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Academic Years
- first-year student
- second-year student
- junior
- senior
- we use first-year and second-year rather than freshman and sophomore, then junior and senior thereafter, to avoid awkward things like fifth-year and sixth-year student.
Dates
- Spell out dates and include the day of the week and year for informational purposes.
- Wednesday, March 27, 2019; not March 27th, 2019 or 3/27/19
- When not preceded by between or from, date ranges use an en dash with no spaces.
- March 27–28, 2019; not between March 27–28 or from March 27–28
Graduation Years
- Graduation years can be abbreviated to the last two digits preceded by an apostrophe
- No punctuation
- '92 '09
- MS '92 PhD '09
- BS English Literature '78 MS Rhetoric and Technical Communication '92
- Jack Johnson '11 '15
- Exception: early 1900s and later 1800s alumni, use full year: 1887, 1915
Time
- a.m./p.m. is correct in text/narrative. AM/PM is acceptable in design.
- 9 p.m., Saturday, April 28, 2012
- noon and midnight are preferable to 12 p.m. and 12 a.m.
- When not preceded by between or from, time ranges use an en dash with no spaces.
- 8–9 a.m., 10 a.m.–2 p.m., or 3–5 p.m.; not between 8–9 a.m. or from 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
- 5th is correct. Don't use superscripts unless for scientific or technical accuracy
Numbers
- Zero to nine are always spelled out except for in recipes and with staff positions; 10 and up are written as numerals except at the start of a sentence or for headlines
- Spell out a figure when beginning a sentence even though numerals are used elsewhere in the text
- Numbers of more than three figures are pointed off with commas, except SAT scores.
- 1,259 women
- $4,700,900
- 1220 SAT
- "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" (abbreviate number)
Credit Hours
- Use numerals to refer to credit hours
- 6 credits
Percent, Percentage
- Use the word percent instead of the symbol %
- A numeral is used before the word percent, unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence
- Percent refers to an exact number
- Thirty percent of their wages went to taxes.
- The power play is running at 25 percent.
- Percentage is used when there is no exact number
- The percentage of their salaries that went to taxes was significant.
Room Numbers
- Put the building name first before room numbers
- Administration Building G20
- Fisher Hall 135
Telephone Numbers
- Use hyphens in telephone numbers. Do not include parentheses for area codes
- 1-888-688-1885
- 906-487-2319