Australian Birdlife Style Guide

Transcription

1 Australian Birdlife Style Guide March 2012 Introduction The Australian Birdlife Style Guide is designed to make the magazine consistent in content, and make it easier for readers to take in. The rules in this style guide exist to prevent ambiguities in writing and to ensure that contributions are written suitably for the broad Australian Birdlife readership. Disclaimer Australian Birdlife Style Guide ideas and conventions are a composition of practices used in the Commonwealth of Australia s Style Manual and Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB) style conventions. Compiled by: Chelsea Eaw with Sean Dooley Rebecca L. Stewart Cara Schultz Revised by: Cara Schultz 1

2 Contents Spelling, capital letters and italics page 3 Bird names Botanical and zoological names Place names Organisation names Graphs, charts and maps Shortened forms page 5 Australian states and territories Organisation names Dashes page 6 En dash Em dash Hyphen Numbers page 7 Numerals Percentages Commas Dates Times Brackets page 8 Quotation marks page 8 Placement of punctuation and quotation marks Italics page 9 References page 9 2

3 Spelling, capital letters and italics Australian Birdlife follows the spelling conventions of the most recent edition of Macquarie Dictionary. Bird names For the correct spelling of Australian bird names, refer to Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds by Christidis and Boles (2008 edition). Take note of initial capital letters and hyphens: Horsfield s Bronze Cuckoo Black faced Cuckoo shrike Eastern Curlew not Horsfield s Bronze cuckoo Black faced Cuckoo Shrike Eastern curlew When it is clearer to avoid using a bird s proper name, Christidis and Boles may be ignored, e.g. Jabiru (Black necked Stork). For the correct spelling of world bird names, refer to the BirdLife International checklist, available at the following URL: When a group of similar birds is referred to generally, there is no need to capitalise the initial letter: Often seen climbing up tree trunks, treecreepers feed on invertebrates found in bark crevices. When a bird name s shortened form is used, the initial letter should be capitalised: Of Australia s two more common oystercatchers, the Sooty appears more solitary than the Pied. When more two or more birds of a species are referenced, the plural form is not used: amongst an already impressive haul of Red footed Booby, Black bellied Storm Petrel and 50 Mottled Petrel, an interesting pterodroma petrel was seen. 3

4 Botanical and zoological names Italics Genus and species names are italicised: Ninox strenua Capital letters All taxonomic groupings except for species level have initial capitals: Chordata Strigiformes Ninox strenua Abbreviations If repeating a genus name, it can be abbreviated: Eucalyptus microcarpa is considered a box, but E. camaldulensis is considered a gum. Place names Spelling To determine the correct spelling for place names, consult authoritative, up to date atlases and other published material. Use established English forms: Darwin Take note of dashes: Papua New Guinea Cocos (Keeling) Islands Fitz Stirling Operational Area not Fitz Stirling Operational Area See also Dashes (page 6). Capital letters Capitalise the initial letter in place names, as in: South Australia But, use lower case when using a directional term geographically, as in: southern Australia Shortened forms Write geographical feature names in full: Mount Lofty Ranges not Mt Lofty Ranges 4

5 Organisation names Use the spelling, capital letter and punctuation conventions that the organisation itself uses refer to material (e.g. print or online) published by the organisation, such as: BirdLife International not Bird Life International nor Birdlife International Take note of dashes, capital letters and spaces. Graphs, charts and maps In running text; write graph, chart and map titles in full: Figure 1 shows the Australasian Bittern s distribution from 1977 to Within brackets, abbreviate figure and plate titles, as in: The Australasian Bittern s range has contracted significantly since the first atlas (Fig. 1). Shortened forms Australian states and territories Spell out Australian state names in full unless space is limited or repetition is lengthy. Australian states shortened forms are as follows: Qld NSW ACT Vic. Tas. SA NT WA Organisation names Unless an organisation name s shortened form is widely recognised (as in CSIRO), write organisation names in full when they are first mentioned in the text. They may be followed by a shortened form in parentheses to be used in the text thereafter: Australian Bird & Bat Banding Schemes (ABBBS) Australasian Wader Studies Group (AWSG) Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Dashes 5

