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Editorial style guide: J

Editorial guidance for terms beginning with 'J'. Use the style guide to help make your content clear, accessible, and consistent with the rest of the website.

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Read about why we need an editorial style guide.

Job titles

Use capital letters when referring to a specific individual and lower case when generalising or describing a role. Hyphens should be used when appropriate, for example:

  • the head of science (note that this is not a title, just a description)
  • the group of vice-chancellors met the Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Use ‘Emeritus’ before the title of a retired person who has been allowed to keep that title as an honour, for example, ‘Nick Gould, Emeritus Professor of Social Work’.

If you are not using the person’s full title, you should use the lowercase, ‘emeritus’, for example, 'the emeritus professor Nick Gould’.

Do not use 'Professor Emeritus' or 'professor emeritus'. You should use ‘Emeritus’ or ‘emeritus' for men and women.

Writing about the Chancellor

When referring to the Chancellor, use 'His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh' or his full title 'HRH The Duke of Edinburgh KG GCVO'.

Do not use:

  • the Prince Edward
  • His Royal Highness
  • the Chancellor
  • the Earl of Wessex

Writing about the Vice-Chancellor

When referring to the Vice-Chancellor in body copy, use 'the Vice-Chancellor and President' in the first instance. In any following instances, use a shorter alternative, like 'the Vice-Chancellor'.

Where there is a character limit, like in a page title, image caption or tweet, use 'the Vice-Chancellor'. However, if the tweet is targeting an international audience, you should call them 'the President'.

When labelling images on Flickr or out of context you should use their full title.

Writing about other job titles

  • Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Note no hyphen between 'Deputy' and 'Vice')
  • Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Sarah Hainsworth

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