The Lemon Press Style Guide

The Lemon Press Style Guide
Version: 1.42
Date: 28/10/18
Authors: Taghreed Ayaz, Henry Dyer, Lucy Purkis Charters, and Oli Maddison

The following is a guide, and not a set of rules. If necessary these suggestions can be set aside for creative purposes; for instance, attempting to imitate a particular style. Please, however, ensure your section editor has a sense of humour — make it obvious it is for comedic purposes, and not human error.

• The most important thing is consistency. Pick a rule and stick to it.
• Use the Oxford comma. It removes ambiguity. Do not, however, insert it into names for things if not there in the first place.
  • DO: At the dinner party I will serve: quinoa, organic barley wine, and desiccated salmon.
  • DO: My parents, Koen Lamberts, and Malcolm Grant came to my graduation.
  • DO: The Department of Culture, Media and Sport
  • DON’T: At the dinner party I will serve: quinoa, organic barley wine and desiccated salmon.
  • DON’T: My parents, Koen Lamberts and Malcolm Grant came to my graduation.
    • This would suggest Koen and Malcolm are your parents.
  • DON’T: The Department of Culture, Media, and Sport
• Only use titles when relevant to the article, e.g. Dr Whomever.
• Single quotation marks to be used for all reported speech and as ‘scare quotes’ to highlight a particular phrase.
  • Embedded quotations don’t need to have commas before the quotation opens.
    • DO: The students described it as ‘questionable’.
    • DON’T: The students described it as, ‘questionable’.
  • Punctuation is always placed outside of the quotation mark unless the full sentence is quoted.
    • DO: The group issued a statement saying, ‘We find this situation absolutely abhorrent.’
    • DO: The group described the situation as ‘abhorrent’.
    • DON’T: The group issued a statement saying, ‘We find this situation absolutely abhorrent’.
    • DON’T: The group described it as ‘abhorrent.’
• Headlines.
  • Capitalise the first letter of the headline, and then any other significant words. Do not capitalise articles and conjunctions. Use default from here if in doubt.
    • DO: Group of Grumpy Students Align with Nazi Party
    • DON’T: Group Of Grumpy Students Align With Nazi Party
    • DON’T: Group of grumpy students align with nazi party
  • Don’t put full stops at the end of headlines. You may, however, use question marks or exclamation marks as appropriate.
• Taglines, where used, should be formatted like a regular sentence but should not end with a full stop.
• Please refrain from using interrobangs: ‘‽’.
• Acronyms, initialisms, and abbreviations.
  • Common acronyms (for our audience) do not need to be explained first, e.g. YUSU, UoY, NUS.
  • Acronyms that are less well known should have their full form written first then the acronym in brackets for further references in the article.
    • DO: The Trades Union Congress (TUC) today decided to […]
    • DO: YUSU have disbanded.
  • DON’T: The TUC today decided to […]
  • DON’T: York University Students’ Union have disbanded.
• Don’t capitalise professions; do capitalise positions, but only when being used as a title, or as replacement for the name. Otherwise, lowercase.
  • DO: The President today declared a state of emergency.
  • DO: The President of the United States is a title.
  • DO: Go President Jeb Bush! Jeb Bush for president!
  • DO: The 45th and current president — he’s not my president. I wanted Jeb Bush to be president.
  • DON’T: The president declared a state of emergency.
  • DON’T: The president of the United States is a title.
  • DON’T: Go president Jeb Bush! Jeb Bush for President!
  • DON’T: The 45th and current President - he’s not my President. I wanted Jeb Bush to be President.
• Editor’s notes are to be formatted as: [content in italics surrounded by square brackets - Ed.]
• Italicise the titles of publications, e.g. The Lemon Press, Nouse, York Vision, and Facebook. If the surrounding text is already italicised, such as in a image caption, then do the reverse. Ask if in doubt.
• Lay-up notes:
  • Start the height of articles at 23mm from the top of the template. This can be specified using the ‘Properties’ window of Scribus.
  • No spaces between headlines and first paragraph.