Style Sheet

Spelling and Punctuation

Use American spellings (follow Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition).

For clarity and consistency across reports, use serial commas: Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Numbers

Spell out one to nine in running text, and use digits for 10 and higher
but spell out all numbers that begin a sentence (or rewrite the sentence).

Use a comma in numbers of four or more digits: 1,413
but remember to leave four-digit years unpunctuated: 1949, 2001
and to convert the comma used by Europeans to indicate a decimal point.

Use digits in all measurements: 3 inches, 6 feet, 10 m.

Use digits to indicate percentages, and spell out percent (except in tables or passages containing numerous percentages): a 5 percent increase.

Use all digits in number ranges: 149–167; 2003–2004.

Use a dollar sign to indicate a dollar amount in running text: $35, not 35 dollars.

To indicate large monetary sums, the unit can be spelled out ($35 million) or abbreviated in passages containing numerous sums ($20K, $35M, $4.3B).

In phone numbers, use hyphens rather than periods, parentheses, or dashes:
617-253-1702.

MIT addresses follow this model: Room E28-100; Room 1-131 (not Building 1-131 or Building 1 Room 131).

MIT course numbers are written with Arabic (not Roman) numerals: Course 10, Course 3-C.

MIT subjects are rendered with the subject number first and no punctuation between the subject number and title: 1.01 Introduction to Civil Engineering; HST.960 Creative Writing for Physicians.

Time and Date

8:30 am, 7 pm (not 7:00 pm)

academic year 2008 (or AY2008)

fiscal year 2008 (or FY2008)

fall 2007, fall term; spring 2008, spring term

September 11 (not September 11th)

the 21st century; 21st-century technology

Abbreviations

Omit periods in abbreviations of academic degrees: BS, MBA, MEng, PhD, ScD.

MIT alumni degrees usually omit the course number and are listed as follows:

Undergraduate: Walter Frey '56
Graduate: Martin Tang SM '72
Undergrad & grad: Philip Greenspun '82, SM '93, PhD '99

Omit periods in well-established two-letter acronyms (UK, UN, US) and in all acronyms of three or more letters (MIT).

Omit periods after metric-unit abbreviations (6 m, 100 cm, 32 km) and well-known units of measurement (12 sq ft).

In running text, use the postal code rather than the traditional abbreviation for the name of a state: MA, not Mass.; CT, not Conn; Washington, DC, not Washington, D.C.

To abbreviate the names of days and months, use the first three letters without a period: Mon, Sat, Feb, Jun, Oct, Dec.

Institutional acronyms should be introduced immediately after the first mention of the full name: OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a large-scale, web-based electronic publishing initiative.
But note that parenthetical acronyms should be kept out of headings, and are unnecessary if the subsequent text fails to use them.

Capitalization

In running text, follow a down style of capitalization (see Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, 8.2): President Hockfield, the president; the provost; the chancellor; the dean; Department of Physics, the department; Center for Real Estate, the center.
But note the following exceptions: the Institute, the School (where the context clearly establishes the identity of the school), the Association (i.e. the MIT Alumni Association), the Corporation (i.e. the MIT Corporation), the Faculty (i.e. the voting MIT Faculty), the Libraries (i.e. the MIT Libraries), Institute Professor, and MacVicar Faculty Fellow. Also, a department, lab, or center may refer to itself, familiarly, as the Department, Lab, or Center in its own report as long as care is taken to ensure that the short form of its name is not used to excess.

Names of academic fields are capitalized only when they appear as part of a department or program name: he majored in biology; he earned a PhD in biology; he was a student in the Department of Biology.

Academic and professional titles are capitalized only when they immediately precede a personal name and are used as part of the name: President Hockfield; Professor Jerome Taylor; Dr. Anne Welnick.

When titles are used to indicate position or occupation and are used in apposition to a name, they are lowercased: associate professor of history Jerome Taylor; MIT president Susan Hockfield; dean for graduate students Isaac M. Colbert (but Dean Colbert)

In named professorships, capitalize only the name of the person or entity who endowed the professorship or is honored by it: Ford professor of engineering; Robert T. Haslam professor of chemical engineering; Class of 1954 career development professor.

Capitalize names of prizes, honors, and awards: Infinite Mile Award, Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize.

Typography and Style

For emphasis, use italics rather than underlining or boldface.

Write ordinal numbers on the line, reserving superscript and subscript for scientific and mathematical expressions: 1st, not 1^st; 14th; the greenhouse gas CO_2.

Keep headings brief (never longer than one line).

Do not use bulleted lists to an excessive degree, but do use bullets in preference to numbers or letters (unless you want to indicate a hierarchy). You can also substitute em dashes for bullets when the list items are sentence fragments (frequently, beginning with a verb).

Italicize titles of books, periodicals, plays, movies, radio or TV programs, and long poems or musical compositions. Titles of theses, chapters, articles, papers, lectures, workshop or panel presentations, and single episodes of a continuing radio or TV show are set in roman and quoted. Names of reports, newsletters, conferences, workshops, lecture series, and websites are capitalized but not set in italics or quoted; however, a substantive or thematic name given to a conference, workshop, or panel may be quoted.

Consistency List

A

ad hoc (roman)

African American, Asian American (unhyphenated)

and (not &, except in tables, acronyms, and company names)

the Association (when referring to the MIT Alumni Association)

AY2008, academic year 2008, the 2007–2008 academic year (not AY2007–2008)

B

bachelor's degree

brain and cognitive sciences project (lowercase, referring to building project)

C

catalogue (when referring to the MIT Course Catalogue)

CD-ROM (or cd-rom)

coauthor, cochair, codirector, cosponsor (follow Webster's)

Commencement

Communication Requirement

the Corporation (when referring to the MIT Corporation)

D

data is/are (follow author)

de facto (roman)

doctoral degree, doctorate

E

e-commerce

e.g. (roman, not italics)

F

faculty is/are (follow author)

the Faculty (when referring to the voting MIT Faculty)

fall term, fall 2007

federal

full-time

FY2008, fiscal year 2008

G

H

half-time

headmaster

home page

housemaster

I

i.e. (roman)

Infinite Corridor

the Institute

Institute Professor

internet

IT (not I/T, except in reports produced by Information Services)

in vitro (roman)

J

K

L

the Libraries (when referring to the corporate entity the MIT Libraries)

M

master's degree

MacVicar Fellow

N

Nobel laureate, Nobel Prize in economics, physics, etc.

O

online

P

part-time

percent

postdoctoral

the Press (when referring to MIT Press)

Professor (not Prof.)

Q

R

reacquaint, readmit, reorder (follow Webster's)

S

spring term, spring break

staff is/are (follow author)

T