Louis Neilson Orthography and Style Manual on Louis Neilson's Portfolio

Accessibility

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1. Accessibility Standards

WCAG

Always aim to meet the latest WCAG double-A (AA) standards for publications.
Reference: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

Colour and Contrast

WCAG 2.1 AA requires a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for standard text.

Use the following tool for assistance:
Venngage | Accessible color palette generator

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Licence

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). You may copy, adapt, and share the material for any non-commercial purpose, provided that appropriate credit is given.

Spelling and Word Usage

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2. Spelling and Word Usage

Regional Standard

South African English is the default for spelling, lexical choices, and grammatical conventions.

Spelling Conventions

Use -ise rather than -ize.
Retain British forms such as colour, harbour, and behaviour.
Avoid Americanised variants.

Naturalised Loanwords

Words that have become established in English, such as café, naïve, fiancé, and schadenfreude, do not receive italics.

Non-English Words in Prose

All non-English words embedded in prose are italicised every time they appear.
See also: Typography and Symbols → Bold and Italics.

Typography and Symbols

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3. Typography and Symbols

Dash and Hyphen Spacing

Hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes never take surrounding spaces.

Hyphen “-”

ALT + 0045 / Unicode: U+002D
Used for compound terms such as self-efficacy.
The standard keyboard hyphen is acceptable.

En Dash “–”

ALT + 0150 / Unicode: U+2013
Used for ranges such as 5–10 km or 19th–20th century.

Em Dash “—”

ALT + 0151 / Unicode: U+2014
Used for emphatic parenthetical insertions and clause-level clarifications. Never spaced.

Numbers

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4. Numbers, Dates, and Measurement

Words vs Numerals

Write out one through ten unless immediately followed by a unit or symbol.
Examples: three participants; 5%; 10° Celsius; 3 pm.

Percentages

Always use the % sign with an Arabic numeral.

Time Notation

Use lowercase h, m, and s in 24-hour notation.
Examples: 13h00; 13h21m48s.
Avoid colon-separated time (13:21:48) and avoid am/pm or “o’clock”.

Dates

Numeric dates use leading zeros and hyphens: 02-12-2025.
Order: day–month–year.
Long-form example: Tuesday, 2nd December 2025.

Punctuation

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5. Punctuation

Quotation Marks

Double quotation marks for full quotations.
Single quotation marks for nested quotations or referenced terms.
Example: “Joe said, ‘Are you sure about that?’”.

Oxford Comma

Always used.

Ampersand (&)

Use “and” in prose. Use “&” only to create internal sub-pairings.
Example: shoes & coat, oranges, tutu, guns & ammunition, and a cake.

Mathematical Operators

Use spacing around operators: x + y = z.
MathJax is first preference: https://www.mathjax.org/#gettingstarted
LaTeX is second preference.

Grammar and Writing Style

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6. Grammar and Writing Style

Pronouns

Use they as the default singular pronoun unless the person’s gender is explicitly known and relevant; i.e., instead of “he/she” say “they”.

Contractions

Never use contractions.

Slash Compounds in Prose

Allowed only when the slash denotes alternation (and/or, input/output).
Avoid slash constructions that distort relational meaning.

Avoiding Formulaic Transitions

Do not use signposting such as “In this section…”.
Avoid clichés.
Provide dictionary definitions only when explicitly requested.

Document Structure and Formatting

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7. Document Structure and Formatting

Paragraphing

Use indented paragraphs rather than spaced block paragraphs.

Block Quotes

Block quotes longer than forty words appear without quotation marks and are rendered APA-style.
In Markdown, “>” may be used but should be styled to resemble APA formatting.
Callouts (e.g., GitHub [!NOTE]) are acceptable where appropriate.

Formal Structures

Provide set notation or syllogistic structures after the prose discussion when conceptually appropriate

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Citation Practices

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

8. Citation and Reference Practices

APA 7th

Use APA in-text citations whenever possible and provide a reference list at the end of authored material.

Outside APA

Use superscript, hyperlinked footnotes following Wikipedia-style conventions.
If superscripts cannot render, use parenthetical citations as fallback.

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Licence

Code and Technical Writing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

9. Code and Technical Writing

Code block formatting

In R Markdown or Quarto, specify language using braces:

```{r}
# R code
```

```{python}
# Python code
```

```{html}
<!– HTML code –>
```

In plain Markdown, specify language without braces:

```r
# R code
```

```python
# Python code
```

```html
<!– HTML code –>
```

Inline code should be `marked` consistently.

Variable naming

Prefer camelCase for variables.
Use underscores mainly for spaces in filenames.