House style

Here you can find more specific examples of words, phrases or abbreviations which make up our unique style guide. Familiarise yourself with these so you can use them across your communications. For general writing guidelines, see Written style.

LSTM

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Use the full name when you first mention it whenever possible, with LSTM then for subsequent mentions. If you are constrained by space, then LSTM alone is acceptable.

Never use the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine or the school.

Campus and buildings

If referring to the campus/buildings in Liverpool use Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine – Liverpool campus.

For building names use the full name unless the acronym is more well-known:

• Pembroke House
• Mary Kingsley Building (never the Old Building)
• CTID – not CITD! Acronym acceptable, also full name – Centre for Tropical Infectious Diseases
• Wolfson Building
• Liverpool Life Sciences Accelerator Building (Accelerator acceptable)
• Well Travelled Clinic
• CREATOR, Malawi

Global Hubs

LSTM works in partnership with three Global Hubs, as well as working with many other partners and collaborators internationally. The Global Hubs are:

• Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme (MLW) – when referencing Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, spell the name in full for the first use and then you can use MLW for future references.
• Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research (CeSHHAR) – when referencing the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research, spell the name in full for the first use and then you can use CeSHHAR Zimbabwe for future references.
• Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) – when referencing the Kenya Medical Research Institute, spell the name in full for the first use and then you can use KEMRI for future references.

Research centres

Capitalise the names of LSTM Research Centres and partnerships only where they are a recognised name.

• Centre for Drugs and Diagnostics (CDD)
• Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions (CSRI)
• Centre for Neglected Tropical Diseases (CNTD)
• Centre for Capacity Research (CCR)
• Centre for Health Systems Strengthening (CHESS)

Relevant terminology

• Disease names are lower case (eg malaria), unless they are an acronym (eg HIV) or named after an individual or geographical area (eg Ebola).
• Use Low- and Middle-income Countries first then subsequently LMICs.
• Do not use “overseas” as it centres Liverpool, instead use “international”, “global”.
• Laboratories on the first mention, for subsequent mentions lab is OK.
• Mosquitoes, not mosquitos.
• World Health Organization, not Organisation (and WHO on second mention). Though we would usually use UK English spellings, it is appropriate to use American when referring to the name of an organisation which uses the American spelling in its name.
• Global Health: only use caps when it’s in the name of an organisation or course, otherwise “global health”.

Academic titles

• Vice-Chancellor: always hyphenated and capitalised. Use VC only in informal communications.
• Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Pro-Vice-Chancellor: always hyphenated and capitalised. Use DVC and PVC only in informal communications.
• For senior academic titles, use the academic title and follow with job title (eg Professor David Lalloo, Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine).
• Always use academic titles when relevant (eg Professor, Dr).
• Always use Professor, never Prof. Always use Dr, never Doctor or Dr.
• Use the full name for the first reference (eg Dr John Smith) and then title and surname for subsequent references (eg Dr Smith).
• Capitalise job title (eg Senior Lecturer, Reader etc).

Other titles

• Honours: “Sir John Smith” the first time and then “Sir John” subsequently.
• When Honours are used with other titles use the academic title first: “Professor Dame Joanne Smith”, then “Dame Joanne”.
• Peerages: for peers, on first mention refer to their full title, found on their parliamentary profile (e.g. Lord Anderson of Ipswich) and then use their title and surname on second mention (e.g. Lord Anderson).
• LSTM Patron: use Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal for the first mention, then The Princess Royal for subsequent references.

