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Editorial style guide: P

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

A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Read about why we need an editorial style guide.

Park-and-ride

Use 'park-and-ride' unless writing about a specific park-and-ride that spells it differently, for example, 'Lansdown Park & Ride'.

Part-time

Not 'part time' or 'parttime'.

Passive voice

Avoid writing in a passive voice. See Writing for the web.

People

See Job titles.

Phone numbers

Generally, avoid using hyphens or brackets, for example, '01225 381234'.

The exception is when the audience is clearly international. In this case, add the UK dialling code and brackets, for example, '+44 (0)1225 381234'.

For internal calls you can simply give the extension, for example, 'ext: 1234'.

Plain English

See our Writing for the web guide.

Postal addresses

Use Royal Mail's guidelines for addresses when writing a postal address.

Postdoctoral

'Postdoctoral' is one word. It isn't 'post-doctoral' or 'post doctoral'.

Postgraduates

Taught postgraduate and postgraduate research.

Pre-sessional

Not ‘presessional’ as this could be read as ‘precessional’.

Pro rata

Not 'pro-rata' or 'prorata'.

Professional services

Use lower case.

Programmes

Use the term 'courses' for external marketing purposes. However, we can use the word 'programmes' when writing content for internal-only audiences.

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