University of Pittsburgh

Writing Style Guide
Table of Contents





A »

  • Abbreviations
    1. Streets, avenues, roads,
      boulevards
    2. Days of the week,
      months of the year
    3. Acronyms
    4. City and state
    5. Pluralizing lowercase
      single-letter abbreviations
    6. Beginning a sentence
  • Addresses
    1. Addresses in copy
    2. Full mailing addresses
    3. Separating elements with commas
  • Apostrophe
    1. Plurals of figures, years, or abbreviations
    2. Plurals of letters and
      academic grades
    3. Possessives of abbreviations
    4. Degrees
    5. Year of graduation
  • Capitalization
    1. Hyphenated compounds
    2. Parts of the world and regions of a country
    3. Compass directions
    4. Seasons
    5. Legislative, executive, and administrative bodies
    6. Corporate, professional, and governmental titles before a name
    7. Nonspecific noun and adjective references
    8. Political organizations, members
    9. Political and economic systems
    10. Numerical designation of
      historical time periods in a proper name
    11. Nouns in major reference headings
    12. Nouns in minor reference headings
    13. Genus names
    14. Geological eras, periods, epochs,
      and strata
    15. Titles of books, long poems,
      magazines, newspapers, plays,
      movies, pamphlets, CDs,
      long musical compositions, radio
      and TV programs, and works of art
    16. Titles of short poems and stories, essays, lectures, dissertations, book chapters, articles, grant
      proposals, and songs
    17. Titles of book sections
    18. Philosophical, literary, musical, and artistic movements, styles, and
      schools from proper nouns
    19. Acronyms
  • Colons
    1. Capitalization of first word after colon
    2. Colons in titles
    3. Colons with quotations marks
    4. Space after colons
  • Commas
    1. In a series
    2. With Jr., Sr., or numerals in a name
    3. Nonessential/nonrestrictive clauses
    4. Essential/restrictive clauses
    5. Between two adjectives
  • Computer Terminology
    1. Terms
    2. E-mail
    3. Breaking Web sites on two or more lines
    4. Web addresses at the end of sentences
    5. Web addresses in text
    6. Pitt e-mail addresses
    7. Using http
    8. Login/log in
  • Dates, Years
    1. Days of the month
    2. Commas with dates
    3. BC/AD and BCE/CE
    4. Inclusive years
    5. Plurals of years
    6. Referencing dates
  • Departments, Offices, Programs, Schools
    1. Academic departments, offices, programs, schools
    2. Administrative departments and offices
    3. Schools of the health sciences
    4. University of Pittsburgh Police Department
  • E »

    Ellipses
    1. Within quoted material
    2. At the end of quoted material
      (full and incomplete sentences)
    3. At the beginning of a sentence
  • Hyphens, Compounds
    1. Two-word compound adjectives
      before a noun
    2. Compound adjectives of three
      or more words before a noun
    3. Adverbs ending in -ly before an adjective
    4. Compound adjectives where the
      second word ends in -ed
    5. Nouns that represent different and equally important functions
    6. Prefixes
    7. Self- and ex- compounds
    8. Suffixes
    I »

    Institutes
  • Latin Terms
    1. Latin terms in text
    2. Emeritus, emeriti
    3. Résumé, curriculum vitae, vita, CV
    4. Plurals of Latin terms
  • Lists (vertical, numbered, bulleted)
    1. Commas and periods
    2. Commas and periods with complete sentences
    3. Semicolons and periods with complete sentences
    4. Periods with series items that are complete sentences themselves
    5. Punctuating letters or numbers used to enumerate a list
    6. Capitalization of first words
  • Numbers
    1. General rule
    2. Beginning a sentence
    3. In a list
    4. Age
    5. Percentages
    6. Dollars and cents
    7. Numerical amounts equal to or greater than 1 million
    8. Temperature, degrees
    9. Other exceptions
    10. Use of numerals for the sake of consistency
  • Q »

    Quotation Marks
    1. Placing commas and periods
    2. Placing colons and semicolons
    3. Placing a question mark, exclamation point, or dash
    4. Single quotation marks for quotations within a quotation
    5. Several paragraphs of a quotation
    6. Topics of talks, papers, or presentations
  • Semicolons
    1. General rule
    2. In a series
    3. With quotation marks and parentheses
  • Spacing
    1. Between sentences in copy
    2. Abbreviations in names
  • Student Terminology
    1. Academic years (freshman, sophomore, graduate student, etc.)
    2. Racial, linguistic, religious, and other groups
    3. Greek(s)
    4. Years of graduation
    5. Punctuating years of graduation
    6. The word class when used with a year
    7. Officers of a class, social organization, etc.
  • Times
    1. Hours of the day, a.m. and p.m., noon and midnight, use of :00
    2. When used with o’clock
    3. Precise times
    4. Numbers of hours or minutes
    5. No commas between time and day or date
  • Titles of Persons
    1. General rule
    2. Courtesy titles and academic and professional degrees within text
    3. Standing alone without a name
    4. First, subsequent references
  • Titles (other)
    1. Books, television shows, movies, radio programs, plays
    2. Articles in magazines or newspapers
    3. Academic papers, dissertations, grant proposals, theses
    4. CDs, musical compositions, songs
    5. Lecture series, conferences, lectures, speeches