A new online portal designed to promote clear and effective communication, and to demystify technical language in medicine, law and other areas will be launched this Thursday, thanks to a new partnership between Macquarie and Canberra-based publisher Biotext.

As part of the new partnership, Biotext’s online Australian Manual of Scientific Style will transfer to a newly created portal on the University website. A suite of free online resources on language and style will also be there for professional writers and editors, and the general public.

This interactive portal – to be known as the Australian StyleHub – is the initiative of Emeritus Professor of Linguistics Pam Peters, who taught at Macquarie for 34 years. The launch of the StyleHub continues the University’s long tradition of creating authoritative references on Australian uses of language, notably the Macquarie Dictionary, on whose editorial committee Peters worked from 1986 to 2006. The Australian Style newsletter, founded by Peters in 1992, will go live on the StyleHub to report on language controversies and engage with readers in regular usage surveys.

“Scientific and stylish communication – the two come together in a newly forged partnership between Biotext and Macquarie University, with their strong track records in scientific publishing and in Australian language and style,” says Peters, who has contributed to several editions of the Australian Government Style Manual.

“The StyleHub will provide access to expert publications and research on how to communicate clearly and effectively through the internet.”

The StyleHub portal also gives access to specialised online dictionaries built at Macquarie on the TermFinder™ platform. These termbanks explain and illustrate the meanings of technical terms in areas such as family law, cancer medicine and accounting, to meet the needs of first- and second-language students and professional trainees.

“TermFinder termbanks are useful for writers and editors who work with technical terms, and members of the public who hear them and want somewhere to go to for an explanation,” says Prof Peters, who continues as a member of the ABC’s advisory committee on spoken language.

When it comes to recommendations on style, usage and accessibility, Biotext and Macquarie University both take seriously the need for empirical research. A series of studies by the Head of the Department of Linguistics, Professor Jan-Louis Kruger, is underway looking at how we access information on websites, and what is available to address the needs of those with disabilities.