AI Language and Style Guide

How we talk about ourselves:

On social media to our warm audiences (for example, our social media followers) we should say ‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’ wherever we can. So instead of saying:

The George Institute prioritises research into better treatments, better care, and healthier societies.

Or:

The @georgeinstitute prioritises research into better treatments, better care, and healthier societies.

We’d say:

We prioritise our research into better treatments, better care, and healthier societies.

An exception to this is when we promote or target our content to cold audiences, for example, through paid ads or boosted posts. We should then refer to ourselves as The George Institute.

We never refer to ourselves as 'The George’ or ‘TGI’ externally.

We rarely refer to ourselves as The George Institute for Global Health except on press releases and formal documents.

Be clear about the audience you are writing for, the platform you are using to communicate and what you want the audience to think or feel as a result of reading your content. Always stop and think about how the content raises awareness of The George Institute, promotes our values and supports our audience’s interests.

Spelling and Language

UK/Australian English should be used, avoiding American spelling. Common differences to keep in mind include:

• -ae- vs -e- and -oe- vs -e-: Scientific, medical, and technical words deriving from Greek that have an ‘ae’ or ‘oe’ in UK English, such as in anaemia or diarrhoea.
• Double consonants: UK English can vary on whether words include a single or double consonant, such as counselling or enrol.
• -our- vs -or: UK English favours using a ‘u’ in certain words, such as in behaviour or tumour.
• -re vs -er: UK English favours ending words with ‘re’, such as in centre or fibre.
• -ise vs -ize and -yse vs -yze: UK English favours using an ‘s’ over ‘z’, such as recognise or analyse.

This is not an exhaustive list of differences. If you are unsure about the correct spelling, please refer to a UK English dictionary.

Avoid colloquial expressions and idioms as they may be difficult to understand for people from different cultures and regions, or for people with English as a second language.

Abbreviations: Always spell out abbreviations or acronyms in full the first time you use them, followed with the abbreviation or acronym in brackets.

You can then use the abbreviation or acronym throughout the rest of your content.

Example: Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) cause over 70% of all deaths worldwide each year. 85% of premature deaths due to NCDs are in low- and middle-income countries.

Organisations are referred to as a singular entity, for example, ‘UNSW is a partner of The George Institute,’ not ‘UNSW are a partner…’

Clinical trial phases should be capitalised and use Roman numerals, such as Phase I, Phase II.

Plain English: Using plain English helps audiences to understand content the first time they read it. Use simple and inclusive language when you can, and explain what you mean, or link to an explanation when you can’t. That means:

• being concise and to the point
• using short sentences (average sentence length of 15-20 words)
• using common words instead of unusual or complicated ones
• using the active tense over the passive tense wherever you can

Hashtags: Long hashtags like #globalaccessibilityawarenessday can be hard to read and understand.

Using CamelCase to capitalise the first letter of each word in the hashtag makes it easier for people and screen reading software to make sense of the hashtag. For example, #GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay

Preferred words list