Grammar Mechanics

It is important that we adhere to a clearly defined set of grammatical and mechanical rules in our writing. This ensures that we speak with in a consistent style that is tied to our brand personality. This section lays out specific guidelines on spelling, numbers, punctuation, and much more.

Basics

Before we get into the details, however, it is important to note some basic guiding principles:

1. Remain on message. Know your value proposition and what you are trying to accomplish (elicit a change, empower for success, or assure them). Tell a sequential story with a visible structure and transition between each section.
2. Be specific. Avoid vague, obscure language when possible. Get rid of the fluff.
3. Be consistent. Make sure you follow our brand style guide and use consistent voice, grammar, and mechanics. Inconsistency creates brand confusion.
4. Be positive. Negative language is a turnoff and is in contradistinction to Fortinet’s brand.
5. Use active voice. Avoid passive voice—use active voice. Words like “was” and “by” may be an indication you’ve slipped into passive voice.
6. Avoid slang and jargon. Write in plain English.

Guidelines

Unless indicated otherwise, we follow the Associated Press Stylebook (AP Style). For anything not covered in our Brand Style for Writing section, please refer to it. When rules between the two sources differ, the ones in our Brand Style for Writing takes precedence.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Spell out the first occurrence of an abbreviation or acronym and use the short version for all subsequent references.

First Use: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Second Use: GDPR

First Use: Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP)
Second Use: MSSP

About Fortinet

Complete legal name of Fortinet is “Fortinet, Inc.” use Fortinet, Inc. when writing legal documents or contracts but use Fortinet otherwise.

Refer to Fortinet as “we” and not “it.”

Fortinet products always start with “Forti“ and end with an uppercase letter of the product (e.g., FortiNAC, FortiGate, etc.).

About Other Companies or Products

Honor their company names and do not abbreviate. Refer to a company or products as “it” and not with “they.”

Ampersands

Don’t use ampersands unless they are part of a company or brand name.

Apostrophes

Apostrophes are used for contractions (do not use them) and to make a word possessive. In the case of the latter, if the word ends in an “s” and is singular, simply add the apostrophe (not an additional “s”). If the word ends in an “s” and is plural, the apostrophe is simply added.

Bullets

Employ bullets when delineating a list that would be difficult to follow if kept within sentence structure. Do not use more than five or six bullets for a list. If it is longer than five or six bullets, then you need to break up the list into two or more taxonomies.

Capitalization

Title case capitalizes the first word of every letter except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. Sentence capitalization capitalizes the first letter of the first word. Words that should not be capitalized in a sentence include:

• website
• email
• position titles (e.g., “Sue is the director of IT at Ford Motor Company.”)
• college majors (e.g., “Sue majored in computer science while in college.”)
• seasons (e.g., “Sue began working at Ford in the fall of 2012.”)

Colons

Use colons to delineate a list (not an em dash, ellipsis, or comma).

Yes: Sue requested three solution elements: web filtering, firewalls, and switches.
No: Sue requested three solution elements—web filtering, firewalls, and switches.

Commas

Use serial commas when writing a list of words or putting together a list of clauses (Oxford comma).
Yes: Sue built an outstanding program that includes firewalls, routers, and switches.
No: Sue built an outstanding program that includes firewalls, routers and switches.

Employ a comma when breaking up complete clauses (viz., have a subject and predicate) that are joined together in one sentence.

• The Security Fabric enables customers to reduce the time spent managing manual compliance reporting, and it also provides enhanced threat intelligence.

Contractions

Our writing leans more on the side of formal than informal. Steer away from the use of contractions (e.g., “can’t,” “don’t,” “won’t,” “hasn’t,” etc.). The fact that content is translated for international audiences is another reason why we do not use contractions.

Dates

Spell out the day of the week and month (e.g., Sunday, December 23) and only abbreviate when there are space constraints (e.g., Sun., Dec. 23).

Decimals and Fractions

Spell out fractions.
Yes: one-third
No: 1/3

Use decimal points when a number cannot be expressed easily as a fraction but only to the tenths or hundredths level unless there is a valid business case.
Yes: 2.75
No: 2.7542

Ellipses

Ellipses […] are used to indicate that a thought is trailing off. These should be used sparingly and should not be used for emphasis or drama nor in titles or headings.

Ellipses in brackets […] are used to show the omission of words in a quote.

Emoji

Cybersecurity is a serious business. We don’t use them.

Em Dashes and Hyphens

Use a hyphen without spaces on either side to line words into a single phrase and for compound modifiers. (Note: Compound modifiers are not separated by a hyphen when the first word ends with -ly [e.g., fully integrated solution].)

• first-ever report
• collaborative-interactive solution

Use an em dash (—) without spaces on either side to offset asides (and do not use hyphens or en dashes [–]).

• Having a position open for a lengthy amount of time can become a real challenge for a cybersecurity organization—and a tangible pain point for a CISO.

Exclamation Points

Use them sparingly and never more than one at a time. The point of the sentence or phrase must be particularly salient to warrant an exclamation mark.

Like periods and question marks, exclamation marks go inside quotation mark. They go outside parentheses when the parenthetical is part of a larger sentence. They go inside parentheses when the parenthetical stands alone.

See Periods for examples.

File Extensions

File extension types should use all uppercase without a period. If plural, simply add an “s.”

• JPEG
• HTML
• PDF

When referring to a specific file, the file name should be all lowercase unless specified otherwise (sometimes malicious files have specific uppercase and lowercase letters; see FortiGuard.com to look up specific malicious files):

• mint.exe
• simplewallet.exe
• GandCrab.Botnet

Footnotes/Endnotes

Use endnotes unless there is a valid reason to use footnotes. The footnote/endnote number goes on the outside of the punctuation mark and not on the inside.
Yes: Ransomware attacks grew over 205% last year.¹
No: Ransomware attacks grew over 205% last year¹.

