The Bear Creek School Writing Style Guide

The Bear Creek School has adopted A Writer's Reference, 5^th ed., by Diana Hacker as its reference for grammar and style issues. The following is a quick reference addressing common questions and Bear Creek specific terminology.

abbreviations

Organization names: use the full name on first reference and the abbreviation on second and subsequent references. If clarification is needed, do not use the abbreviation at all. If an abbreviation can be used either with or without periods, use it without. Use the following abbreviations with periods: time references, titles, and academic degrees.

abbreviations (specific to Bear Creek)

• Upper School (US), Middle School (MS), Lower School (LS), Preschool (PS)
• Do not abbreviate Valley Campus or Redmond Campus.
• Do not use TBCS. Use The Bear Creek School or Bear Creek.
• Do not use EMS (former abbreviation for Early Middle School).

• When using these abbreviations as an adjective, do not capitalize students or other terms unless they are names of organizations or locations.

Correct: MS students, MS/US Chapel

Incorrect: M/U school, M/US students, VC students

• Days of the week may be abbreviated to Mon., Tue., Wed., Thu., Fri., Sat., Sun.,
  or M, T/Tu, W, R/Th, F, S/Sa, U/Su in lists and tables where space is an issue.
• Months may be abbreviated to Jan., Feb., Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug., Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec. or to numerals. When abbreviating to numerals, use the formula month/day/year not day/month/year. (Except when referencing MLA)

PS, LS, MS, and US should be used only for communications within the Bear Creek community and may be used without spelling out the first usage (exception to the standard abbreviation rule).

academic degrees

Use lower case when using bachelor's, master's, or doctor's degree. Use lower case for doctorate or doctoral program. Use periods when abbreviating academic degrees (e.g., B.A., M.Ed., Ph.D.). Capitalize formal names of degrees (e.g., Master of Science, Bachelor of Arts).

academic departments and programs

Full formal department names are capitalized. In running text, programs are not capitalized except for proper nouns. (e.g. Office of College Advising, college advising program, the math and English departments).

acronyms

• Do not use periods for acronyms.
• On first reference, spell out the full name if it will be unfamiliar to the intended audience. Place the acronym in parentheses after the complete name and use the acronym for subsequent uses.
• Do not start a sentence with an acronym.

addresses

• In running text, use commas to set off the individual elements in addresses or place names (think of where the line breaks would be if the address were in block format).
• No comma is used between the street name and an abbreviation such as NW or between the state and the zip/postal code.
• Street designations such as street and avenue are spelled out.

alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus

The graduates of an academic institution. Use "alumni" for more than one male or for a group of males and females. Use "alumnus" for an individual male. Use "alumna" for an individual female. Use "alumnae" for more than one female.

ampersand (&)

Only use ampersand in branded applications. Do not use "&" as a shorthand in publications, write out the word 'and'.

• Green & White Night
• Bear Creek's varsity track & field team (track & field always uses an "&")

apostrophe

• Apostrophes are used to indicate possessive nouns and class years.
• An apostrophe looks like the number nine, not like the number six, which is an opening single quotation mark.
• For possessives, use an apostrophe before the "s" in singular nouns that do not end in "s." Use it after the "s" in plural nouns or in singular nouns (including proper nouns) ending in "s."
• Apostrophes are not used for plural numbers (1980s) or abbreviations (Ph.D.s).
• An apostrophe is not used with an attributive noun (e.g. boys basketball).
• Use an apostrophe (not an opening single quotation mark or a "straight quote") before the class year after the name of an alumna or alumnus.
• To make an apostrophe in MS Word for Windows, hold down the CTRL key and hit the quote key twice. On a Mac, press Shift/Option and hit the quote key. Another option is to type the quote character immediately after the preceding character and then go back and add a space. E.g. Type: Jane Doe'09, then go back and add a space so it reads: Jane Doe '09

athletics

For the department, use "Athletics Department" on first reference. "Athletics" may be used on subsequent references. All Bear Creek Athletics teams are known as Grizzlies. "Athletic" is an adjective that describes someone with the characteristics of an athlete. "Athletics" is a noun referring to sports and sports programs of all kinds.

When referring to specific teams, use level, gender, sport, color if applicable (e.g., varsity boys basketball, or Middle School girls soccer green.)

Board of Trustees

Capitalize and use full name on first reference. Use "the board" (lowercase) for subsequent references. In running text, the Board of Trustees may be referred to as the board, but not BOT or Board of Directors. Board members are referred to as trustees. Capitalize the title when used before the name and use lowercase after the name in running text.

Correct: The board will meet tonight, Ted Robinson has been a trustee since...

Correct: Trustee Ted Robinson spoke at...

