Editorial Style
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Academic Degrees, Departments and Titles
Alumna/Alumnus/Alumni
Bullets
Capitalization
Commas
Composition Titles
Computer and Internet Terms
Countries
DePaul University
Ellipses (...)
Helpful Style and Language Links
Hyphens, Dashes and Parentheses
The "L"
Numerals
Possessives
Quality Copy Checklist
Quotation Marks
Theatre, Theater
Tips for Composing Copy for the Web
Editorial Style
These guidelines are based on The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook used by journalists throughout the world and are supported as a secondary source by the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. They are intended to help DePaul faculty and staff prepare copy for university publications and resolve basic questions about style. They are not inflexible rules, but rather an aid for faculty and staff responsible for publishing university materials. Please share them with outside vendors contracted to produce publications for DePaul to ensure consistency of style.
Copy to be used for newspapers, magazines and newsletters, in general, should follow AP style closely. However, the diverse types of university publications, their divergent audiences and differing purposes may require broader interpretation of the guide. As a general rule, down-styling—using lowercase except in cases where uppercase is clearly called for—is the preferred style. These guidelines are not recommended for use in publication of academic papers, for which the Modern Language Association, American Psychological Association or Chicago Manual of Style may be more appropriate references. Many interpretations in this guide involve the degree of capitalization and abbreviation maintained throughout a publication. Some publications that may require broader interpretation are:
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Abbreviate these titles when they are used before a name: Gov., Rep., Sen., and the Rev. Use the Rev. before the name of a priest in the first reference: the Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M. Succeeding references should use only the last name. The Congregation of the Mission is the religious community that founded DePaul. Vincentian fathers and brothers use the designation C.M. set off by commas following their last names. Use Bro. before the name of a brother. Use Sister before a name: Sister Agnes Rita in all references if the nun uses only a religious name. Otherwise use her full name, including religious order affiliation, on first reference and just the last name on subsequent references: Sister Agnes Rita Malone, D.C.
With dates or numerals, use the following: A.D., B.C., a.m. and p.m. For addresses abbreviate Ave., St. and Blvd., when used with a full street address: 1150 W. Fullerton Ave. All other designations, such as Drive, Road and Circle, are spelled out. Spell out and lowercase the word street, avenue, etc., when not used with an exact address and when used with more than one street name: the corner of Fullerton and Sheffield avenues.
Abbreviate the following months: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec., when used with a specific date: Jan. 1, 2008. Spell out all other months when used with a specific date or alone.
Abbreviate states when used with the name of a town or city: South Bend, Ind. Do not use the two-letter Postal Service abbreviations except in return addresses. The AP abbreviation for Illinois is Ill. It is not necessary to include the state abbreviation with Chicago. Abbreviate all states except Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.
Use the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses after the first reference is spelled out: The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Community-based Service Learning (CbSL) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In succeeding references, use the abbreviation alone without parentheses. Do not use the abbreviation in the first reference without identifying what it represents. Do not put an abbreviation in parentheses after a first reference if the abbreviation is never mentioned again.
Academic Degrees, Departments and Titles
Do not use a title before a name when it is followed by the abbreviation for the degree: Sally Smith, Ph.D. When the abbreviation follows the name, it should be set off with commas. Do not use Dr., except for those with medical degrees. It is assumed that most professors have Ph.D.s, so generally it is unnecessary to cite it.
Capitalize abbreviations for degrees and professional designations and separate them with periods: B.A., M.S., C.P.A. An exception is MBA, which is treated like a word rather than abbreviation due to its common usage. Use lowercase when degrees are spelled out: bachelor of science, master of arts. Use the apostrophe and lowercase in general and specific references: bachelor’s degree, master’s degree in sociology. The exception is associate degree (no possessive). Use lowercase for informal references to academic departments except when they include proper nouns: sociology department, English department. However, use uppercase for formal references to academic departments: Department of Sociology or Department of English.
