Style guide

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Spelling

• Use American English, not British English, e.g. realize, not realise

Capitalization

• Always capitalize our company name, i.e. Gengo, not gengo
• Use start case for all buttons and navigation menu items
  (capitalization of all words, regardless of the part of speech)
• Use sentence case for general/marketing copy titles
• Spell out acronyms and abbreviations in capital letters at first mention
  unless the short form is more common than the long form, e.g. DVD

Numbers

• Don’t spell out percentages, e.g., 100% not 100 percent
• Don’t spell out small money amounts, e.g., $0.05, not five cents
• Spell out numbers under 10 and numbers at the start of a sentence
  • e.g. Twelve tigers ate my two dogs for dinner.
• Use a hyphen to connect a number ending with “y” to another number
  • e.g. twenty-seven, not twenty seven
• Use figures when counting more than one thing
  • e.g. There are 100 people in 1 million organizations.
• Decimals:
  • Place a 0 before decimals less than 1, e.g., 0.02 not .02
  • In describing quantities in millions, use one decimal place at most
  • In describing billions, use no more than two decimal places
  • Always use decimals, never fractions

Date and time

• Format dates as follows:
  • Long form: month, date, year, e.g. Tuesday, December 1, 2008
  • Short form: mm/dd/yyyy, e.g. 12/1/2008
• Do not write in military time. Indicate time of day using using a.m. and p.m. with time zone, if needed
  • e.g. 1:33 p.m. PST, not 13:33
  • e.g. 2:45 p.m., not 2:45 PM
• Abbreviate time zones in capital letters and be aware of daylight savings time differences. Listing time zones for both parties is a good practice
  • e.g. 8:15 p.m. PDT/12:15 p.m. JST

Punctuation and italics

Periods ( . )

• Place periods within quotation marks

Commas ( , )

• Use the Oxford comma when appropriate
• Use a comma to separate two adjectives (if the word “and” can be inserted)
• Use a comma at the end of certain abbreviations (like i.e. and etc.)
  • e.g. Letters, packages, etc., should go here.
• Place commas inside the closing quotation mark

Quotation marks ( “ ” and ‘ ’ )

• Always close quotation marks
• Don't use single quotes unless nesting them within double quotes
  • e.g. “The guy was like, ‘That’s ridiculous!’ and I was like, ‘Duh!’”
• Periods and commas are always placed within quotation marks
  • e.g. We always preferred to “bear those ills we have.”
  • e.g. “I don’t think so,” she replied.
  • Exception: With computer terms and file names, punctuation is always outside of quotation marks to avoid error
    • e.g. Click on Save As; name your file “appendix A, v. 10”.
• Exclamation points and question marks are placed outside of quotation marks unless they belong with the quoted matter
  • e.g. Which of Shakespeare’s characters said, “All the world’s a stage”?
  • e.g. “Where are the cookies?” she asked.
• Semicolons and colons are placed outside of quotation marks

Semicolons ( ; )

• In general, use sparingly
• Use to connect two independent clauses
  • e.g. There are 30 pages to the proposal; don't get discouraged.
• Use for a list of items that contain internal punctuation
  • e.g. We traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington.

Apostrophes

• Don't use apostrophes for plurals of acronyms, abbreviations and years
  • e.g. CPUs, not CPU’s; the 1990s, not the 1990’s

Hyphens and em dashes

• Use hyphens (-) in URLs, email addresses, compound words and number spans
• Em dashes (—) often have the same function as commas, parentheses and colons when setting off distinct thoughts within sentences
  • e.g. My friends—that is, my former friends—ganged up on me.
• Don’t use double hyphens (--) to replace dashes
• Making an em dash
  • On a Mac: hold down on shift + option and press hyphen ( - )
  • On a PC: hold down on the alt key and type 015

Use this, not that

• Don’t use the word “immediately” in reference to translation times
• Don't put two spaces in between sentences
• Don't use technical terminology without explaining it
• Double-check company and product name capitalization (see below)

Use this	Not this
ecommerce (Ecommerce if capitalized)	e-commerce, ECommerce
email	Email, e-mail
internet	Internet
log in/log out (verb)	log-in/log-out/sign-in/sign-out
login/logout (adj., noun)	log-in/log-out/sign-in/sign-out
net	Net
online	on line, Online, on-line
PayPal	Pay pal, Paypal
PowerPoint	Power Point, powerpoint
startup (noun)	start-up
start-up (adj.)	startup
web	Web
webmaster, webcam, webmail, webzine	web master, web cam, web mail, web zine
website	Web site

Press

Press releases follow AP style. Be careful of differences relative to Gengo style, especially those listed below:

• With headlines, all letters are capitalized regardless of length
• E-Commerce and e-commerce (AP), not Ecommerce or ecommerce (Gengo)