How we write

You can also read:

• our content accessibility guidelines to make sure your writing is accessible
• how we speak about disability to understand how we speak about conditions and impairments

We use 'accessible' to describe products, services and places that offer disabled people the same access as everyone else. For example, we say 'accessible toilet' instead of a 'disabled toilet' and 'accessible parking space' instead of 'disabled parking space'.

Please follow the house style advice on Government Digital Service.

When bullet points list items or complete the sentence, we: 

• use lower case at the start of the bullet point 
• and do not use punctuation at the end 

Sometimes a bullet list can have complete sentences. 

• We use upper case at the start of the bullet point. 
• We use punctuation at the end. 

We use the words ‘working class’ or ‘lower socioeconomic status’.

Use capital letters for public holidays, such as Christmas Day, Boxing Day or Easter Sunday. When referring to an awareness day, always write it as the organising body does, even if it contradicts our language. For example, we do not say 'persons with disabilities', but it's OK to say International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Limit the use of exclamation marks to orders and urgent statements and requests. Do not use before or after a full stop.

Extra Costs is the title of a campaign by Scope. It shows that disabled households need an additional £1,010 a month on average, to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.

Use a single space after a full stop.

Not fund-raising or fund raising.

Where possible, use gender-neutral terms, rather than those ending in 'man'. For example, use 'chair' instead of 'chairman'. Examples include:

• actor, not actress
• child, not son or daughter
• partner, not wife or husband

No need for a capital letter. "Scope's helpline answered nearly 28,000 telephone and email enquiries in 2023."

Collective nouns (such as the words below) are always singular:

• Scope is... (but say 'we are' to encourage people to feel a part of what we want to achieve)
• the campaigns department is...
• the local group is...

Use upper case when referring to a specific role or named person. For example, the Retail Director, Jo Bloggs.

It's lower case if you are writing about a retail director or a marketing executive rather than the named role.

Spell out number one in full to avoid confusion with the letter “l”. From number 2, use numerals as they are easier to read. 

This does not apply to financial information or data. For example, “1 in 4 of us is disabled”.  

Use “%” for percentages.  

When using currency do not use decimals unless the value is more than .00. Use: 

• £3 instead of £3.00 
• £2,000, not £2k 
• £20 million 

Avoid using 0. Say ‘children under 5’ rather than ‘children aged 0 to 5’. 

Numbers from 1,000 should have a comma to separate the thousands. For example: 10,000 and 100,000.

Not 121 or 1-2-1.

One word. Do not use 'on-line' or 'on line'.

Our online community (no capital letters) is a safe and welcoming space for disabled people and their families. There they can ask questions and discuss the things that matter to them.

Always with a hyphen, never 'part time'.

Write numbers with the correct spacing. For example, 020 7619 7100 and 0808 800 3333

Pronouns are words used to identify who we are talking about, instead of the person’s name. For example, ‘they’, ‘she’ or ‘he’.

Ask for people’s pronouns before writing or talking about them.

If you do not know someone’s pronouns, or you are writing about people generally, use ‘they’ or ‘them’. In writing this looks like “Bill is a disabled person. They have cerebral palsy.”

Avoid unnecessary punctuation. For example, do not use semi-colons or commas after each item in a bulleted list. Others to avoid are:

• parentheses, also known as brackets ()
• ellipses…
• slashes /

Always use double quotation marks for direct speech.

For example: "This is direct speech."

Is someone’s race relevant to the context you are working in? For image descriptions of someone we know, we ask them how they would describe themselves. They can choose to include their race or not. If we are using an image of a person we do not know, we would not include race as we cannot ask them.

Be specific and accurate. Ask the person how they describe themselves.

At Scope, we usually use ‘people of colour’ to describe people who experience racism as a group. However, we are specific whenever we can be. For example, if you are only talking about Black people, say that.

We capitalise the words when we write about ethnicity. For example, 'a group of East Asian storytellers'.

Capital S, but never SCOPE. In blogs and articles, it's warmer to use 'we', 'us' or 'our'.

We talk about how people are, not about 'preference'.

We say 'pronouns', not 'preferred pronouns'.

We say 'sexual orientation' not 'sexual preference'.

We use the acronym LGBTQ+ which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and other identities.

We refer to people in the LGBTQ+ community. But an individual is not ‘an LGBTQ+ person’. We would ask them how they would like to be described. If we do not know, consider whether it is relevant. Or you can describe someone as ‘part of the LGBTQ+ community’.

We use the word ‘queer’ only when it is preferred by individuals. We would not say queer when talking about a group we did not know.

Say ‘they’ or ‘them’ rather than ‘he/she’ or ‘(s)he’.

We use the term ‘trans and non-binary people’ or ‘transgender people’.

We do not use ‘transsexual’.

We do not say ‘gender reassignment’ unless specifically referring to the Equality Act.

If we need to talk specifically about people who are not trans, we say ‘cisgender people’.

Try to avoid the term 'user' where possible. Try 'people who use our services’ or ‘customers’ rather than ‘service users’.

Not web-site or web site.

Address your audience as you. Imagine you are having a conversation with someone. Where possible, use 'you' (the audience) and 'we' (Scope).