Style Guide

Artworks
Artworks are italicized.
‘…Sydney Long’s image of boys bathing, By tranquil waters.’

Capitalisation is according to artist preference
Karla Dickens worked on the mural titled Say KNOw to Drugs – For the Next Generation.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions are placed in single quotation marks. ‘In 2005 Shaun Gladwell participated in 'Space Invaders’ at the Kunsthalle Basel.’

Books and Publications
Books and publications are italicized whereas journal articles are placed in single quotation marks.
‘The artist featured in Watson’s 1994 Artlink article, ‘Nucleus: Feeling compromised’…’

Indigenous peoples
Capitalise Indigenous, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Foreign Words
Foreign words are italicised.

Abbreviations
Spell out words to be abbreviated at first use, followed by the abbreviation in brackets:
Contemporary Arts Society (CAS).

Dates
Design & Art Australia Online’s standard date format within prose is 1 January 2009.
Date ranges should be shown as:
1952–59, not 1952–1959; and 2007-09, not 2007-9.

Decades are rarely possessive
Correct – Gladwell began working in the 1990s.
Incorrect – Gladwell began working in the 1990’s.

Numbers
Use digits for money, measurements, addresses and dates. Write out numbers from one – nine, use digits for all numbers 10 and above. Write out numbers that start a sentence.

Compass points
Use lower case for compass points unless used in the name of a place or official geographic division.
‘Dempster lived in a community north of Broken Hill…’
‘Tjungarrayi is a Western Desert artist…’
Do not use capitals for non-official geographic divisions.

Quotations
Use double quotation marks for all direct quotes.
For long quotations (more than approximately 2 lines), introduce the quotation, separate it from the body of your text, remove quotation marks and italicize the text.
Always cite your quotations.

States and state organisations
Within biography prose, use the full state name rather than the abbreviation New South Wales not NSW.

Common punctuation problems – Commas
Remember to close your commas:
‘Brett Whiteley lived in Sydney, New South Wales, for thirty years’ not ‘Brett Whiteley lived in Sydney, New South Wales for thirty years’

This style guide is a brief overview of style issues commonly found on Design & Art Australia Online. For more detailed style we prefer Radio National’s style guide.

If you think other basic style guidelines should be added to the Design & Art Australia Online guide, please contact the administrator (daao@unsw.edu.au).