Individual publications have, more often than not, their own style manuals. These tips, which are being recommended on the basis of readability, can be an additional resource.

Abbreviations
Unless an abbreviation or acronym is so familiar that it is used more often than the full form (eg, CBI, BJP, CPI, CPM, BBC, DNA, IMF, NATO), write the words in full on first appearance: thus Centre for Development Studies (not CDS). After the first mention, try not to repeat the abbreviation too often, so write the bureau rather than the CBI, the party rather than the BJP, to avoid spattering the page with capital letters. There is no need to give the initials of an organisation if it is not referred to again.

If an abbreviation can be pronounced (eg, AIDS, NATO, UNESCO), it does not generally require the definite article. Other organisations, except companies, should usually be preceded by the (the CPM, the BBC, the KGB, the CBI, but CNN not the CNN).

Use lower case for kg, km, lb (never lbs, kms, kgs), mph and other measures, and for ie, eg, which should both be followed by commas. When used with figures, these lower-case abbreviations should follow immediately, with no space (11am, 15kg, 35mm, 100mph, 78rpm, as should AD and BC (76AD, 55BC). This kind of usage is preferable since it ensures that, for instance, 11 and am or 15 and kg do not go into separate lines.

Most upper-case abbreviations take upper case initial letters when written in full (eg, the JNU is the Jawaharlal Nehru University), but there are exceptions: PDS but public distribution system, GDP but gross domestic product, PIL but public interest litigation, ATR but action taken report.

Do not repeat Prof, Gen, Col, Dr after the first reference. Use the surname thereafter. Also, do not refer to people by their first names, unless it is a generic nightmare (so Laloo instead of Yadav, Digvijay for Singh), or a clever alliteration or wordplay comes into effect (and even this is justifiable only in headings).

Capitals
1. People: Use upper case for ranks and titles when written in conjunction with a name, but lower case when on their own. Thus Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, but the prime minister, President Bill Clinton, but the president, Pope John Paul, but the pope.

2. Organisations, ministries, departments, treaties, acts, etc, generally take the upper case when their full name (or something pretty close to it, eg, Finance Ministry) is used. Thus, High Court, Supreme Court, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Ministry of Urban Affairs, etc.

3. The full name of political parties in upper case, including the word party.

4. A political, economic or religious label formed from a proper name, eg, Marxist, Hindu, Christian, Leninist, Luddite should have a capital.

5. Places: Use initial capitals for definite geographical places, regions, areas and countries; (The Hague) and for vague but recognised political or geographical areas: the Middle East, South-East Asia, the West, Central America, South India, Eastern Europe, the North-East (north-eastern India).

In most contexts sacrifice precision to simplicity and use Britain to Great Britain or the United Kingdom, and America rather than the United States of America. Try to eliminate, or at least reduce, the use of US, UK and the like.

When in doubt, use lower case.

Figures
Never start a sentence with a figure; write the number in words instead. Use figures for numerals from 10 upwards, and for all numerals that includes a decimal point or a fraction (eg 4.25). Use words in simple numerals from one to nine, except: in references to pages; in percentages (eg 4 per cent); and in sets of numerals some of which are higher than 10, eg, Deaths from this cause in the past three years were 14, 9 and 6.

Italics
The general idea is to italicise as few words as possible. However, foreign or vernacular words and phrases that are less than familiar still need to be italicised. By and large, deciding which words and phrases are well-known and which are not is best left to the discretion of editors.

Use italics for:
1. Words such as intifadah, de jure, pani, makaan, nikaah unless they are so commonplace that they have become anglicised. Thus sari, pandit, ad hoc, machismo, putsch, status quo, etc are in roman.
2. Newspapers and periodicals, books, movies, radio and television programmes, plays and pamphlets, but not for chapters within books, for the Bible and its books, the Bhagvad Gita, or the Koran.

Punctuation
Apostrophes
Use the normal possessive ending's after singular words or names that end in s: boss's, the Congress's, Pete Sampras's, caucus's. Use it in plurals that do not end in s: children's, Frenchman's, media's.
Use the ending s' on the plurals that end in s - Danes', bosses'.

Commas
Use commas as an aid understanding. Too many in one sentence can be confusing.
Commas are useful to break up a long sentence, but should be used only where the break is a natural one.

Inverted commas
There are two styles you can follow on this one (it has to be one or the other, not both). The simpler way is to have all punctuation marks within the inverted commas. Here's an example:
'The passing crowd' is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls 'universal sympathies', and even to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than those who constitute the 'passing crowd?'
The traditional (and correct, according to grammar teachers) way is:
"The passing crowd" is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls "universal sympathies", and even to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than those who constitute the "passing crowd"?


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