Editorial Style Guide

Capitalize a person’s title only when it’s used directly before a name. This rule includes titles pertaining to government positions (like president, senator, mayor, ambassador, chief justice), religious positions (like pope, cardinal, rabbi), and other organizational positions (like chair, treasurer, general manager).

• Sue Henderson is the former president of NJCU.
• NJCU President Andrés Acebo
• She was appointed president of NJCU by the Board of Trustees.
• The president returned to the Gothic Lounge to greet students.
• Pope Benedict XVI succeeded Pope John Paul II.
• The school was treated to a visit by former President Barack Obama.
• John Smith was named superintendent of the Chicago school district.
• Superintendent John Smith began his career in the mailroom at the school.

• Always use title case.
• Capitalize the first and last words, regardless of the length of the word or the part of speech.
• Capitalize all nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, regardless of the length of the word.
• Capitalize prepositions of four or more letters (like over, from, and with).
• Capitalize conjunctions of four or more letters (like unless and than), as well as if and how and why.
• Italicize titles of books, magazines, newspapers and television programs and magazine and newspaper articles.

Do not capitalize:

• articles (a, an, and the)
• prepositions of three or fewer letters (such as of, in, and for)
• most conjunctions of three or fewer letters (like as, and, or, and but)
• The “to” in the infinitive form (e.g. to blog)

Examples:

• “Don’t Fence Me In”
• “Walk With Me in Moonlight”
• “Turn Off the Lights, I’m Home” (“Off” is an adverb here, part of the phrasal verb “turn off.”)
• “She Took the Deal off the Table” (Here, “off” is a preposition.)
• “What If I Do, What If She Won’t”
• “The Least She Could Do Is Cry”
• "ESPN SportsCenter"

If the first word in a title is a proper noun that begins with a lowercase letter (like iPhone), try to reorder the title so that you can capitalize the name as the company or person usually does. if such a noun falls elsewhere in the title, use the company’s capitalization style (iPhone). for instance, “sales of iPod soar.”

For specific instructions on how to handle numbers in titles, see section on Numbers. Hyphenated Compounds in Titles.

If a hyphenated compound appears in title-style capitalization, capitalize the first word, and capitalize all subsequent words in the compound except for articles (a, an, and the), prepositions of three or fewer letters (like to and of), and coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so). Ask yourself: If this word weren’t in a hyphenated compound, would I capitalize it? If the answer is yes, capitalize it as part of the hyphenated compound, too.

Examples:

• The Big Spender’s Budget How-To (capitalize any word, even “to,” at the beginning or end of a title.)
• Author of How-to Book on Bee-Keeping Prone to Anaphylaxis
• Governor Slams E-Book About Her Re-Election Campaign
• Consumers Prefer Eco-Friendly and Cheap Products
• Two-Thirds Vote Needed to Fund Research Into Blue-Green Algae Biofuel
• Profits Double on Word-of-Mouth Sales
• Audiences Love His Man-About-Town Sophistication
• Open Your Own eBay-Based Boutique
• Verbs (even short ones like is, be, and do) should always be capitalized. No matter how short, pronouns such as he, she, it, me, and you) should be capitalized. Capitalize both parts of phrasal verbs, multi-word verbs that include adverbs such as up and out (for example, tune in and hold on). Phrasal verbs don’t include the infinitive to form of a verb (to be, to run)—so lowercase the word to in such a verb.

Follow an organization’s conventions as to how it capitalizes and punctuates its names. many organizations (for example, FedEx) incorporate intercaps, or capital letters in the middle of the name. other organizations, such as Yahoo!, incorporate punctuation characters in their names. Some examples include:

• iPod
• iPad
• IHOP
• PayPal
• Visa
• MasterCard
• Tumblr
• YouTube

In some cases, you may not be able to replicate a graphic symbol used in a name. WALL·E, for instance, is difficult to reproduce and is generally spelled with a hyphen. When in doubt, look at some of the organization’s press releases or at its copyright page if it has one.