6 There are three main types of dashes Australian Birdlife may use: the en dash ( ), the em dash ( ) or the hyphen ( ), which is sometimes classed as a dash. En dash Use the en dash to show spans of figures: kilometres years 2 6 minutes Em dash Use the em dash to add emphasis to the information that follows it: They are found in native grassland one of the most highly endangered ecosystems in Victoria. Use the em dash as you would use brackets: The Plains wanderer the only bird in its genus inhabits floristically diverse native grassland. Hyphen Hyphens are used to link prefixes (e.g. re, pre, post ) to nouns and adjectives; however, once the word falls into common use, there is no need to use a hyphen. In Australian Birdlife, there is no need to hyphenate the following words: replanted revegetated regrowth But, where a word looks ambiguous when not hyphenated, use a hyphen: re grow not regrow re attach not reattach Intermediate directions (e.g. north east, south west; as opposed to north, south) are hyphenated: north west south east south west Intermediate directions in a regional name may not be hyphenated consult official published material for hyphen and capital letter conventions: North East Victoria not North east Victoria 6

7 Numbers Numerals Spell out numbers from one to ten. For numbers 11 and greater, use numerals: one five 12 But, when comparing numbers, use numerals even if numbers are nine and below: Of all species, 7 out of 10 were declining. When a number is followed by a unit of measurement, it should always be written in numerals. Note the space between the number and the unit of measurement: 1 kilometre 20 metres 9 hectares Units of measurement following a number should never be written as symbols unless being used in a map, graph or table: not 5 seconds 43 degrees 10 kilometres 5 s 43 C 10 km If the sentence begins with a number, spell this number out: Forty species were recorded in the area. But, if a number that begins a sentence is being compared to another number, re arrange the sentence if possible: not In 2009, 62 species were recorded, compared to 68 recorded in Sixty two species were recorded in the park in 2009, compared to 68 recorded in Percentages Use per cent, not percent or %. The following season, 74 per cent of birds fitted with data loggers returned. Commas Use a comma to separate groups of three digits within a larger amount: 125,000 54,000 6,000 7

8 Dates Dates should be written as follows: 19 February 2010 not February 19 th 2010 Times Times should be written as follows: am not 10:30AM Brackets Bracket types used typ ically in Australian Birdlife: Parentheses ( ) Square brackets [ ] Use parentheses to enclose additional information, as in: Islands in the Torres Strait s top western group are barely offshore (some less than 4 kilometres). Use square brackets to enclose additional information or errors in quoted text, as in: It actually turned out to be a [Nankeen] Night Heron, he said. Quotation marks Use double quotation marks to enclose quotations, as in: The BirdLife Australia president believes wetland parks can provide a strong reconnection with nature. Use single quotation marks when quoting within a quote or when signifying a special term: Michael Veitch believes artists are sensitive and clued in to the nature of nature. Those big ravens I has seen were just a trick of perspective. Italicise quotations (speech or text) longer than two sentences but do not indent. 8

9 Placement of punctuation and quotation marks Always place periods and commas inside the quotation marks. A direct quotation is set off from the rest of the sentence by commas. Do not use a period to end a sentence quoted within another sentence. Sean said, I just got back from my trip, and I saw a Grey Falcon. I just got back from my trip, and I saw a Grey Falcon, said Sean. I just got back from my trip, said Sean, and I saw a Grey Falcon. If single quotation marks are used to signify a special term, the period is placed outside the quotation marks. Cara was not familiar with the term cloacal kiss. Italics Italicise the following: Book and periodical titles Films, videos, TV and radio program titles Legislation titles Ship and aircraft names Scientific names Technical terms and terms being defined Words to emphasise Foreign words; except for foreign words that have been accepted into the English language, e.g. café. Words representing sounds (e.g. aah aah aah aaaahh) 9

10 References Use the following citation method at the end of an article: Article author, article author, year. Article title. In: publication editor, publication editor, eds. publication, publisher, location: page numbers. Eaw, C., Stewart, R. L., Australian Birdlife Style Guide. In: Dooley, S., Stewart, R. L., eds. Australian Birdlife, Birds Australia, Melbourne: Within an article, use the title and publication date of the reference material: Nicholas Birks striking Eastern Osprey portrait (Wingspan, September 1993) was chosen for the job. When referring to a website, do not use a period at the end of the address. For more information go to birdlife.org.au/australian birdlife not For more information go to birdlife.org.au/australian birdlife. 10