Grammar and mechanics

Writing in a way people understand helps them accomplish their goals with ease. We help both pros and customers find what they need and learn how to use that information by making content easy to understand.

Our content should sound approachable and never robotic. Copy that sounds human is easier to read and reduces cognitive load.

Use active voice by default

The subject of a sentence performs the action when writing in active voice. Using active voice makes our products sound more conversational.

You can opt for passive voice when you want to emphasize the action instead of the subject of a sentence. This can be helpful when you want to:

Choosing the best pronoun for a given scenario helps us write copy that’s conversational and more inviting.

We typically only use third person when speaking about pros, customers, or products as separate entities.

See Inclusion and accessibility content for more information on writing using plain language.

The way we format and organize information helps people understand the information on their screen. This allows people to quickly find what they need and complete important tasks.

Use sentence casing when formatting headers

We’re no longer including periods in headers.

Use header tags consistently

Using the right header tags helps people scan the information on theirscreens quickly so they can move forward with their tasks. Here are some best practices for using header tags:

Avoid using bolded, italicized, or underlined text to emphasize a point

To helppeople scan the content on a page, frontload the important information instead of bolding or italicizing it. We should only underline text when it links to other content.

See Inclusion and accessibility content for more information on formatting content.

Use sentence casing

We use sentence casing for most user-facing content, including:

* See title casing section for exceptions to this guideline.

Use title casing for specific product names only

We only use title casing for specific product names:

Improve readability, strike the right tone, and design a consistent experience for pros and customers using these punctuation guidelines.

Contractions make our products sound more conversational, but should be used with care depending on the situation so we don’t sound awkward.

In general, positive contractions are easier to understand and also create a more conversational tone.

Negative contractions are difficult to read and may be easily misread.

These types of contractions create additional cognitive load for users with cognitive impairments and lower reading comprehension. Avoid using contractions like:

See Inclusion and accessibility content for more information about contractions.

Use the Oxford comma

The Oxford or serial comma should be used to break up a series of three or more elements in a sentence.

Avoid using commas to combine multiple sentences

To improve readability, try breaking up complex sentences into two or more sentences.

Use a comma to separate parts of an address

Em dashes

Use em dashes to:

Use an em dash with a space before and after

Adding a space both before and after the em dash allows for cleaner line breaks.

Don’t use en dashes for ranges

When writing product copy, use a hyphen instead.

Hyphens

Use exclamation marks sparingly

It’s easy to overuse exclamation marks, so only use them when you need to add emphasis that won’t overwhelm people. You can add an exclamation mark to celebrate with customers and pros, but don’t overdo it.

Avoid using periods in links, buttons, and tabs.

Avoid using ampersands

• Avoid using ampersands unless you have a hard character limit.

• Don’t use ampersands after commas.

Avoid using periods in headers

Avoid using periods in email subject lines

See Surfaces and elements for more information about writing email copy.

Improve readability by breaking up large chunks of text into lists.

General guidance

Help pros and customers understand earnings and payment details, when jobs are happening, and how to get in touch with each other by formatting numbers consistently across their experience.

• Use ###-###-#### formatting when writing telephone numbers. Don’t use parentheses.

• Spell out small numbers in a sentence.

• Use the actual number only if it’s in a form field, chart, date or other UX value.

• Use the number for 100 and up.

• For very large numbers, combine the number and word (32 million). Abbreviate ($32M) only if you have a hard character limit.

• Use the % sign for percentages.

Don’t include values after the decimal when referring to dollar amounts conversationally

Round to the nearest dollar amount in:

Use the entire dollar amount, including cents, to: