style

commas

Don’t use an Oxford comma in straightforward lists with no risk of ambiguity: The good, the bad and the ugly, NOT the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Do use it in lists of long phrases each containing their own punctuation, or in cases in which it is essential to convey the correct meaning: I dedicate this book to my parents, J.K. Rowling, and Martin Amis not I dedicate this book to my parents, J.K. Rowling and Martin Amis.

If possible try to remove the need to use an Oxford comma in your writing. 

contractions

Contractions such as “there’s” “they’re”, “didn’t”, “he’ll” and “she’d” do not automatically make a story more accessible. Contractions can appear annoyingly chatty, and can be imprecise too (“it’s” can stand for “it is” or “it has”) and so detract from clarity. If anything, contractions make a story harder to understand, especially if there are several of them in the same sentence.

currencies

Give figures in Swiss francs, then euros in brackets. 

"Five grams of enriched lead for the accelerator costs 12 000 CHF (9700 EUR)," says Kuchler. 

In official documents, three-letter ISO codes for currencies are preferable to symbols e.g. EUR, GBP, USD. The ISO code comes after the figure, preceded by a non-breaking space e.g. 25 CHF. Add lower case "k" for thousands, e.g. 25 kEUR, upper case "M" or "B" for millions or billions e.g. 25 MUSD.

currency conversions

Amounts quoted in sterling, US dollars and euros do not normally need to be converted. The only exception might be if you want readers to be able to make direct comparisons between countries: if that applies you should choose one as the standard.

Any other currency should be converted the first time it is mentioned to the equivalent in US dollars. There are a number of currency converters on the net: xe.com covers any currency you are likely to encounter.

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