Incorrect: Two of our Board Members, the Board has met to discuss

capitalization

• In running text: Avoid the unnecessary use of capitalization; when in doubt, use lowercase. Capital letters indicate proper names; they do not imply importance or added value.
• In titles and headlines: Capitalize all words except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions unless they are the first or last word (e.g. The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain). In headlines, use lowercase for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, except when prepositions contain more than four letters. No periods are necessary. In some instances, promotional materials may employ all capital letters or initial caps.
• Departments and offices: capitalize the proper name of a department or office (e.g., Office of College Advising, World Languages Department)
• Professional titles: Always capitalize formal titles, even in running text. (e.g., President and Headmaster Patrick Carruth; Patrick Carruth, President and Headmaster).
• Dean's List/Headmaster's List: Capitalize and punctuate for a singular possessive.
• Titles of campus-related areas: Capitalize all formal titles of campus-related areas and rooms, but not references to location or function.

Correct: Paul Knoff Art Room, Nagel Commons, main office, lunch room, foyer, gym

Incorrect: Ida Lairson library, Front Desk, office of admissions

• Grades: Do not capitalize the word grade (grade 1 or first grade, not Grade One, not 1^st Grade)
• Courses and Subjects: Names of school subjects are capitalized only if they are names of languages. Names of particular courses are capitalized.

Correct: The student is taking math, English, science, and AP European History.

chair

The head of an academic department or committee. Do not capitalize (except when used in a professional title before the name)  Chair can be used as both a verb and a noun, chair is widely regarded as the best gender-neutral choice.

class of

Capitalize Class of 20xx in running text.

class year

The class year appears after the name of an alumnus or alumna on first reference in running text and always in lists. Use an apostrophe before the two-digit year. (An apostrophe looks like the number 9; an open quote looks like the number 6. See Apostrophe above.)

comma

• Avoid excessive use of commas.
• Use a comma before the final conjunction in a list of three or more items.
• Use commas between the city and state in running text.
• With dates and time, offset the date with commas, but not the time. (e.g., The event will start at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in the Main Commons).
• Don't use a comma before a suffix in a person's name, such as "Jr." or "Sr." (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr.)
• After a word or phrase contained in quotation marks, place the comma before the closing quotation mark, even if it is not part of the quoted material.

contact information

When listing contact information, it should be in the following order: 

Jane Smith
Department Chair
English Department
The Bear Creek School
8905 208th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98053
425-898-1720 ext.123
Cell: 425-333-5555 (optional)
Fax: 425-898-1430
Email: jsmith@tbcs.org

credits (photo)

Photographs taken by professional photographers should be credited according to the photographer's preference. Personal photographs supplied by others for publication should be credited as "courtesy of" and their name (e.g. Photo courtesy of Jim Johnson '04.). Photos taken or supplied by Bear Creek staff members do not require credits.

dashes (see hyphens/en dashes/em dashes)

dates

• Spell out months when used alone or with the year only: September 2008.
• Months may be abbreviated to Jan., Feb., Mar, Apr., May, Jun., Jul., Aug., Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec. or to numerals. When abbreviating to numerals, use the formula month/day/year not day/month/year.
• Do not use a comma between the month and year when no specific day is mentioned: January 2006. The same rule applies to seasons: fall 2000.
• When referring to a month, day and year, place a comma between the day and year 
  (e.g., Dec. 7, 2005).
• Place a comma after the year when a phrase with a month, day and year is used in a sentence: February 21, 1999, was the day of the event.
• To indicate sequences or inclusive dates and times, use an en dash.
  (e.g,. Apply May 5 – 9, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.)
• Do not use ordinals "st," "nd," "rd" or "th" with dates.

Correct: Oct. 14

Incorrect: Oct. 14th or Feb. 2nd.

Do not use "on" with dates unless its absence would lead to confusion.

Correct: The program ends December 15

Incorrect: The program ends on December 15

days of the week

• Capitalize days of the week in all instances.
• Do not abbreviate the days of the week, except in lists or tables.

Dean's List/Headmaster's List

Capitalize and punctuate for a singular possessive.

email

• Do not hyphenate e-mail or capitalize Email, except at the beginning of a sentence or a stand-alone line.
• Do not allow an email address to break over two lines with a hyphen.
• Position an email address within a sentence so that it does not precede an unrelated and possibly confusing mark of punctuation such as a period.
• In printed publications, remove hyperlink auto-formatting (e.g., Word automatically adds a hyperlink, underlining blue text. Right click and select Remove Hyperlink).

faculty

• Refers to the group of teaching professionals in an educational institution.
• Takes singular verbs: The faculty voted to accept the resolution.
• As a collective noun, "faculty" should be accompanied by "member" when referring to individuals:

Correct: She is a faculty member at The Bear Creek School. She is on faculty at The Bear Creek School.

