Grammar and editorial

The way we write

Consistency builds trust. These rules settle the small questions so you can focus on what you're saying.

We write in British English (the standard in the UAE and in our government work): organisation, licence (noun), license (verb), colour, centre, programme. The exceptions are product UI strings that must match software standards, and proper names. When this guide doesn't cover something, follow the Oxford Style Manual.

Abbreviations and acronyms

• Spell out on first use, abbreviation in brackets: large language model (LLM). Then use the abbreviation.
• Skip spelling out what everyone knows: AI, API, PDF, URL, UAE.
• No full stops in abbreviations: UAE, UK, US, EU.
• Never abbreviate our names: not NS, NE, NC.

Ampersands

Write “and”. Use “&” only in proper names and space-limited UI labels.

Bullet points

• Introduce lists with a complete sentence or a colon.
• Start every item with a capital letter.
• Full stops only when the item is a full sentence; be consistent within a list.
• Keep items parallel: all verbs, all nouns, or all sentences.
• Five to seven items at most.

Capitalisation

• Sentence case for headings, titles, buttons, menus and slide titles.
• Capitalise product and brand names exactly: North, NorthStar, NorthStar Admiral, North Academy.
• Feature names inside products are capitalised as names: Mai, Shaheen, Masar. Generic features are lowercase: model garden, residency gate, approval queue.
• Job titles are capitalised before a name or in signatures, lowercase in running text.
• Government bodies keep their official capitalisation.

Colons and semicolons

• Use a colon to introduce a list, an example or an explanation.
• Capitalise after a colon only if a full sentence or a proper noun follows.
• Avoid semicolons in marketing; use two sentences. They are fine in documentation.

Commas

Use the serial (Oxford) comma: “mail, calendar, and contacts”. It removes ambiguity in lists of features and permissions.

Dates and times

• Day Month Year, no ordinals: 13 October 2026.
• Abbreviated in tables: 13 Oct 2026. ISO in data and file names: 2026-10-13.
• 24-hour clock in technical and government writing: 14:30 GST. 12-hour in marketing: 2:30 pm GST.
• Always give the time zone for events: GST (UTC+4).
• Days of the week in full: Monday to Friday.

Dashes and hyphens

• En dash (–) for ranges, no spaces: 9–17, Monday–Friday.
• Spaced em dash ( — ) for a strong break, used sparingly. Never two in one sentence.
• Hyphens for compound adjectives before a noun: on-premises model, local-first design, human-in-the-loop review.
• No hyphen with -ly adverbs: fully managed service.

Emoji

No emoji in product UI, documentation, proposals or government communication. On social and internal channels, at most one, at the end, never replacing a word.

File names and extensions

• Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces: north-presentation-template.pptx.
• Write extensions in capitals in text: a PDF, the PPTX template.
• Versions with v: northstar-desktop-v1.3.8.msi.

Headings

• Sentence case, no full stop.
• Make them meaningful when read alone: “Install on macOS”, not “Overview”.
• Questions are fine for FAQs; statements everywhere else.
• Don't skip levels.

Money

• Currency code before the number with a space: AED 1,200; USD 45.
• Use AED for UAE customers; give USD alongside when the audience is international.
• Millions and billions: AED 4.5 million, AED 1.2bn in tables.

Numbers

• Spell out one to nine; numerals from 10. Always numerals with units: 3 GB, 5 minutes, 2 users.
• Commas for thousands: 12,000.
• Start a sentence with a word, not a numeral.
• Use Western Arabic numerals (0–9) in English and, unless the client requests otherwise, in Arabic.

Percentages

Numeral plus % with no space: 63%. In Arabic text the sign follows Arabic typographic convention.

Possessives and plurals

• NorthStar's agents; North's mission.
• No apostrophe in plurals: APIs, LLMs, the 2020s.
• Brand names never take a plural: “two NorthStar Desktop installs”, not “two NorthStar Desktops”.

Pronouns

• Use “we” for North and “you” for the reader.
• Use “they” for a person whose pronouns you don't know.
• Refer to an agent as “it”, never “he” or “she”. Mai is “it” too.

Quotations

• Double curly quotes for quotations, single for quotes within quotes.
• Full stops and commas inside the quote marks only if they belong to the quote.
• Attribute quotes with name, role and organisation, and get written approval.

Trademarks

Don't use ™ or ® in running text. Legal pages and packaging carry the relevant marks. Respect other companies' names and capitalisation: macOS, Windows, Microsoft Teams, Azure.

Units and technical terms

• Space between number and unit: 16 GB, 300 ms, 48 hours.
• Code, commands, paths and settings in monospace: TRUSTED_PROXY_HOPS, /healthz.
• UI labels in bold: select Issue licence.

Last updated on 14 October 2026