A list of updates to the style guide. March 2026 Acronyms and abbreviationsUpdated title and restructured content. This included removing accordions and incorporating their content onto the page where appropriate.Removed link to the ‘Edinburgh Acronym buster’.Updated guidance on tagging abbreviations.Moved guidance on degree awards to ‘University terminology’ and linked to this page for further guidance.Added guidance around combining words with an apostrophe and readability. University terminologyPage renamed, previously called ‘Referring to the University’.Expanded guidance and examples on how to refer to the University in different contexts.Duplication of ‘Schools and Colleges’ guidance was removed from this page, instead linking to where it sits on the ‘Capital letters’ page.Added guidance on degree programme titles and awards, including examples.Added guidance and examples to clarify the punctuation and spelling of ‘masters’ in different contexts.Added guidance and examples on the use of the word ‘honours’ in different contexts.Added guidance on degree classes (moved this from Acronyms and abbreviations).Incorporated and clarified guidance from the PDF on the use of the words ‘course’ and ‘institution’ and the fact there are no academic departments at the University. February 2026Use plain languageAdded definition of plain language. Added guidance and examples on ‘How to write in plain language’ including sections on:‘Talk directly to your audience’‘Use short sentences and paragraphs’‘Consider how you use technical language (jargon)’‘When you use technical language, help users to understand it’ Expanded guidance and examples on using the active voice, including link to further reading sources. December 2025Bold, italic and underlined textRestructured content and page title: capitals guidance now on separate page and page name changed to reflect this.Added bold and underlined text guidance and reflected this in the page title.Removed guidance on italics in print.Capital lettersRestructured content: new page created to cover guidance on capital letters.Updated guidance on capitalisation of ‘schools’. Contact detailsAdded guidance on how to format an email address.Clarified guidance on how to format a postal address and removed guidance on the need to tag postcodes.Expanded guidance on how to format different types of phone numbers.Added guidance on using the ‘contact card’ component to display contact details. ListsAdded guidance on when to use a list.Added guidance on introducing and punctuating a list.Added guidance on including links within a list.Added guidance on using multilevel lists.November 2025Headings and page titlesPage renamed to include ‘page titles’.Expanded guidance relating to the recommended number of heading levels on a page.Added guidance to cover recommended heading length.LinksRemoved references to print.Added guidance to cover duplication of links.Added guidance on writing link text for external website links.Added guidance on effective use of buttons.Added information about link text and screen readers. October 2025Capital lettersAdded guidance and example around capitalising language communities. This article was published on 2026-03-20