Footnotes and endnotes are only used in long-form, pillar content such as white papers, eBooks, solution briefs, etc. Hyperlinks are used in blog posts and online articles (e.g., TheCISOCollective.com). See the footnotes section of the markdown page for implementation details.

Footnote/endnote examples:

When there is an author’s name:
Patrick E. Spencer, “The State of the Female CISO, and What Can Be Done About It,” The CISO Collective, September 6, 2018.

When there is not an author’s name:
“Over half of consumers have decided against an online purchase due to privacy concerns,” KPMG, November 3, 2016.

When there is not a published date: “Beneath the surface of a cyberattack,” Deloitte, accessed September 16, 2018.

When the reference comes from a referred publication published quarterly, bi-monthly, etc.:
Doug Jones, “How to Motivate Your Employees,” Harvard Business Review 91:1 (January-February 2018): 55-62.

When there are two authors:
Doug Jones and Mary Landry, “Where to Find Cybersecurity Professionals,” SANS Institute, January 21, 2017.

When there are three or more authors:
Doug Jones, et al., “Where to Find Cybersecurity Professionals,” SANS Institute, January 21, 2017.

Italics

For titles of books, movies, and other long works, use italics. Don’t use underline formatting or any combination of bold, italic, caps, and underline.

Money

When writing about U.S. currency, use the dollar sign. For other currencies, the same format should be followed.

Names and Titles

Use the first and last name of a person in the first instance where they are referenced. Use their last name in all subsequent occurrences.

Department names are capitalized but not team when it follows.

• Security team
• IT department

Position titles are not capitalized unless they are used a titular manner:

• Chief Information Officer Sue Hanks embarked on a search for a solution that met their business requirements.
• Sue Hanks, the chief information officer, embarked on a search for a solution that met their business requirements.

Numbers

Numbers are spelled out when it begins a sentence. Use numerals in asset titles (research shows they generate more reader engagement). In sentences, numbers between one and nine are spelled out, while numbers 10 and above are used as numerals. Numbers with four digits or more get commas.

When numbers below nine and above 10 are used in the same context, then numerals are used.

• Numbers Nine and Below (e.g., “Sue estimated an answer between six and eight.”)
• Numbers 10 and Above (e.g., “Sue won between 50 and 90 games in three years.”)
• Mixed Numbers (e.g., “Sue discovered that attendees answered between 6 and 12 questions on the survey.”)

Do not abbreviate larger numbers in numerical form (e.g., 2K, 150K).

Periods

Periods go inside quotation mark. They go outside parentheses when the parenthetical is part of a larger sentence. They go inside parentheses when the parenthetical stands alone.

• Sue said, “Fortinet is a great solution and it has delivered tangible results for us.”
• Endpoint protection must account for users and devices (not to mention network access control).
• (Network access control is a requisite for anyone with IoT devices.)

Percentages

Use % symbol instead of spelling out “percent.”

Pronouns

If your subject’s gender is unknown or irrelevant, then use thirdperson plural pronouns (they, their, them) as singular pronouns.

Use third-person singular pronouns as appropriate (he, his, she, her). Don’t use “one” as a pronoun.

Question Marks

Question marks go inside quotation mark. They go outside parentheses when the parenthetical is part of a larger sentence. They go inside parentheses when the parenthetical stands alone. See Periods for examples.

Quotation Marks

Use quotes to refer to words and letters, titles of short works such as articles and poems, and direct quotations. Punctuation (periods, exclamation marks, question marks, semicolons, colons, commas) go inside of quotation marks. Use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

• Sue said, “Fortinet is the backbone of our security strategy.”
• He noted, “Our CEO gave me a mandate, indicating that ‘we should proceed with the best solution.’”

Ranges and Spans

Use an en dash [–] to represent a range or span of numbers, dates, or time (not a hyphen). There should be no space between the en dash and the adjacent content.
Yes: Customers realize 25%–30% savings.
Yes: The webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, December 23, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
No: Customers realize 25%-30% savings.
No: The webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, December 23, 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.

Schools

Refer to a school by its full name in its first occurrence. Afterwards, you can use its more common abbreviation.

• The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) conducted research in cybersecurity.
• CU performs extensive research in cybersecurity.

Semicolons

Semicolons normally are used in long, complicated sentences. But be careful about overusing semicolons. Sometimes, an em dash (—) is a better option. In other instances, it may be best to break the sentence into two sentences.

Space Between Sentences

Use one space between sentences and not two.

States, Cities, Countries

Spell out all city and state names. Don’t abbreviate them. AP Style stipulates that cities must be accompanied by their state with the exception of the following:

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington

Syntax Descriptions

Use code blocks for literals (parts of the language, values, and so on), italics for placeholder names, and regular text for the brackets that enclose something that’s optional. Pay close attention to punctuation.

Read ([file,] var)

Use camelcase to connect words that act as a single placeholder name (sourceFile).

Be consistent when naming placeholders; for example, don’t alternate between commands and commandList.

Time

Use numerals and a.m. or p.m. with a space in between. Use an en dash for ranges without a space between it and the adjacent words on either side. Abbreviate time zones in the U.S. For international time zones, spell them out.

Title Case

Short words with less than four letters are lowercase in titles unless they are the first or last words. However, if any of those words are verbs (is, are, was be), they are to be capitalized.

• Sue Smith, “A Short Discussion on What Is the Most Important"
• Cybersecurity Requirement,” Harvard Business Review 38:2 (2012): 65-81.

URLs and Websites

Capitalize the names of websites and web publications. Don’t italicize. Spell out URLs but leave off http://www and https://www. Or use basic links.