Style Guide

The Office of Marketing Communications has developed this style guide to aid Emmanuel College in adapting a consistent grammatical style. It is intended for use by writers of Emmanuel College documents and publications, not for use by students for academic papers.

The following is a list of frequently occurring style issues and the preferences to which Emmanuel will adhere, based on the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual and Emmanuel College preferences. Please contact the Office of Marketing Communications if you have any questions while using this style guide.

Alumni

The correct terms referring to graduates of Emmanuel College are:
Alumnus - an individual male
Alumni - a group of males
Alumna - an individual female
Alumnae - a group of females

The use of alumni when referring to a group of both men and women is now standard vocabulary for Emmanuel College.

Buildings

The proper names of buildings on the Emmanuel College campus should be used in documents:
Administration Building
Alumnae Hall
Cardinal Cushing Library
Janet M. Daley Library Lecture Hall
Jean Yawkey Center
Jean Yawkey Center for Community Leadership
Julie Hall
Loretto Hall
Marian Hall
Marian Hall Dining Room
Maureen Murphy Wilkens Atruim
Merck Research Laboratories-Boston
St. Ann Hall
St. Joseph Hall
St. James Hall

The names of buildings should be capitalized.

Classes

Freshman, sophomore, junior and senior may be capitalized for emphasis, except when used as an adjective.

The senior class will sponsor a blood drive next week.
The Sophomores are planning an event.
First-year student is also an acceptable term for freshmen.

When accompanied by the year of graduation, the word class should be capitalized.

Class of 2002

When referring to the year of graduation of an alumnus of Emmanuel College, a space, an apostrophe and the year follows the name.

Mary Smith '85

Coed

Coeducation, coeducational or the abbreviation coed is not hyphenated.

College

The word College, referring to Emmanuel College, should generally be capitalized.

Dates

An academic year should be written as 2004-2005, for example. The plural of a year is formed without an apostrophe. When referring to a decade ('90s, '80s), no apostrophe is used.

America Since the 1960s is a popular history course among students.

When referring to a month and a year only, do not use commas.

The Jean Yawkey Center opened in September 2004.

Degrees

Avoid abbreviations of degrees. Use the preferred form:
bachelor's degree
master's degree
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Science

The correct abbreviations are:
B.A.
M.A.
Ph.D.
M.B.A.

Departments

The AP Stylebook prefers lowercase when referring to a specific department (the department of history or history department). Capitalization may be used for emphasis, but must remain consistent throughout the document. Departments that are proper nouns or adjectives should always be capitalized.

English department
department of English

Majors/disciplines

Capitalization of titles of majors or disciplines should follow the same rules as that of departments set by the AP Stylebook. Lowercase should be used, unless the word is a proper noun or adjective.

She is an art major.
Mary Jones is a professor of English, but Alice Smith is a professor of history.

Numbers

Numbers less than ten should be written out. Numerals may be used for figures ten and greater. Hyphens are used to separate telephone numbers. No parentheses are needed around the area code, since it is now required for dialing.

Contact the Admissions Office at 617-735-9715 to schedule a campus tour.

Offices

Acceptable references to Emmanuel College offices are, for example:

Office of Admissions or Admissions Office

Punctuation

Ampersand
The Ampersand should not be used in place of and, except if it is an official title of a company, product or proper noun.

Comma
A comma is used to separate items in a series, but should not be placed before the conjunction.

The Atrium Café serves drinks, salads and sandwiches.

A comma may be omitted following an introductory clause in a sentence, but should be included for clarity when necessary.

In the fall of 2001 Emmanuel admitted its first coeducational undergraduate class.
When the Saints basketball team reached the NCAA Final Four, a rally was organized.

Hyphen
A hyphen is used between two words only to create an adjective.

He has a full-time job.
She lives off campus.

Bulleted lists
A bulleted list does not contain punctuation of any kind, unless an item in the list is a complete sentence.

Sister

Using Sr. to abbreviate Sister is acceptable.

Sister of Notre Dame de Namur may be abbreviated with SND (without periods).

Time

References to times should be consistent with the AP Stylebook. Figures should be used, except for noon and midnight. Abbreviations of a.m. and p.m. should be lower case and separated by periods.

Commencement will begin at 11 a.m. A reception will be held at 3:30 p.m.

Titles

Official titles are generally capitalized when they precede a name, but in lowercase when the title follows the name. For emphasis, however, uppercase is acceptable.

Professor John Brown or John Brown, professor

Use two words for Vice President, without a hyphen.

Verbs

Avoid split forms of verbs. In some cases, the AP Stylebook acknowledges that a split may be necessary and is not awkward. They refer to the following examples:

Preferred: She was ordered to leave immediately on assignment.
An acceptable split: The budget was tentatively approved. He wanted to really help his mother.

Web Terms

Web addresses, or URLs, are frequently used in text to which the reader may refer for more information. Our preferences seek to eliminate any confusion between the writer and the reader.

Web addresses included in text should be enclosed in parentheses, introduced by a colon or italicized. It is not necessary to include the http:// at the beginning of the web address, unless it begins with something other than the universally recognized www.

If a web address does not fit on one line, it is acceptable to break the address before a period or after a forward slash. Do not add punctuation or a hyphen to the address, except for necessary punctuation at the end of the sentence.

For more information about a PLUS loan, call the Office of Student Financial Services or visit our web site: www.emmanuel.edu/financial. (this shouldn’t link)

The Emmanuel College web site (www.emmanuel.edu) was recently launched with a new design. (that example shouldn’t link)

The terms web site, web page and home page are two words. Web should be capitalized when referring to the World Wide Web, but lower case when used as an adjective.

A hyphen is used in e-mail. It is lowercase.

Internet is one word and should be capitalized.