Dates and days

Days of the week

Write days of the week in full.

If you need to abbreviate, such as in a table, use the first three letters of the day without a full stop. For example, write ‘Monday’ as ‘Mon’.  

Dates

When writing a date, include:

• the day of the week (if needed)
• the date in numerals
• the month in full
• the year in full (if needed)

Do not use commas to separate parts of a date.

When writing a date:

• do not add suffixes such as ‘th’ or ‘st’  
• do not abbreviate the month or write it as a numeral
• do not add a zero before a single-digit date 

Date ranges

Express date ranges using ‘to’ or ‘and’.

Avoid using hyphens, dashes and forward slashes. 

Academic years

An academic year spans two calendar years. Write both years out in full. Use lower case for the words ‘academic year’.

When including an academic year in a sentence, use ‘to’.

When space is limited, use a dash with a space on either side.

Decades

You can write decades in words or numerals.

If writing in words, capitalise the decade.

If writing in numerals, write decades out in full, with no apostrophe before the s.

Centuries

If you are referring to a century:

• use a numeral with a suffix (such as ‘th’ or ‘st’)
• do not use superscript (small characters that are above the line of type) 

BC, AD, BCE, CE

You can choose whether to use BC/AD or BCE/CE as appropriate to the context.

BC (Before Christ)

After the year, with no space.

• 645BC

AD (Anno Domini)

Before the year, with no space.

• AD897

BCE (Before Common Era)

After the year, with a single space.  

• 908 BCE

CE (Common Era)  

After the year, with a single space.

• 78 CE