University specific terminology

• Alumni: plural term for a group or community (eg LSTM alumni, the alumni community). Never use for an individual (eg John Smith is an LSTM alumni). Instead use the correct terminology below.
• Alumnus for individual male.
• Alumna for individual female.
• Member of alumni community or graduate if appropriate to be gender neutral.
• Lower case for higher education, further education etc, unless abbreviated to HE/FE.
• Lower case for honorary graduate.
• For degree classification, capitalise, without full stops ie BA, MA, PhD etc.
• Doctorate is always lower case unless referring to a specific, named doctorate.
• Master’s: use master’s degree with an apostrophe, not masters degree. The apostrophe indicates a possessive (the degree of a master), not a plural.
  • If referring to a specific master’s degree, capitalise both master and the field of study, e.g. Master of Public Health.
  • If talking generally, “master’s” is all lowercase.
  • If talking about multiple degrees write “master’s degrees”.
  • “Masters’ degrees” can be used when referring to degrees held by multiple people.
• Do not hyphenate postgraduate. Capitalise when part of a named degree.
• Course names should always be award and then title, e.g MSc Global Health.
• PGT/PGR: when referring to postgraduate-level courses, use “postgraduate taught” (PGT) and “postgraduate research” (PGR).
• Always course, never programme. Course is the official title for degree-earning academic study.
• A Programme is a collection of courses within a specific subject area and should not be used interchangeably for a single course. Do not use program.
• Courses are comprised of modules not units.
• Modules are the building blocks to a course.
• Coursework, always written as one word.
• First-class, hyphenated when used before the noun, otherwise no hyphen.
• A Level, do not hyphenate and always use an upper case L.
• Distance learning, all lower case unless referring to a programme title with this element named in it.
• E-learning, all lower case when in the middle of a sentence.
• Full-time, hyphenated when used before the noun, otherwise no hyphen.
• Part-time, hyphenated when used before the noun, otherwise no hyphen.
• Semester, not term.
• Enrol, enrolling or enrolment, not enroll.

Acronyms

• Unless it’s a widely used acronym (e.g NHS, BBC), write out the term in full on the first mention, with the acronym in brackets.
• Acronyms are always fully capitalised. The acronym can then be used in subsequent mentions, e.g Royal Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH), then RSTMH.

Some common ones:

Capitalisation

Do capitalise

• Government when talking about a specific government, lower case when general.
• North West as a region, but not north west as a direction.

Use capitals appropriately

Never capitalise for emphasis.

Do not capitalise

“The” when it precedes an organisational name or title (eg the BBC, the Vice-Chancellor), unless a capitalised The is part of the name (eg The University of Manchester, The Princess of Wales).

Dates and times

• Write as date, month, year without punctuation (eg 1 January 2024). Do not use st/th.
• If preceded by a day, then use a comma after the day (e.g Monday, 1 January 2024).
• Write years in full (2024), decades generally in numerical form (eg 2020s) but can be shortened to 90s/80s informally. Note there’s no apostrophe!
• When writing the time, use the 24 hour clock. Always add a timezone e.g. GMT.

Numbers

• Write numbers as words up to and including ten.
• For numbers above ten, use numbers.
• For numbers over 999, use commas (eg 1,000).
• The exceptions for this are in measurements, currency, statistics (eg 7cm, £7, 7%).
• Don’t start a sentence with a number (eg use Fifteen people work in the communications team).
• Percentages are never written out in words. Use the number and symbol.
• Ensure you are clear on % vs percentage points. 40% to 50% is an increase of ten percentage points.

Quotes

• Always use double quotation marks “not single”.
• If quoting from another source, always reference with either the link or a footnote.
• If the quote is over 2-3 lines in length, use a new paragraph for it.
• Always introduce a quote with “said” or “added” if the same person is quoted again, never “commented” or “stated” or other versions.
• Use square brackets to make quotes clearer if a word has been omitted (e.g Alongside my research, I have a role within the National Health [Service]).
• Use round brackets, or parentheses to add an additional clause or information, but try not to overuse.

Formatting

• Break up long text with subheadings, block quotes, images.
• Use short paragraphs, generally 1-2 sentences.
• One space after full stops, never two.

Lists

Use bullet points for lists to aid understanding. Each bullet starts with a capital letter if they are standalone sentences, or lower case if continuing the sentence above, e.g:

Use a numbered list only when your listed items represent a progression of some kind, such as a series of steps with a set order, e.g:

Using lists in the flow of text can be effective if there is a long list in text.

Web and email

• Email addresses all lower case.
• Avoid using full urls: not www.lstmed.ac.uk but lstmed.ac.uk.

Contact details

On printed materials, use full address, contact phone number, email address and social media handles with relevant icons. For example:

Avoid

• Whilst/amongst: if appropriate, use while, among.
• At this point in time: use now.
• Click here, on websites: hyperlink the most relevant part of text.
• In order to: simply use “to”.
• Utilise: simply use “use”.
• Do not use ampersands (&) unless it is a brand name such as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Otherwise use “and”.