Reference

In possessive cases where the word ends in s, use ’s, except where you would not sound out the extra s in speech. So Jesus’s jaunt, but Ulysses’ journey.

Dashes used as parentheses should be spaced en-dashes. ‘The book – although it was very good – went unappreciated.’

Broken off dialogue is indicated with an em-dash followed by a space. ‘Why hasn’t anyone bought the— ’

Use British date order, without ordinals. 2 February 2017.

Use shortened year spans, if possible. 1914–18 (unspaced en-dash).

In normal text, use three spaced full stops, with a space before and after. ‘It had some . . . cult appeal.’

Leave out the last space when the ellipsis is followed by a closing quotation mark or a question mark. ‘I've been left penniless . . .’ ‘So now . . .?’

In print: use single quotes, double for quotes within quotes.

Online, including the Canongate website, do the opposite: use double quotes, single for quotes within quotes.

If a quote doesn’t form or end with a whole sentence, put the final punctuation outside the closing quote-mark.

Italics should be used for titles and names of: books (including book-length poems), albums, paintings, newspapers, magazines, TV shows, radio shows, operas, films, plays and ships (though ‘HMS’ etc. is roman).

Songs, poems, stories and article titles should be given in single quote-marks.

Neither are required for names of websites, books of the bible or names of pubs, hotels etc.