For company, product, and website names that use all-lowercase letters, use an initial capital letter as you would for most other proper nouns. Otherwise, the names are hard to distinguish in text. for company names that include a capital letter somewhere (like eBay or iPod), follow the company’s capitalization in most situations—even an internal capital letter will alert the reader that the word or phrase is a proper noun.

When referring to your own or to another company, use the third-person singular pronouns it and its. In the United States, a company is treated as a collective noun and requires a singular verb and a singular pronoun.

• The company anticipates an increase in its third-quarter spending. (Singular verb, singular possessive “its”)

Academic Degrees/Abbreviations
When writing, use bachelor's degree or bachelor's rather than B.A. or B.S.; master's degree or master's rather than M.A. or M.S.; doctoral degree or doctorate rather than Ph.D. or Ed.D.: He has a bachelor's degree in Finance, a master's in translation, and a doctorate in comparative literature. 

Graduate students who haven't yet graduated will be referred to as: an MBA student. Once they graduate, their graduation year will appear with a comma before the advanced degree, as in: John Smith, MBA '17

B.A. or B.S.; Ph.D. or Ed.D. and J.D. (all with periods); degrees with more than two letters do not take the periods such as MBA, MSN, BSN, MFA, DNP, etc.; master's degree and bachelor’s degree (with apostrophes), but there is no possessive in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science.

Use an apostrophe in bachelor's degree, a master's, etc., but there is no possessive in Bachelor of Arts or Master of Science.

Use abbreviations such as B.A., M.A., LL.D., and Ph.D. only when the need to identify many individuals by degree on first reference would make the preferred form cumbersome.

When an academic abbreviation is used after a full name, commas should set it off. For example,

Example: Charles Smith, Ph.D., will present tonight’s lecture.

• Wrong: Dr. Smith, Ph.D., will present tonight’s lecture.
• Correct: Dr. Smith will present tonight’s lecture.
• Correct: Charles Smith, Ph.D., will present tonight’s lecture.

Majors/Minors:
A major is capitalized when used with its formal degree type. For example:

NJCU's Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice program is amazing.
NJCU's B.S. in Criminal Justice program is amazing.
NJCU's criminal justice program is amazing.
NJCU's bachelor's in criminal justice program is amazing.
John Hernandez is an accounting major.
John Hernandez wants to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.

Academic Titles
Capitalize and spell out formal titles such as chancellor, chairman, etc., when they precede a name. Lowercase elsewhere.

Bachelor Degree or Bachelor’s Degree?

AP Style states that you should use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. For example:

• Correct: I have two bachelor’s degrees and one master’s degree.
• Wrong: I have two bachelors degrees and one masters degree.
• Wrong: I have two bachelor degrees and one master degree.
• Correct: I have a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics.
• Wrong: I have a Bachelor’s of Arts in Linguistics.

An associate degree, however, does not use an apostrophe. For example,

For plural nouns that don’t already end in s, add an apostrophe and an s (’s) to the end of the word. For nouns (singular or plural) that already end in s, just add an apostrophe.
Here are some examples:

• Jesus’ words
• Arkansas’ legislature
• The witness’ testimony
• Many businesses’ services 

In a sentence, capitalize the first word after the colon if what follows the colon could function alone as a complete sentence. Use a single space following the colon. Place colons outside quotation marks when used together. Here are some examples:

• This is it: the chance we’ve been waiting for!
• This is it: We’ll never have to work again!
• I feel sad when I hear the ending to “The Road Not Taken”: “And that has made all the difference.”   

In a series consisting of three or more elements, separate the elements with commas. When a conjunction (like, and, or or) joins the last two elements in a series, include a comma before the conjunction. Here are some examples:

• He went to Smith, Jones, and Brown for financial advice.

When using an ampersand in place of and in a series (acceptable only in company names and when space is severely limited, as in a headline), do not insert a comma before it. The combination of comma and ampersand creates visual clutter.

• He went to Smith, Jones & Brown for financial advice.