Incorrect: She is faculty at Bear Creek. A faculty will speak at the event.

fax

Lowercase (fax, not Fax, FAX, or facsimile) except at the beginning of a sentence or a stand-alone line.

forms and documents

Capitalize the proper names of forms and documents (e.g. Liability Release Form) but lower case for informal references (e.g., permission slip).

fractions

• Fractions should be spelled out when used on their own (e.g. two-thirds of an inch) but use numerals when used with a whole number (e.g., 5 1/2).
• Spell out amounts less than one, using hyphens: two-thirds, seven-sixteenths.
• For fractions and percentages, the verb agrees with the noun following "of" (e.g., Three-quarters of the apple was eaten. One-half of the students are at Musicale.)
• Use figures for precise amounts larger than one, converting to decimals whenever practical.
• In tabular material, use figures exclusively.

fundraising

One word (not "fund raising"). The same applies to "fundraiser."

grades, grade point average

• Lower case in running text (e.g. She had a high grade point average.)
• Abbreviate "grade point average" as GPA (no periods).
• Use GPA figures to at least one decimal place (e.g., 3.0, 2.75).
• Use an apostrophe with letter grades (e.g., She received three A's and one B.)
• Grades and assignments are available "on the portal " (e.g., Student Portal or Parent Portal) not "in Veracross." Don't refer to our school database provider by name (Veracross is a vendor).

grades (class)

• For Lower School and Middle School students, use grade 1, grade 8, etc.
• For Upper School students, use class name (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
• When listing a range of grades: "preschool – grade 12", "grades K – 4", "grades 7 – 12"
• grade 1 is preferred over first grade
• P3, P4, P5, K are acceptable only in short lists where grade numbers are listed without the word "grade" (P4, K, 1, 2, etc.)

headlines

• Capitalize all words except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
• No periods are necessary.
• In specific instances, promotional materials might use all caps or other design elements for typographical reasons at their discretion.

hyphens/en dashes/em dashes

The hyphen (-) is the shortest of the three and is used to form compound words (e.g. well-being) and to separate numbers that are not inclusive (e.g. phone numbers and Social Security numbers). The hyphen is also used to signify one person or thing that has two functions (e.g. actor-director). The hyphen means "and" whereas the slash means "or" (e.g. mother/father)

The en dash (–) is used to indicate a closed range of values, such as those between dates, times, or numbers. (e.g. 8 – 10 years, Monday – Friday)

The em dash (—) is a mark of punctuation used to create a strong break in the structure of a sentence. Dashes can be used in pairs like parentheses—that is, to enclose a word, or a phrase, or a clause—or they can be used alone to detach one end of a sentence from the main body.

On computer keyboards, the hyphen appears on the bottom half of the key located on the top row between the "0" and the equals mark (=).

In Microsoft Word, an em dash can be typed with ctrl+alt+numeric hyphen (on the numeric keypad), and an en dash can be typed with ctrl+numeric hyphen. An em dash is also produced by Autocorrect when two hyphens are entered between words with no spaces (e.g., "word-word")

lists

• Bullet points are a useful way of breaking up a long list to make it more readable.
• Capitalize the first word in a list, even if the list is within a sentence.
• When using bullet points, the bullets themselves function as punctuation between list items; don't end the list items with commas or semicolons.
• When the bulleted list completes a sentence, do use a period after the last bullet point.
• Periods may be used within bullet points if a list item contains a complete sentence within a longer entry.
• Use only one style of bulleted list within a single document. Do not indent some lists but not others.
• Numbered lists should be used when the sequence or the hierarchy of the items matters or when the items will be referred to by number elsewhere in the text. Otherwise use bullets.
• If a list is within a paragraph (not broken out into a vertical list with bullets or numbers), list items should be separated by commas. If any list item contains a comma as part of its own text, then all list items should be separated by semicolons, following the same rules.
• If a list item runs onto a second line (whether bulleted or numbered) the second line should align with the beginning of the text in the first line, not with the bullet.

log in (v), login (n, adj)

Use two words when using this term as a verb and one word when using it as a noun or adjective. (e.g. banner is on the login screen, you must log in before you can access the information)

names and titles

Use of a person's name in publications: In your first reference, refer to individuals in text by first and last name and title, if applicable. Whenever possible, use a position or title instead of a name in promotional publications.

Italicize the titles of the following types of works: books, periodicals, pamphlets, reports, poetry collections, long poems published separately, plays, movies, art works and long musical compositions.

