Contractions

Avoid negative contractions

❌ Do not use contractions like shouldn't, can’t and don’t. Research shows that many users:

• find negative contractions difficult to read
• misread them as the opposite of what they say

Simple positive contractions may be fine

✅ Like you'll, we'll, we're, they're, it's, I'll, there'll, there's.

Take care with "you have / you've"

✅ If you've contacted us before...

And

✅ If you have an EHC plan...

❌  If you've an EHC plan...

Possessive nouns may be fine

"Local Authority’s Education Inclusion Service", "the child's parents", "the Review Board's decision"

But there are some phrases that do not work as possessives:

✅ the child's quality of life

❌ the child's life's quality

Which of the following works best?

...in order to increase the capacity of the child’s Key Person...

...in order to increase the child’s Key Person's capacity...

...in order to increase the capacity of the Key Person of the child...

A small grammar point.

You use an apostrophe on "it is" as a contraction, for example "it's expected" but you do not when "it" is part of a possessive noun, so "its ethos". I do this all the time. Thankfully my spell checker always points it out.  

Avoid conditional contractions

❌ should've, would've, could've.

For people with cognitive challenges these are hard to recognise and understand because they are less often used, complex tense contractions .