A hyphen is used to mean to, up to and including, or through in a range of numbers, dates, game scores, pages, and so on. It is also used to construct a compound adjective that includes a proper noun of more than one word. (New York, Queen Elizabeth, Lake Baikal, and World War II are all multiword proper nouns.) If you are unsure whether a word combination should be two words, two hyphenated words, or one compound word, check the online Merriam-Webster dictionary.

• Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was president during the American Civil War (1861-1865).
• Jim was interested in the pre-Civil War era. (en dash connecting two-word proper noun “Civil War” with pre x “pre-”)
• Sam was a student-athlete on the basketball team.

Use an em dash to set apart entire phrases from the main body of a sentence, and separate the dashes from the words that precede and follow it with a space. When a date range has no ending date, use an em dash instead.

• The last place she expected to find him — if she ever found him at all — was in the library.
• Mick Jagger (1943—), Brian Jones (1942–1969), and Keith Richards (1943—) were among the band’s original members. 

Use numerals for cardinal and ordinal numbers in headlines, email subject lines, and HTML page titles.

• In Pamplona, 8 injured in “Running of the Bulls” (Headline)
• Subject: Presentation File 1 of 2 attached (Email subject line)
• 5th Grader Wins 1st Place in Spelling Bee (Headline)

Spell out cardinal numbers (one, two, and so on) and ordinal numbers (first, second, and so on) below 10, but use numerals for numbers 10 and above.

When expressing percentages, always use numerals and the percentage sign. Do not spell out percentages.

Always use a.m. and p.m. for indicating time. Include periods in each term (a.m. and p.m.) unless a default is in place (e.g., the NJCU.edu website uses AM and PM as the default within the calendar functionality). Use Eastern Standard Time (EST) when observing standard time (winter), and eastern daylight time (EDT) when observing daylight saving time (summer). Additionally, using noon and midnight or 12 p.m. and 12 a.m. are permissible, but not together (i.e. noon and midnight, not 12 noon or 12 midnight). Midnight is part of the day that is ending; 12 a.m. is part of the day that is beginning.

• We will schedule the meeting on Monday, January 20 at 9:35 a.m. EST.
• The webinar will be held on Friday, August 27 at 4 p.m. EDT.
• Kickoff for the New York Giants football game is scheduled for 12 p.m.
• Today's class will be held from 10-11 a.m.
• The shuttle will operate from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Telephone numbers should be represented with hyphens as opposed to parentheses or periods:

Correct:
201-200-2472
44-020-7123-1234

Use numerals when referring to numbers that a person must type, such as for coordinates in tables and worksheets, and for parts of a document, such as page numbers or line references.

• Type 5 and press Enter.
• Select row 3, column 5 of the worksheet.
• Refer to line 9 of the transcript.

If a passage contains two or more numbers that refer to the same category of information and one is 10 or higher, use numerals for all numbers referring to that category. When numbers are treated consistently, readers can recognize the relationship between them more easily.

• The delegation included 3 women and 11 men.
• He was the 9th person chosen for the 10-person team.
• The most popular vote-getters included three women and nine men.
• Only 3 women and 11 men attended the four-day event.

Express large and very large numbers in numerals followed by million, billion, and so forth. If expressing a number greater than 999 in numerals, use a comma.

• 5 billion people
• 1,200 years ago

When stating million or billion with a numeral, don’t hyphenate, even before a noun. Use a hyphen between the numeral and million or billion if the expression is part of a compound adjective that takes a hyphen elsewhere.

• A $6 million lawsuit
• The 400-million-served mark

If space is tight (for example, in headlines, tables, diagrams, or text messages), some abbreviations are acceptable.

• mil (million). see “mil.”
• bil (billion). see “bil.”
• K (thousand) - Among other things, K can stand for thousand, kilobytes, kilobits, and kilograms. Use K only if its meaning is clear from the context.

Avoid starting a sentence with a numeral. If you can’t avoid it, spell out the number.

• 450 students participated in last night’s lecture. (avoid)
• Four hundred and fifty students participated in last night’s lecture.
• Last night, 450 students participated in the lecture.

A year may be written in numerals at the beginning of a sentence. It’s okay to start a headline with a numeral if space is tight or if the numeral makes the headline more eye-catching or easier to scan or understand.

