Ads copy.
See also job titles.
See also italics.
- Central African Republic (CAR) #
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A country in central Africa.
Use the Central African Republic (CAR) when mentioned the first time, and ‘the CAR’ thereafter.
Use ‘the’ as it’s how most people would speak about the country, and so will help orientate the reader.
- Central America #
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Note capitals. Central America refers to the countries of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Compare Latin America.
- children/young people/babies #
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Refer to children, not kids.
Refer to babies or young children rather than infants, where possible.
Refer to young, not youth/s or teen/s (‘youth group’ is fine).
Teenager can be ok as long as it doesn’t sound patronising or disrespectful in context.
Avoid terms such as ‘young man’, ‘young lady’ and so on, as it can sound patronising and makes us (the Tearfund voice) sound like we’re about 100 years old.
Be inclusive and respectful, and use plain English.
- Christian festivals #
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Capitalise Christian festivals such as Easter, Harvest, Advent and so on. NB these words should not be capitalised when used in other contexts eg ‘Ruth is hoping for a good harvest.’ ‘Download our free Harvest church resources.’
- Christian/Christianity #
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Note caps, we always capitalise when referring to a religion or a person’s religion eg Christian/Christianity/Jew/Jewish/Judaism/Muslim/Islam/Sikh/Sikhism/Hindu/Hinduism and so on.
- Church and Community Transformation (CCT) #
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This is one of Tearfund’s three main priorities.
Always make sure the outcome of CCT is explained, and that we don’t talk about it in a jargonistic way.
CCT is the overall outcome, but there are a number of CCT methodologies including Church and Community Mobilisation (CCM) and Umoja.
- church/Church #
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Use a lower case ‘c’ when referring to the worldwide/national network of congregations: The church is the body of Christ; a group of church leaders; the church’s attitude towards marriage.
Use a capital ‘C’ when referring to a) a specific group of Christians who meet together, consider themselves to be a unit and define themselves by a collective church name: St Mark’s Church, Battersea Rise; the Kale Heywet Church, b) a particular denomination: the Church of England, the Catholic Church.
Wherever possible define churches by the people who make them up. Remember this when describing the church as a corporate body and avoid personifying the church: No: ‘A church in Scotland which has been inspired…’ Yes: ‘The congregation in one church in Scotland has been inspired…’
- Clichés and Christian-ease #
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Avoid at all cost. Try to think up a new expression. Christian clichés are still clichés. Don’t overuse mountain-top moments or desert experiences.
God’s heart for the poor and similar clichés do not convey the required message in readers’ minds. They connect to the stored ‘meaning’ which has already been assigned to them in readers’ minds.
- clutter #
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Don’t slow the pace by overusing adjectives and adverbs. Make your nouns and verbs express as much as possible. Avoid ‘very’ and ‘remarkably’. Cut: ‘The partner took an approach that was pragmatic and effective’ and change to ‘The partner’s approach was pragmatic and effective.’ And cut: ‘I was impressed by the partner’s excellent approach.’ Change to: ‘The partner’s approach was excellent.’
- co-op #
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Hyphen: a printing workers’ co-op. If you are writing about the bank, use its full name:
The Co-operative Bank.
- collective nouns #
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In general, when an organisation is the subject of a sentence, use a singular verb, eg Tearfund is growing… The Kale Heywet Church has decided…You’d then go on with: We are giving thanks… They believe that…
- colons #
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Single space after the colon, eg He saw the bus speed past: he knew he would have a tiring walk home.
- combative language #
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Combative language is the use of words that are associated with violence, fighting or warfare. We should avoid using such language for example, ‘fighting global poverty’ or ‘combating climate change’. It is better to use less aggressive language such as tackling global poverty or addressing climate change.
- compounds #
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Where compounds can be written with or without a hyphen, Tearfund house style is generally to write without the hyphen, so no hyphen in rebuild, ongoing, online, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, upmarket, waterlogged etc. Only use hyphens to add clarity and make reading easier, eg an attempt to re-create his former life… Re-press the garment.
- comprise #
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Needs no ‘of’. The alliance comprises ten groups or The alliance consists of ten groups.
- cooperate, cooperation, cooperative #
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No hyphen: The government refused to cooperate… economic and trade cooperation…We were doing our best to be cooperative… a farmers’ cooperative.
- creation #
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Lower case ‘c’. Be careful about saying ‘millions of years ago’ because we have many seven-day creationists in our supporter base. Also consider using other terms such as the wider world, the wider natural world, the whole creation, rather than simply creation.
- cross/Cross #
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Use a capital ‘C’ when referring to salvation generally: for all of us, the Cross means that… . Use a lower case ‘c’ when referring to a specific cross: Then they nailed Jesus to a cross.
- currencies #
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£34 million, £2 billion, $10 (US$10 on first mention), 6 € (sse EUR if your keyboard doesn’t have the symbol.) Add context: Jan earns just 90p a day; a day’s food in Jan’s country costs 20p. If space is tight, use £10m, £6bn.
Convert US$ and other currencies to pounds: We calculated that of all the people living on less than 50 pence a day…
Exceptions: where the US$ refer to a grant or figure from the US Government / donor, then give pound equivalent also: The US Government has pledged a further $10 million (£6 million) to HIV related work.