Generally avoid abbreviations in text. Some exceptions:
Abbreviate certain months of the year when used with a specific date: Sept. 19, 1994. But spell out: September 1994. Abbreviate Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Always spell out: March, April, May, June and July.
Abbreviate avenue, boulevard and street when used with an address: 123 S. Main St. Spell out: 100 block of South Main Boulevard . Do not abbreviate alley, drive, road, or terrace. Use single letters for address directions: N., E., W., S.
Abbreviate states when used with towns or cities: Cheyenne, Wyo. But: She lives in Wyoming. State abbreviations are: Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kan., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Minn. Miss., Mo., Mont. Neb., Nev. N.H., N.J., N.M., N.Y.,N.C., N.D., Okla., Ore., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.D., Tenn., Va., Vt., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo. Spell out Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Utah. Regional media in the northern United States also abbreviate Canadian provinces: Alb., B.C. Man., Sask., Ont..
Use the full, official name of an organization or unit on the first reference, then shorten it in subsequent references: Example: the Department of History, then the department (lower case preferred). Also spell out the first time any word, name or title that is to be used repeatedly in shortened form. Then use the short form consistently. Example: the Metropolitan Transit Authority , then the Metro.
Avoid unfamiliar acronyms by finding an alternative. Example: Write the department, not the DNR, when referring to a state's Department of Natural Resources. Exceptions might include well-known acronyms: CSU, FBI, NASA, USA.
Avoid Mr., Mrs. and Ms. Refer to an individual's last name only. Use these abbreviated titles before proper names in first references only: Gov., Lt. Gov., Rep., the Rev., Sen. Use Dr. only when referring to medical doctors, dentists, or veterinarians.
Treat numbers consistently.
Generally, spell out whole numbers
less than 10, and use figures for numbers of 10 or more. Example:
During the first four years, 11 freshmen were honored.
Use figures for dates: April 2, 1995. Not April 2nd, April second.
Use numerals for all addresses: 2 N. Main St.
Write from April 10 to April 20, not from April 10-20.
Similarly, write from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., not from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (Not 6:00 p.m.). Use a.m. or p.m. (lower case, note periods). Avoid references to o'clock, or redundancies such as in the morning when a time is given.
Write A.D., B.C., 2lst century in most uses. Hyphenate an inclusive period of years and don't repeat the century: 1994-95.
For monetary amounts of a million dollars or more, use the dollar sign and arabic number, and spell out million, billion or trillion: $7.6 billion. Write out: $245,000 (not $245 thousand), except in broadcast copy. Avoid unneeded decimals for cents: $2 (not $2.00).
Use lower case, instead of initial capital letters, whenever possible: the president, the governor, the university, the company. Capitalize names, such as academic disciplines or units within a firm, only when these appear in their full official form: Department of History;. Otherwise: the history department, history.
Capitalize an official title if it precedes a name; use lower case when the title follows the name: President Al Yates; but Al Yates, president of Colorado State University.. Don't capitalize unofficial or merely descriptive titles used before a name. Example: computer analyst John Doe..
Always place the period inside the ending quotation mark whenever a quotation is at the end of a sentence: She said, "Of course."
Place question marks and exclamation marks inside or outside of the quotation mark, depending upon whether the mark refers to the quoted material (inside) or the larger sentence in which the quoted material appears (outside). Examples: Did she say, "Of course"? I responded, "Yes!"
Avoid a final comma in a series of three words or phrases, unless the meaning would be unclear. Example: 1, 2 and 3. Use commas sparingly, but insert one wherever necessary to help the reader understand the sentence: ...and a one, and a two, and a three!
Be alert for these commonly misspelled words:
accede, adherence, advertise, adviser, accommodate, afterward (no s), anyone, benefiting, berserk, blond (male), blonde (female), buses, cigarette, consensus, controversy, descendant, disastrous, dissension, divisive, embarrass, fulfill, goodbye, grammar, hemorrhage, indispensable, innocuous, irresistible, judgment, liaison, likeable, liquefy;
marshal, miniature, minuscule, occasion, occurred, parallel, pastime, permissible, personnel, picnicking, politicking, pompons, privilege, questionnaire, queue, recommend, reconnaissance, restaurateur, sacrilegious, seize, separate, siege, sizable, specter, strict, supersede, toward (no s), tumultuous, vacuum, vice versa, weird, wield.
Always spell-check -- and proof, proof, poof (gulp!).
Use said or says for attributing information to a source. Other verbs (added, explained, etc.) can be used occasionally for variation in phrasing, but often call attention to themselves.