Capitalize and spell out such titles as Professor, Provost, Dean, Vice President, etc., when they precede a name. Otherwise, spell them out and do not capitalize. Named professorships are capitalized. Do not use courtesy titles such as Mr., Mrs. or Miss.
Alumna/alumnus/alumni
Alumnus is male; alumni is plural. Alumna is female; alumnae is plural. Use alumni for mixed-gender groups. In the cases of class notes and other listings, if a DePaul graduate has earned only an advanced degree, add the college in front of the degree and graduation year (note direction of the apostrophe): CTI MS ’06. If a graduate earned more than one degree from a single college, simply list the years: LAS ‘99, ’02. In other copy, such as magazine feature stories, simply identify the college and the year without listing degrees: LAW ’89.
Bullets
Capitalization
Avoid unnecessary capitalization whenever possible. Capitalize proper nouns such as the name of a person, place or thing: Joseph, New York, General Motors. Capitalize common nouns only when they are an integral part of the full name: Socialist Party, Chicago River.
Lowercase common nouns when they are plural: Socialist and Republican parties, Chicago and Mississippi rivers.
Lowercase the word university unless using the full name: DePaul University. However, it is not necessary to use University with DePaul on first and subsequent references in internal documents.
Lowercase the word community: DePaul community.
Lowercase seasons: summer, fall, winter, spring quarter.
Lowercase directions when they refer to the compass: north, east, southwest.Capitalize them when they refer to regions: Midwest, Midwestern, Middle East, Southeast Asia.
Capitalize unofficially designated place names: Near North Side, North Shore, South Side, Wall Street.
Capitalize the names of all university buildings and campuses: Ray Meyer Fitness and Recreation Center, Rolling Meadows Campus. Note that the Merle Reskin Theatre uses the “re” variant spelling for theatre.
Capitalize words derived from proper nouns: Chicagoan, Christian, Marxist.
Capitalize the names of schools, colleges, centers and institutes in the university when used in full phrase: College of Commerce, The Theatre School, Center for Latino Research, International Human Rights Law Institute. Lowercase when used in general reference or informally: the school, the college, the university, the institute and the music school.
Capitalize official course names: Modern Poetry, Urban Sociology.
Capitalize division names: Student Affairs, Information Services and Enrollment Management and Marketing.
Note the capitalization in the university’s strategic plan: VISION twenty12.
Commas
Separate items in a series with commas, but do not use a comma before a conjunction and the last item in a simple series: DePaul is a Catholic, Vincentian and urban institution.
Use commas to set off hometowns: Professor Smith, Chicago, and Professor Jones, South Bend. Ind., attended the conference. The comma isn’t required if the word of is used: Professor Smith of Chicago and Professor Jones of South Bend, Ind., attended the conference.
Use commas to set off names of states and nations: Professor John Johnson traveled from Peoria, Ill., to Manama, Bahrain.
Use commas with numbers larger than three digits: DePaul enrolled 2,400 freshmen in 2006. Do not use commas in street addresses, room numbers, serial numbers, telephone numbers and years. He studied at 2350 N. Kenmore Ave. in Room 1305 from 2003 to 2007.
Use commas, not parentheses or dashes, to set off appositives: John Smith, professor of English, just published a new book of poetry.
When a phrase lists only a month and year, do not separate the year with commas: February 2006 was a cold month. However, when a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas: March 15, 2009, is the target date of the launch.
Composition Titles
Use quotation marks around the titles of books, plays, poems, songs, television shows, movies, operas, works of art, as well as titles of lectures, speeches, book chapters and magazine or journal articles. Do not use quotation marks or italics with titles of newspapers, journals and magazines: the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, DePaul Magazine. Do not use quotation marks with descriptive or “generic” titles of musical works: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. However, use quotation marks for non-musical terms in a title or if the work has a special full title: the “Jupiter” Symphony, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Capitalize the initial letters of such works, including the articles a, an and the, if an article is the first word of the title. Capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters in titles.