Enclose the following titles of works in quotations: divisions of long works, as in parts, chapters, or sections; short poems; short musical compositions; articles; stories; radio programs; television programs; unpublished lectures, papers, and documents.

names and titles (specific to Bear Creek)

Use "The Bear Creek School" as the formal title of the institution, "Bear Creek" may be used in subsequent references as appropriate. . "The" must always be used with "School." Use the formal name of the school if it is the only reference to the school in a document or on a promotional piece.

Always use the formal title of rooms, departments, and locations.

Use main office when referring to the area at either campus where the receptionist is seated. The proper name of the campus is used when the identification comes before main office or front desk. Note: The front desk is a location, not a person.

Correct: Please drop your form off at the front desk in the Redmond Campus Main building.

Correct: Sign in at Upper School main office.

Incorrect: Please give your forms to the front desk.

numbers

• Spell out whole numbers one through nine. Use figures for higher numbers. Exceptions: Use figures when following school grades (e.g., grade 1 – 3, grade 6) and ages 
  (e.g. He has an 8-year-old in grade 3 at The Bear Creek School.) .
• Spell out numbers of one or two words or those that begin a sentence. Use figures for numbers that require more than two words to spell out. (Unless it begins a sentence.)
• Use figures for dates, addresses, percentages, scores, dimensions, ages, years, percentages, and dates (except when such figures begin a sentence).
• When several numbers appear in the same passage, consistency may be applied to related numbers rather than strict adherence to the rule.
• When one number immediately follows another, spell out one and use figures for the other 
  (e.g., three 8-year-olds).
• Use commas with numerals consisting of four digits or more.
• Fractions should be spelled out when used on their own (e.g. two-thirds of an inch) but use figures when used with a whole number (e.g., 5 1/2).
• Ordinals: Spell out from first through ninth, then use figures with the appropriate ending (e.g., 21st, 35th). Be consistent in use of superscript.

online

Online is one word in all instances.

passive voice

Avoid using the passive voice whenever possible.

Correct: The students researched their science projects.

Incorrect: The science projects were researched by the students.

phone numbers

In telephone numbers, use a hyphen after the area code and after the exchange, 
(e.g., 603-555-5555.) Do not use periods, dots, or underscores in telephone numbers. Telephone extensions are listed as ext. 555, not X555, x555, Ext. 555, or extension 555.

semicolon

• Use a semicolon between two independent clauses not joined by a conjunction. 
  (e.g., Max liked things to be organized; he had neat desk.)
• Use a semicolon to separate items in a list when those items contain internal punctuation.
  (e.g., Max divided his belongings into notebooks, namely, one for math; one for grammar, writing, and spelling; one for science; and one for social studies.)

spacing

Only one space is needed after the punctuation mark in running text. All word processing programs and page layout programs automatically provide the right amount of space after the punctuation mark.

In MS Word, use the tab settings or alignment settings to place text. Do not use multiple spaces. Multiple spaces create problems when fonts are changed or word processing files are moved to page layout programs.

text effects

Bold, italics, small caps, or all capital letters should be used sparingly and only when necessary. Use the bold effect to draw extra attention to something. Use italics to emphasize a word, to indicate a foreign language or a title. Avoid decorating your text with lots of fonts, quotation marks, or other flourishes. Do not underline text.

time

"a.m." and "p.m." or "AM" and "PM". In running text, lower case with periods is preferred. Upper case is allowed in advertising, posters, etc. as long as they are used consistently throughout the document. When writing a time that falls on the hour, use ":00" in all cases. Use "noon" and "midnight," never 12 p.m., 12 a.m., 12 noon, or 12 midnight.

Correct: 1:00 a.m. or 1:00 AM
Correct: 1:30 p.m., 1 pm
Incorrect: 1:00 pm, 1:30PM

Correct: noon, midnight 
Incorrect: 12:00 noon, 12 a.m., 12 noon, 12 midnight

Correct: 1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. or 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. (time is in a range)
Incorrect: 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

underlining text

Do not underline text. On many websites, links are underlined, so it causes confusion and clutter in printed material when text is underlined. Remove automatically generated hyperlinks in documents only intended for print.

Web

Capitalize whenever referring to the World Wide Web. Lowercase for all other instances.

Web addresses

To save space, do not include http:// if followed by www. If the URL is very long, it's sometimes better to use the shortest version that will work and then direct the reader where to click within the site.

Always include a period at the end of a sentence even if a Web address or email address appears at the end: My email address is name@tbcs.org.

website

One word, no capitalization.

World Wide Web

Capitalize this proper noun.

years

• Academic years: Use all four digits of each year, separated by an en-dash (e.g., 2007 – 2008)
• Fiscal years: The Bear Creek School fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. Use the second year (e.g., fiscal year 2008, FY08)
• Class years: Use the final two digits of the year, preceded by a single space and an apostrophe (Sally Smith '07).

word usage (specific to Bear Creek)