• 1967 was the summer of love in San Francisco.
• 8 Diet Tips
• Two 5-Year-old boys found; one still missing

Avoid expressing ordinals with superscript letters (such as 10th, 11th, and so on). Ordinals with superscript formatted in a word processor may not display correctly in some places, such as email, and the use in writing of these suffixes is becoming increasingly archaic. Do not use “th” endings or their equivalent when stating dates (i.e., do not write Join us on June 10th).

It’s important to properly cite sources in all NJCU publications, whether online, printed, or projected. If you’ve got a case not covered here, find a way to attribute your source that seems appropriate to the medium. Choosing not to cite your source is an unacceptable alternative.

• alt text
  Short for alternative text, which is text entered into the HTML alt attribute associated with an image on a web page.
• app
  Short term for application. Plural: apps. Do not use if there’s any room for confusion.
• A/B test
  also called split testing; at Hubspot, we use a/b testing and write it with the slash.
• B2B
  Abbreviation for business-to-business.
• Best-seller (n.), best-selling (adj.)Note hyphen
• beta
  Capitalize beta if it is part of an official product name. Otherwise, lowercase it.
  Sign up for the new Yahoo! Messenger beta. try the beta version of Yahoo! messenger.
• Blog (n., adj., v.)
  Preferred to weblog (lowercase)
• business-to-business
  hyphenated (abbreviation: B2B)
• call-to-action, calls-to-action, CTA, CTAs
  Always hyphenate when used as a noun (as in “call-to-action button” or “call-to action manager”). Whenever possible, try to use CTA or CTAs instead of hyphenated version (it’s a mouthful).
• checkin (n.) checked-in (adj.), check in (v)
  one word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb. (Refers to social networks)
• cell phone (n., adj.)
  Two words, no hyphen
  He left the message on my cell phone. Type in your cell phone number.
• clickthrough (n., adj.), click through (v.)
  one word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb.
  The company’s online ads consistently earn a high clickthrough rate. Click through to the last page to see your score.
• crowdsource, crowdsourcing
  One word.
• do’s and don’ts
  Note the apostrophes. This is actually proper AP style, but try to avoid using this construction if at all possible as the perception is that it looks incorrect.
• e.g.
  Abbreviation meaning for example. Note periods. Don’t include a space after the first period. Ok to use when space is a consideration; otherwise, use for example, for instance or such as. if used, always include a comma after the last period. see also “i.e.” and “ex.”as each of these has different meanings and are not interchangeable.
  Enter a search term (e.g., admissions, biology, athletics) into the box.
• ebook
  all lowercase (in titles/headlines and at the beginning of sentences, capitalize the “e” but not the “b”).
• ecommerce
• email (n., adj., v.)One word, no hyphen. Plural: email messages and emails are both acceptable.
• eSports (n.)
  one word, no hyphen. If used as the name of an organization, team or arena, the ‘e’ is lowercase and ‘S’ is capitalized except at the start of a sentence; in that circumstance, ESports is permissible. In all other circumstances "esports" is acceptable in all references to competitive multiplayer video gaming.
• Facebook
• Facebook Page
  Capitalize (Exception: lowercase when saying “pages on Facebook”).
• Facebook Profile
  Capitalize (Exception: lowercase when saying “profiles on Facebook”).
• Facebook group
  Capitalize (Exception: lowercase when saying “groups on Facebook”).
• geolocation
  One word. the geographic location of an internet- connected computer, or the process of determining that location.
• geotagging (n.) geotag (v.)
  one word. the verb means to add geographic data (such as longitude and latitude coordinates) to a photo or other media file.
• Google
  according to google guidelines, it is not okay to use this trademark as a verb. Use search, search for, or search on instead.
• Hashtag #
• Homepage
• how-to (n., adj.)
  Note hyphen when used as a noun or an adjective. Plural noun: how-tos.
  Your How-to Guide to Home Buying (headline set in title case)
  Home-Buying How-to (another headline in title case)
• i.e.
