Pan-African Parliament/ AGP

Style guide for the Pan-African Parliament and AGP projects.

Pan-African Parliament

Recommendations and Resolutions

Preamble and Preface

In PAP documents, we use PREAMBLE for text like "The Pan-African Parliament, Recalling X, Noting of Y, etc."

We haven't yet found a use for PREFACE.

Body

The BODY in Recommendations usually begins as is highlighted in the example below.

The BODY in Resolutions usually begins as is highlighted in the example below.

Below are other examples of the BODY of Recommendations and Resolutions.

Documents without a preamble

Sometimes a document will not have a preamble. In such instances, the first keyword used should be BODY. Below is an example of one such document.

Hierarchical structure

Within the main body and in Schedules, content is often grouped under headings.

In legislation, the most common groupings are Chapters and Parts.

For PAP documents, which often don't specify what these headings are called, we use Divisions and Subdivisions.

The most common grouping of content is numbered paragraphs.

Keywords most commonly used

DIVISION

SUBDIVISION

PARA

SUBPARA

Notes for reviewers

Dates

The adoption date of a PAP document (resolution, recommendation or model law) is the last date of the session in which the document was presented.

e.g. Documents presented at the 3rd session of the Pan-African Parliament in 2005, were all adopted on the 11th of April 2005.

AGP

General

Preface and preamble

In AGP treaty documents, we use PREAMBLE for text like "The African Union, Recalling X, Noting of Y, etc." We haven't yet found a use for PREFACE.

In the Preamble of a document, style the first word of each sentence (words highlighted in the image below) as it is in the source document. If such word it underlined, please remove the underlining and add italics to it.

Body

The BODY in treaties usually begins after the phrase "Have agrees as follows", as is highlighted in the example below.

Documents without a preamble

Sometimes a document will not have a preamble. In such instances, the first keyword used should be BODY.

Hierarchical structure

Within the main body and in Schedules, content is often grouped under headings. The most common groupings are Chapters and Parts. For groupings not specified as either a Parts, Chapters or other keyword, we use Divisions and Subdivisions. The most common grouping of content is numbered articles or paragraphs .

Keywords most commonly used

CHAPTER/ PART

ARTICLE

PARA

SUBPARA

If a document is divided by headings for which a keyword exists, such as CHAPTER/PART, please use SUBPART for any further headings which do not have a keyword.

If a document is divided by headings for which a keyword does not exist, please use DIVISION and SUBDIVISION for those headings.

Things to look out for

Please change that appears at the end of a document to sentence case as demonstrated in the example below:

ADOPTED BY THE TWENTY-THIRD ORDINARY SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY, HELD IN MALABO, EQUATORIAL GUINEA 27TH JUNE 2014 changes to :

Adopted by the twenty-third Ordinary Session of the Assembly, held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea 27th June 2014

Please take out underling in headings

Please take out underling in headings.

Please fix spacing errors. Please add a comment in the margin ONLY if adding a space changes the meaning of the sentence.

Examples of spacing issues

Please remove signatures that appear at the end of documents.