Beware of these commonly misused words. Consult a dictionary:
Choose words carefully; be precise. Avoid jargon or a needlessly
technical term or complicated phrasing if simpler wording would do.
The trend in modern usage is away from the use of hyphens. Words
beginning with short prefixes, such as co-, de-, pre-, pro-, post-
and re- are generally spelled as part of the word they modify,
without hyphens. With other prefixes, use a hyphen to avoid
doubling a vowel or tripling a consonant: Example: hall-like,
anti-inflationary.
Use hyphens where two or more hyphenated compounds have a common
basic element that is omitted in one or more of the terms.
Example: three- or four-member committee.
Prefixes that generally require hyphens include: ex-, self-, non-, and quasi-.
Form the plurals of most proper nouns by adding s; if the name ends
in s, add es: Example: The Grays visited the Joneses.
Avoid an apostrophe when forming the plurals of numbers or letters
used as words: Example: the 1950s, the ABCs. Exception: Use an
apostrophe if the s alone might be confusing: three Ph.D.'s, dot
the i's and cross the t's.
Do not use masculine pronouns (he, his, him, himself) when the
person could be either male or female. Consider these options:
Don't mix singular and plural to avoid a gender-specific pronoun:
Avoid gender references in job titles: news workers, not newsmen.
Beware of other unintended gratuitous or stereotypical descriptions of people
based on gender, age, ethnicity, handicap or sexual preference.
The media are plural. A newspaper is a medium. Newspapers and
magazines are media (not medias).
References to the media should
be used carefully and only in limited cases where generalizations apply to about all forms of communication
media (print, broadcast, computer-mediated). In most cases, it's better to be more specific: Refer to
the news media, newspapers, radio, television, etc.
Public relations workers are
practitioners. (Note correct spelling.) PR (no periods) is acceptable as a second reference or as a an adjective, but is never a verb.
Spell out television in first references. TV is acceptable as a shortened second reference in most uses.
Spell advertising and advertisements correctly. The term ads is acceptable is acceptable in most cases, but make
sure that the meaning is clear.
Use italics to indicate the title of books, reference works, or a
sacred book or its parts (e.g. the Bible, the Torah). (In student
papers, use underlining if italics are not available.)
Use quotation marks around the titles of TV or radio shows, movies,
plays, poems, songs, or works of art: "Beverly Hills 90210."
Capitalize and punctuate the titles of media works according to the official title; short
articles, conjunctions and pronoun generally should be lower case.
Good writing is simple prose that expresses ideas clearly and succinctly. These
suggestions for good writing are culled from Strunk and White's classic The
Elements of Style.
Return to A Short Style Guide for Writers
adverse, averse;
affect, effect;
already, all
ready;
allusion, illusion;
alter, altar;
amid (not amidst);
awhile,
a while;
biannual, biennial;
canvas, canvass;
composed of,
comprised;
ensure, insure;
between, among;
can, may, might;
connote, denote;
complement, compliment;
council, counsel, consul;
eminent, imminent;
everyday, every day;
faze, phase;
fewer, less;
flier, flyer;
former, latter;
farther, further;
imply,
infer;
it's, its;
lie, lay;
like, as;
majority, plurality;
oral,
verbal;
people, persons;
pretext, pretense;
principal, principle;
precede, proceed;
reluctant, reticent;
their, there, they're;
underway, under way;
who, whom;
who's, whose;
which, that.
Hyphens and Compound Words
Plurals and Singulars
Gender Problems
--Rewrite the sentence to eliminate the
pronoun.
-- Use a genderless word (person, one, individual).
-- Use the in place of his or hers.
-- Or use the (sometimes awkward) phrase he or she.
Wrong: The instructor is responsible for ordering books for their
class.
Right: The instructor is responsible ... for the class.
Media-Related Terms
Say It Simply
. Use the active voice.
. Put statements in positive form.
. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
. Omit needless words.
. Express like ideas in similar form.
. Keep related words together.
. Keep to one tense.
. Place yourself in the background.
. Write in a way that comes naturally.
. Plan what you want to say -- and hold to it.
. Write with nouns and verbs.
. Do not overwrite; do not explain too much.
. Do not overstate.
. Avoid using qualifiers.
. Use preferred spellings (the first in a dictionary).
. Avoid constructing awkward adverbs.
. Be clear.
. Avoid injecting opinion, unless it is appropriate to do so.
. Use figures of speech sparingly.
. Avoid foreign phrases or terms.
. Revise and rewrite.
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