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Non-discriminatory language

In the preamble to its Staff Rules and Regulations [CERN NICE Login required], CERN reaffirms equality of treatment between people as one of the basic principles of its personnel policy and does not discriminate between members of its personnel, in particular on account of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. Authors of CERN texts must take care to avoid any discriminatory language that could cause offence, exclude certain groups of people or reinforce stereotypes.

numbers

Numbers

When applied to countable objects, spell out numbers below 10:

  • There are four large detectors at the LHC.
  • The LHC construction project had three phases.

For 10 and above, use digits. Numbers up to 9999 do not take a comma or a space. Numbers with five digits take a non-breaking space every three digits. So it’s:

One, nine, 10, 100, 1001 and 9999, but 10 000 or 564 381 or 1 057 983.

Try to avoid putting numbers at the start of a sentence, but if it’s unavoidable, spell them out.

obituary

The headline should be in the format NAME (Birthyear - Deathyear)

Joe Bloggs (1933 - 2008)

The strapline should contain a description of the person based on highlights from their career:

Theorist who revolutionised random-sets algebra and paved the way for supersymmetric theories of time

The obituary should be respectful and measured. Do not be defamatory, but equally do not exaggerate the person's contribution. Avoid superlatives.

particles

Always spell out the name of the particle – do not use the mathematical symbol in text.

The mathematical symbols may be used in diagrams only when they are spelled out in full in the accompanying caption. See graphs and charts.

PDF

Whenever you link to a PDF, make sure to put the link on the letters [PDF] inside square brackets. This is for people using the website on a mobile phone – PDFs can take a long time to load. 

Find out more about CERN in the general brochure [PDF]

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