  abbreviation meaning that is. Note periods. Do not include a space after the first period. Okay to use when space is a consideration; otherwise use that is, in other words, or equivalent. If used, include a comma after the last period. (Note that “i.e.”does not have the same meaning as “e.g.”)
• internet
  lowercase.
• IT
  Abbreviation for Information Technology. Abbreviation is always acceptable.
• keyword, key word (n.)
  one word when referring to terms that are used on a web page to optimize it for search engines. use two words in other cases — for example, when key is a synonym for primary or most important.
  An SEO specialist can help you determine the best keywords to use on your web page.
  She heard little else that he said; the key word in the sentence was “love.”
• LinkedIn
  “L” and “I” are capitalized.
• Login) n., adj.); log in, log in to (v.)
  One word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb, which may be followed by the preposition to. Note that sign in is preferred as it sounds less technical.
  Anyone can create a mashup with the right technology.
  Use our tool to mash up RSS feeds into a single view.
• metadata (n.)
  one word
• news feed (n.)
• news release
  Use instead of “press release” whenever possible
• nonprofit
  one word
• Okay (n., v., adv.)
  To be used interchangeably with OK. Do not use variations such as Ok and o.k., which are incorrect.
• Opt-in (n. adj.), opt in (v.)
  Hyphenated as a noun or an adjective. Two words as a verb.
  The opt-in has been disabled.
  To receive electronic statements, you must opt in.
• Page view
  Two words. The viewing of a web page by one visitor.
  Advertisers consider how many page views a site receives when deciding where and how to advertise.
• Real-time (adj.), real time (n.)
  Hyphenated when used as an adjective; not hyphenated when used as a noun
• Retweet
• Screen name
• Screenshot
• Setup (n., adj.), set up (v.)
  One word when used as a noun or as an adjective. Two words when used as a verb.
  Set up your GothicNet account.
  Check out your GothicNet homepage.
  Your setup fee has been waived.
• sign-in (n., adj.); sign in, sign in to (v.)
  as a noun or an adjective, it’s hyphenated. as a verb, it’s two words, which may be followed by the preposition to.
  All visitors must sign in on the sign-in page.
  Visitors can sign in to Yahoo! Mail automatically.
  Choose your preferences for sign-in and security.
• sign-out (n., adj.); sign out, sign out of (v.) as a noun or an adjective, it’s hyphenated. As a verb, it’s two words, which may be followed by the preposition of.
• sign-up (n., adj.), sign up (v.)
  Hyphenate when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb.
  Sign up for the service.
  Fill in the sign-up form.
  Sign-up is free.
• since
  not a synonym for “because.” can be confused with the sense of “over the time that has passed” rather than “as a result of.” use “because” instead of since when possible. This also applies to “due to” and “owing to” and “due to the fact that” and other, needlessly wordy ways of saying “because.”
• site map
• slideshow (n., adj.)
• smartphone
• swag
  Free goods. not schwag or shwag.
• text (n., v.)
  Short form of text message. Plural: texts. Other forms: texted, texting.
  Did you get my text?
  Don’t text while driving
  She was texting during the lecture.
• Text message (n.)Two words when used as a noun. Note hyphen when used as an adjective or a verb.
  She had a heated text-message argument with her boyfriend. Did you get my text message?
  I’ll text-message you with the details.
• touchscreen (n., adj.)
• toward (not towards)
• tweet
• Twitter
• URL
  All capitals. Stands for Uniform Resource Locator. Abbreviation is always acceptable. Plural URLs
• U.S. (n., adj.)Abbreviation for United States. Note period, no space. US or U. S. The single exception is specifying currency in prices; in this case, do not include the periods.
• USA
  Abbreviation for United States of America. Abbreviation is always acceptable.
• Username
  Lowercase, one word.
• video camera
• videoconference
• voicemail
  one word, lowercase. not voice mail.
• web (n., adj.)Lowercase.
• Webcam
• Webcast
• Webinar
• web page
• website
• whitepaper
• wiki
  Lowercase. Plural: wikis.
• word-of-mouth (n., adj.)
  Note hyphens when used as a noun or adjective.