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Style Tips
- Lowercase a person’s title, except immediately before his or her name.
- The pronoun that refers to a client, client contact or team is “it,” not “they.”
- Spell out “percent” (use the symbol % only in tables and formulas); also, always use numerals for percentages.
- Delete “in order” as often as possible; it’s almost always unnecessary.
- Capitalize ZIP in “ZIP Code”; it’s an acronym for “Zone Improvement Program.”
- When abbreviating a year, put the apostrophe before the number, not before the “s”;
e.g., the ’90s.
- Periods and commas ALWAYS go INSIDE the closing quotation mark.
Semicolons and colons ALWAYS go OUTSIDE the closing quotation mark.
The position of question marks, exclamation points, dashes and parentheses will depend on the meaning of the sentence. For these, consult a style guide or
reference sections of some dictionaries.
- Do not space between a person’s initials; e.g., E.F. MacDonald, not
E. F. MacDonald.
- Dates:
- When giving a date, do not include st, nd, rd or th after the
date; e.g., April 3, not April 3rd.
- When a month, day and year are used in a sentence, put a comma after the
year;
e.g., “The November 28, 2000, issue of Business Week forecast that …”
- When only a month and year are used, do not include a comma; e.g., “The January 1982 snowstorm was …”
- When including a city and state:
- Use the common state abbreviation, not the postal code; e.g., Calif., not CA.
- Use a comma after the state; e.g., “We visited Springfield, Mo., last time we traveled.”
- When including a city and country, use a comma after the country; e.g., “We visited Salzburg, Austria, last time we were in Europe.”
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