Spelling

All writers should choose a standard dictionary appropriate to their context. In Australia, the Macquarie Dictionary is closely attuned to usage in this country.

But depending on your readers, you may need to adapt your spelling for English usage in other countries or for preferred terms in your own organisation.

Dictionary

Use the Macquarie Dictionary as your main reference

When writing to an Australian audience, use the Macquarie Dictionary as your main reference for Australian spelling. If it gives 2 options for spelling the same word, choose the first.

You can also set your computer’s default language to Australian English, but don’t rely on this. Spell check tools are unreliable and may not pick up words that have been wrongly used, such as ‘there’ instead of ‘their’.

Of course, if you are writing for an audience in the United Kingdom or the United States, consider using a local dictionary as your spelling reference.

Different Englishes

Remember Australian spelling can vary from British and US spelling

-ise

-our

Australian English tends to follow British English, but we do at times adopt a North American spelling.

Variation	Australia	UK	US
ise/ize	organise	organise/ organize	organize
our/or	colour	colour	color
re/er	centre	centre	center
m/mme	program	programme	program
gue/g	catalogue	catalogue	catalog

If you are writing for audiences outside Australia, use the spelling that is most common in that country. Where you have an international audience, you may need to strike a balance between North American English and British English spelling.

Official names and titles

Keep these as originally written

World Trade Center

International Organization for Standardization

Generally style the names of people, products and organisations just as they do, including non-standard spelling, capitalisation, apostrophes and other punctuation. But take care if this might be unclear for your reader.

Blu-ray

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Preferred terms

Consult your in-house style guide for terms that your organisation prefers

If you are working within an organisation, there may be technical and common terms where the preferred spelling differs from general usage. It is best to consult an in-house style guide on the preferred approach.

Similarly, where you are writing or editing a long document such as a report, it is good practice to make a list of preferred spelling for terms that can vary. Often, these relate to:

hyphenation ('landholder' vs 'land-holder')
merged compounds ('pay roll' vs 'payroll')
capitalisation ('the budget' vs 'the Budget')
industry usage ('program' vs 'programme').

Above all, consistency is the key within each text and context.