Computer and Internet Terms
Internet and the Net are capitalized, while intranet is lowercase. World Wide Web is capitalized. Use the Web, Web site, Web page, but webcast, webcam and webmaster. When citing Web addresses, there is no need to include http://, simply begin with www.address.edu or address.com.
Online is all one word. DePaul’s Course OnLine uses a capital L. Use a hyphen for e-mail, e-commerce, e-business, e-book, e-shopping. These can be capitalized if used as part of a proper name, such as the DePaul University E-Commerce Program.
Countries
Countries whose names are plural are preceded by the article "the" in written and verbal use: the Philippines, the Netherlands, the West Indies. Country names that denote a political entity also are preceded by the article "the": the Czech Republic, the United States, the Orange Free State, the United Arab Emirates. Countries named after the “patria”—the fatherland or motherland—do not need the article "the": America, Britain, France, Russia, New Zealand; contrary to popular usage, Ukraine and Sudan are never preceded by "the."
DePaul University
Spell out DePaul as one word, capitalizing the “D” and “P.” Do not insert a space. Do not capitalize university except when used in full phrase: DePaul University. Do not print DePaul in all lowercase letters unless you are referring to www.depaul.edu.
Note: Due to advances in typographical options, we no longer insert a space between the “De” and “P” in DePaul when using all caps. Rather, the preferred style is to use a smaller type size for the capital E: DEPAUL. However, the spelling of the university’s patron is always St. Vincent de Paul, with a lower case “de” and a space between the “de” and the “P.” Similarly, it’s St. Vincent de Paul Church.
When referring to a DePaul campus whose location is not in its name, follow the campus name with the municipality’s name on first reference: South Campus in Oak Forest, O’Hare Campus in Des Plaines. Capitalize the word campus when used with the full campus name, but not when used alone or referring to multiple campuses: Rolling Meadows Campus, the campus, the Naperville and Loop campuses.
DePaul has programs, but not campuses, in Bahrain, Jordan, the Czech Republic, Kenya, Taiwan and Thailand. Bahrain is officially a kingdom, and the city where our program is located is Manama, the capital. DePaul’s MBA program is offered in Prague, Czech Republic, Bahrain and Taipei, Taiwan. The School for New Learning offers an M.A. in applied professional studies in Bangkok, Thailand, and a B.A. program in Nairobi, Kenya. CTI offers four graduate degree programs in Amman, Jordan, via distance learning.
As of this printing, DePaul’s schools are the School of Education, School of Music, School for New Learning (SNL) and The Theatre School (TTS). Note The is capitalized in the latter reference, and the school and the Merle Reskin Theatre use the “re” variant spelling for theatre. The full names of the schools should be used on initial reference for both internal and external purposes. The Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and the School of Accountancy and Management Information Systems are part of the College of Commerce. The School of Public Service is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
DePaul’s colleges are the College of Commerce, College of Communication, College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM), College of Law, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LA&S).
Ellipses (...)
Use an ellipsis to show the deletion of one or more words in condensing quotes. In general, treat it as a three-letter word. If the ellipsis occurs at the end of a sentence, place a period at the end of the last word before the ellipsis. Follow it with a regular space and an ellipsis: You are coming of age in unsettling times. ...
Helpful Style and Language Links
Dictionary
yourdictionary.com
dictionary.com
Thesaurus
thesaurus.com
Synonyms and Antonyms
synonym.com
Grammar Slammer
www.englishplus.com/grammar
Ask the AP Stylebook Editor
www.apstylebook.com/ask_editor.php
Hyphens, Dashes and Parentheses
Hyphens are joiners; dashes are separators; parentheses allow insertion of background or reference material.
Use hyphens to avoid ambiguity or to form a single thought from two or more words: re-create, a know-it-all, tight-lipped person. Common and unambiguous adjectives do not need to be hyphenated: high school student, ice cream cone. Use hyphens to separate numerals in ratios: 10-to-1 ratio, a 2-1 margin, and scores: the Blue Demons won 10-2. Hyphenate expressions of dual heritage: African-American, Mexican-American.
