Communication Guidelines
There are several areas of writing that are neither right nor wrong, yet still must be consistent. Read through this section to familiarize yourself with the Beachcities Community Church grammar, style, and spelling conventions.
Communication
Avoid wordiness that leads to redundancy.
Say less in order to communicate more.
Don’t load people down with too much at once.
Communicate what we want for people, not what we want from them.
Get a second set of eyes on it.
Dates
Drop reference to year when appropriate. Don’t abbreviate. Use day of week when referencing dates unless more than one day is included. Example: Tuesday, March 9 (not Tues., Mar 9 2021)
In text, email addresses should be italicized and always lowercase. NEVER hyphenate email addresses. Never underline. Example: first.last@beachcities.org
Note: Avoid at all possible opportunities publishing personal email addresses. Use of beachcities.org email addresses highly preferred.
Should be separated with periods instead of dashes. Example: 714.698.0668 (not 714-698-0668) Note: Never publish personal phone numbers in Beachcities Community Church collateral.
Phone
Should be written consistently and concisely. Use am/pm, lowercase without periods. Example: 6:00 pm (not 6 p.m. or 8:30 P.M.)
Times
Use lowercase for all web addresses. Internet addresses should not be underlined. Drop www. NEVER hyphenate. Example: beachcities.org (not www.beachcities.org). Use website, not web site or Web site.
Web
Abbreviations
Avoid in general, particularly when referring to events or groups. Example: Faith, Family, Freedom Celebration (only use “FFF” in second reference).
Do not include “www” before the URL (e.g., beachcities.org).
URLs should be lowercase.
Do not ever make a URL bold.
Use a period when a URL ends a sentence, e.g., “Learn more at beachcities.org.”
URLS
Ministry Names
Family Ministries
KidsGames
CityKids
Junior High Ministry (JHM)
High School Ministry (HSM)
1-1 Care Ministry
Women’s Ministry
Beachcities Classical Learning Center
654 Groups
Beachcities Pantry
Avoid using apostrophes in plurals. Example: CDs, URLs, FAQs, 1990s, etc.
Spell out numbers one through nine, use numeral for 10 and above. Example: one, two, three (not 1, 2, 3) or 10, 11, 12 (not ten, eleven, twelve) Example: six-week series (not six week, or 6 week or 6-week); Starting Point is a 10-week class
Do not overuse exclamations! No more than two sentences in a row should use exclamation points
Maintain consistency in the type of bullets used
a lot (not alot)
all right (not alright)
cannot (vs. can not)