Style Rules
Style Rule #1Capitalize formal titles (President Pope, Vice President) when they appear before a name. Lowercase if it appears after names.
Ex: President Barack Obama; Barack Obama, president
Style Rules
Style Rule #2Do not use courtesy titles: Miss, Mrs., Ms. or Mr. Identify people by grade, occupation or relevance.
Ex: journalism teacher Julie Fales, not Mrs. Fales
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Style Rule #3
Do not capitalize names of academic departments.
Ex: history department, English department
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Style Rule #4Capitalize a noun which precedes an Arabic numeral (1, 2, 3…) or a capitalized Roman numeral. Ex: Room 96, Volume II, index ii
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Style Rule #5Capitalize directions such as East, and West when definite regions are indicated, but not when used as true directions.
Ex: We live in the Midwest. Turn west.
Style Rules
Style Rule #6Capitalize the names of days and months, but not seasons.
Ex: fall, August, Thursday, winter
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Style Rule #7
Capitalize all proper names of organizations, but not their generic names.
Ex. Pacesetters, drill team
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Style Rule #8
Do not capitalize the names of courses unless the proper name is different from the generic name. Exceptions are language course names.
Ex: math, English, journalism, Advanced Journalism
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Style Rule #9
Do not capitalize abbreviations for morning and afternoon. 7 a.m. NOT 7 A.M.
Style Rules
Style Rule #10Don’t capitalize senior, junior, sophomore, freshman except when used with the word class.
Ex: junior Mary Smith, the Junior Class
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Style Rule #11Abbreviate names of months with more than five letters if followed by a date.
Ex: May 5, Dec. 5, December 2011
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Style Rule #12
Abreviate junior or senior when used in a family name. Note: No comma
Ex: John Jones Sr.
Style RulesStyle Rule #13
Don’t abbreviate names of organizations at first reference. In subsequent references use the acronym.
If the acronym is widely known, FBI, CIA, use it on first reference.
Ex: First time: Raiders Against Drinking and Drugs; Second time: RADD
Style Rules
Style Rule #14Omit periods in acronyms of more than two letters.
Ex: FBI, CIA
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Style Rule #15If only two letters in an acronym, retain periods. Exceptions: JV and TV
Ex: U.S., U.N.
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Style Rule #16
Don’t abbreviate the word, percent, except in tabulation.
Ex: Almost 90 percent of the students work.
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Style Rule #17
Numbers one through nine should be spelled out. Other numbers should be in figures unless at the beginning of a sentenc.
Ex: We have two dogs. We have 10 dogs. Ten dogs is way too many.
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Style Rule #18
Use figures for all numbers which are used with standard units of measure.
Ex: 5 feet 6 inches, 4-year-old
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Style Rule #19
Express money this way:
$5$4.24
5 cents
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Style Rule #20
Spell out numbers preceded by a or an.
Ex: a million dollars
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Style Rule #21
Spell out fractions not used in tabulations.
Ex: He pays one-fourth of his income for rent.
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Style Rule #22
Spell out ordinal numbers first through ninth, unless they are forming names –usually geographic or military.
Ex: A third of the student body has jobs. He lives on 3rd Street He received 10th place in the tournament.
Style Rules
Style Rule #23
Capitalize titles such as coach when used alone, but not when preceded by a qualifier.
Ex: Coach Mary Smith head coach Mary Smith
Style RulesStyle Rule #24
Do not use the word “on” before days of the weeks or dates.
Ex: The meeting was Friday.
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Style Rule #25
Never give the year for a story that occurs in the current year.
Ex: NO: The 2012 football team will win this year.
YES: The football team will win this year.
Style RulesStyle Rule #26
Place a period inside parentheses if it is a complete sentence and outside if it is not.
Ex: (An independent parenthetical sentence such as this one takes a period before the closing parenthesis.)
If the material is not a sentence (such as this fragment).
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Style Rule #27
Use commas to set off an apposticive (a title or position following a name).
Ex: Dr. Joe Gilhaus, principal, will speak.
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Style Rule #28
Use a comma to set off thousands in numbers except in dates, serial numbers and page numbers.Ex: 5,280 feet 1,345 students 2012
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Style Rule #29
Do not use commas when reporting heights or records of times.
Ex: 6 feet 3 inches 3 minutes 12 seconds
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Style Rule #30
Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series.
Ex: The flag is red, white and blue.
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Style Rule #31
Do not confuse possessive nouns and plural nouns used as adjectives.
Ex: The boys basketball team lost the game. The boy’s basketball was lost.
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Style Rule #32
Don’t use apostrophes to pluralize letters or numbers.
Ex: ABCs the 1920s
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Style Rule #33
Use apostrophes in abbreviationsof years where the century has been left out.
Ex: ’12 yearbook
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Style Rule #34
Use quotation marks to set off all exact titles of compositions.
Ex: “Grapes of Wrath” “The Help”
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Style Rule #35
A lot is two words.
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Style Rule #36
All right, not alright.Alright is alwrong.
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Style Rule #37
Use the whole phrase “a couple of”.The of is necessary.
Ex: A couple of tomatoes were stolen.
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Style Rule #38
Use the phrase “different from”, not “different than”.
Ex: He is different from me.
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Style Rule #39
Imply is used for the speaker.Infer is used for the listener.
Ex: His class officer speech implied that he would make lunches longer.
From his speech, I inferred that lunch would be longer.
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Style Rule #40
Fewer is used for countables items.
Ex: He had five fewer apples.
Less is used for quantity.
Ex: There are less people here than last time.
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Style Rule #41
Over refers to spatial relationships.Ex: The plane flies over me.
More Refers to figures.Ex: Ten is more than eight.
Style Rules
Style Rule #42
Principal is your pal, first, dominant or leading.Ex: Principal Joe Gilhaus
Principle is a guiding rule.
Ex: Being honest is a good principle.
Style RulesStyle Rule #43
In athletics, use the phrase “set a record”, not “a new record” which is redundant.
Ex: The football kicker set a record with his first field goal.
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Style Rule #44
Under way is two words.
NOT: underway
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Style Rule #45
Canon is a law.Ex: The British canon is different from ours.
Cannon is a gun. (double nn = double barrel)Ex: The pirates has a cannon.
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Style Rule #46
Capitol is the building (domes are like o’s).
Capital is the city. (state capital – both use a’s).
Ex: The state capital is Topeka. What a beautiful dome on the capitol.
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Style Rule #47
Use dived as the past tense of dive.
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Style Rule #48
Farther is for distance.Ex: He ran farther than me.
Further is for time.Ex: She will look further into the mystery.
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Style Rule #49
Council is a group who makes decisions.Ex: the city council
Counsel is to advise.Ex: Can you counsel me on this problem?
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Style Rule #50
A criminal is hanged.
Clothes are hung.
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Style Rule #51
Ad is an advertisement.
Add is to total numbers.
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Style Rule #52
Aid is to help.
Aide is an assistant.
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Style Rule #53
Someone and somebody take singular verbs.
Ex: Someone is here.
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Style Rule #54
Use OK, not Okay.
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