Dashes signal an abrupt change in thought. Do not insert spaces on either side of the em dash: As the largest Catholic university in America—it was an honor we weren’t seeking—DePaul has become a role model for other schools. When a phrase that otherwise would be set off by commas contains a series of words that must be separated by commas, use dashes to set off the full phrase: DePaul’s essential qualities—Catholic, Vincentian and urban—are key to our mission.
Parentheses should be used sparingly because they are jarring to readers. Put the period outside the closing parenthesis if the set-off information is a fragment (like this, for instance). If the material is a complete sentence, but is dependent upon the surrounding information (this is a good example) do not include a period inside the parentheses. However, if the material is a complete sentence that is a separate thought, put a period inside the parentheses. (Now we are ready for the next section.)
The “L”
According to the Chicago Transit Authority, the CTA’s train system is called the “L”—short for “elevated.” Note capitalization and punctuation.
Numerals
Lowercase and spell out numbers and their derivatives from one to nine and use the Arabic form for 10 and above: three hours, first anniversary, 21st century, 30 years. Always use the Arabic form when giving a person’s age: Jane Smith, 35, and her son, 5; or when using percent, which is always spelled out: 5 percent. Use Arabic form for millions, billions and trillions: a $5 million budget.
To express the five-digit university telephone extensions, use ext. 2-8000 for publications distributed only within the university, or the full number (312) 362-8000 for publications distributed outside the university. For room numbers, capitalize “room” when used with a figure and with a specially designated room: Room 154, Rare Book Room.
Possessives
Add ’s for plural nouns not ending in s: the children’s toys. When a plural noun ends in s, add only the apostrophe: the students’ grades, the Joneses’ gift. When a noun is plural in form but singular in meaning, add only the apostrophe: the mumps’ symptoms. Use only the apostrophe with proper names ending in s: Jesus’ life. For singular common nouns ending in s, add ’s unless the next word begins with s: the witness’s answer, the witness’ story.
Quotation Marks (also see composition titles)
Use double quotation marks (“) to set off direct quotes, and single quotation marks (‘) to set off a quote or a title of a creative work within a quote. All punctuation marks, except the colon, semi-colon, dash and exclamation point, should stand within both double and single quotation marks. The colon, semi-colon, dash and exclamation point stand within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted material.
If a paragraph ends with a quotation that ends in a complete sentence and is continued in the next paragraph, do not use the quotation marks at the end of the first paragraph. Open succeeding paragraphs with quotation marks until the quote is concluded.
“I saw ‘Othello’ last night,” he said, “and I really enjoyed it. “I was up until 2 a.m., though, because I stayed for the cast party.”
Theatre, Theater
Use theatre in all DePaul publications. This is an exception to The Associated Press Stylebook: “Theatre students and alumni gathered on opening night at the Merle Reskin Theatre.” “His storied theatre career started when he was just 9 years old.” Use theater when it is part of the proper name of a performing arts company or venue: Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Tips for Composing Copy for the Web
Writing for the Web is different from other mediums.
People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. The main objective of Web copy should be to disseminate information as quickly as possible. Lengthy paragraphs and long explanations will cause many readers to leave your site.
Use informative headings to make major points.
The reader should be able to scroll down the page and read the major points without stopping. These headings need to convey the main ideas presented in the page.
Each major heading should be a hypertext link.
This technique allows quick access to relevant information and adds value by highlighting specifics. Writers who want to link to specific details from other pages can use these links.
Include links to related and detailed information sources when appropriate.
Providing links to outside resources can add credibility to your site and arguments.
Credibility is important to Web users.
The source of information on the Web often can be unclear, so incorporating the source into the copy helps add reliability to the material. Credibility can be increased by the use of outbound hypertext links, concise writing and high-quality graphics.
Effective Web copy includes:
For more information about the DePaul Style Guide:
University Relations
(312) 362-8591