Monash Editorial Style Guide

All professional Monash publications, whether they are internet pages or internal memos, should follow the Monash Editorial Style Guide. Academic papers do not fall under our remit, and Monash University Publishing has its own style guide.

Monash.edu and our various publications are often people’s first Monash experience. We need to infuse what we write with our personality. We must be useful, engaging, accurate, up-to-date, and informative.

The style guide will help you:

• create a production process and team
• structure a document fit for your reader
• write with the Monash personality
• answer your queries about language and usage
• be consistent.

What if the style guide doesn't answer my question?

The Monash Editorial Style Guide is comprehensive, but not exhaustive.

For a start, it’s just about content. (Content, copy, text, writing – in this guide, you’ll find all these words used interchangeably to mean to the words on the screen or on the page.) Images, graphs and design elements have their own rules. 

Monash University uses the Macquarie Dictionary fifth edition as standard. The Library’s information kiosk links to several dictionaries, including the Macquarie Dictionary and Macquarie Thesaurus. You can also access the Oxford English Dictionary, the authority on the English language.

Editorial conventions are based on the Style manual for authors, editors and printers, sixth edition, which, sadly, is not available online. There are several copies in the various Monash libraries. (Throughout this guide, all references to the Macquarie Dictionary refer to the fifth edition and all references to the Style manual for authors, editors and printers refer to the sixth edition.)

You will find many hyperlinked terms, which will take you to more information both on and off Monash.edu. 

Because this style guide isn’t for academic or student papers, it doesn’t cover citation. The Monash Library website has information on citation.

Remember, this guide is still a work in progress. The Office of Marketing and Communications welcomes feedback. If you feel we have missed something, please email style.guide@monash.edu.

Copyright

Monash staff must take care with copyright. Copyright for our commercial, marketing and promotional activities – in other words, our business activities – is different from educational copyright. 

The library has a wealth of information about copyright. Please make yourself familiar with these laws, and, if in doubt, email our copyright adviser.