University of New England

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Writing Style Guide

In general the University of New England’s public website follows the style and usage principles of the Associated Press Stylebook, which is fairly close to other stylebooks such as the Chicago Manual of Style.

Below are a few of the most frequent mistakes in style and usage writers make, along with a few particular style and usage rules that the University of New England uses. The capitalization, numbers and abbreviation rules are for use in writing the text of the page - if you are creating a chart or a table, you don't need to strictly follow these rules, but be consistent within the chart or table.

Capitalization

	•	In general, most writers tend to use capital letters in more situations than the standard style guides do. If you are making a list of faculty or departments, etc., go ahead and capitalize. But when your are writing paragraphs of text, follow the standard rules below.

	•	Capitalize job titles when they come immediately before a name: Assistant Professor John Brown, Executive Director Bill Smith. Lowercase job titles and put commas before and after them when they follow a name. John Brown, assistant professor of biology; Bill Smith, executive director of the Smith Foundation.

	•	Lowercase degrees: He earned a bachelor of arts in education. Note that “bachelor’s degree” and “master’s degree” have apostrophes.

	•	Capitalize the official names of offices and departments, but lowercase unofficial names of offices and departments or shorter forms of these names: Department of Biology, Office of Communications; biology course list, communications brochures.

	•	Sometimes position titles and office titles are the same, such as dean of students and Dean of Students. When referring to the office, capitalize; when referring to the person, use the rules above. All forms should be turned into the Dean of Students. Mary Smith, dean of students, was featured on the Channel 6 news.

	•	Lowercase fields of study, unless the words are proper nouns that would normally be capitalized: biology, humanities, English, French.

	•	Upper case the name of a specific course title, but lower case generic course designations: Introduction to Biology, biology courses.

	•	Upper case the name of a specific program when it is used with the word "program": The Environmental Studies Program offers a variety of internship opportunities that environmental studies faculty will assist students in exploring.

	•	Capitalize University and College when referring specifically to the University of New England or one of its colleges on second reference. Lowercase university and college when referring to the university or college as a generic noun: The University now has the residential life program that a university of its size should have. (This is a UNE style, contrary to standard style)

	•	When referring to the two University of New England campuses, use caps for all the words in the campus names: University Campus, Westbrook College Campus. Also, note when referring to the Portland campus, you should use all three words of the offical name: Westbrook College Campus.

Use of “Dr.”

Never use “Dr.” before a person’s name when you are also using the degree after the name: incorrect: Dr. John Kaufman, M.D. ; correct: John Kaufman, M.D. On the UNE website, first reference to academic degrees should follow the name: John Brown, Ph.D; Bill Miller, D.O.

Publications

	•	In general, titles of books and periodical publications should be italicized, unless you are creating a list of publications following a specific academic field's style guide.

	•	In general, titles of articles or chapters should be in double quotation marks, unless you are creating a list of publications following a specific academic field's style guide.

Numbers

	•	Within text, spell out numbers below 10: He had three books published last year. Use Arabic numerals for numbers for 10 or larger. He published 20 scholarly articles in the last year.

	•	“More than” as compared to “over.” “Over” refers to spatial relationships: He jumped over the hurdle. At times it can be used with numbers such as “he is over 90”, but in most cases you should use “more than” with numbers: He has published more than 50 scholarly articles.

	•	In general within text, spell out “percent.” Always use Arabic numerals when writing percent: 5 percent, 200 percent.

Abbreviations

	•	In text, when a state is used by itself, without a municipality, spell out the state. When used with a municipality, use the old-styled abbreviations for states, with upper- and lower-case letters and periods, rather than the U.S. Postal Service abbreviations with all caps: He comes from St. Paul, Minn., but he moved to Alabama in 1996. If you are lisiting an specific address on your webpage, you should use the U.S. Postal Service abbreviations.

	•	Use periods with abbreviations of degrees and licenses: M.S., Ph.D., R.N.

	•	Use periods and lowercase letters for time of day designations: 6:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m.

	•	In general, especially in text, avoid the use of the ampersand “&” unless it is the formal part of the name of an organization. Use “and” instead.

	•	When abbreviating the names of the University's two campuses, use UC for University Campus and WCC for the Westbrook College Campus.

Two Maine Campuses:
University Campus, Biddeford / Westbrook College Campus, Portland · 207.283.0171