Style Sheet | Report Preparation Guidelines

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 (a 5 percent increase), except in tables or passages containing numerous percentages.

Use all digits in number ranges: 149–167; 2012–2013.

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. Take care to reference the subject name and number in effect during the reporting period, not the one in effect when you're writing your report. To consult a particular academic year's subject titles, see the online archive of subject descriptions.

Time and Date

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

academic year 2013 (or AY2013)

fiscal year 2013 (or FY2013)

fall 2012, fall term; spring 2012, spring term

September 11 (not September 11th)

the 21st century; 21st-century technology

Abbreviations

Omit periods in abbreviations of academic degrees: SB, SM, MArch, MBA, MEng, MFin, SMArchS, MCP, MSRED, PhD, ScD.

Omit periods in abbreviations of academic status or Alumni Association designations used at MIT: John Smith G (not John Smith, graduate student) or John Smith G (biology); Jane Smith HM (not Jane Smith, honorary member).

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).

When abbreviating the name of a state, use the postal code rather than the traditional abbreviation: 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 the Chicago Manual of Style down style of capitalization: President Hockfield, the president; the provost; the chancellor; the dean; Department of Physics, the department; the Departments of Biology and Chemistry, the departments; 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), the Press (i.e. the MIT Press), Institute Professor, and MacVicar Faculty Fellow.

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; he was a student in Biology (department implied).

Academic and professional titles are capitalized when they immediately precede a surname, are used as part of the name (often replacing the first name), and can be considered an honorific: President Hockfield; Professor Taylor; Dean Ortiz; Professors Chomsky and Flynn; Drs. Glass and Seneff.

When titles are used to indicate position or occupation and are used in apposition to a name, they are lowercased:

• MIT president Susan Hockfield

• president Susan Hockfield

• dean for graduate students Christine Ortiz

• associate professor of history Jerome Taylor (but Associate Professor Taylor)

• professor Peter Donaldson (but Professor Donaldson)

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, awards, and honors:

• Infinite Mile Award

• Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize

• Searle Scholar

• HHMI Investigator

• AAAS Fellow (but Professor Smith was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science)

Faculty Names

Upon first naming a faculty member, include his or her full rank and title (as of June 30, 2012) and full name (include the middle name or initial okay only if regularly used by the faculty member). Thereafter, use the first and last name, last name only, or shortened title and last name. For example, "Associate professor of architecture Robert Smith continued his reseach in the building technology program. Professor Smith also collaborated with colleagues in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to develop joint subjects for the interdisciplinary minor in energy studies."

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).

Title Formats

Follow headline-style capitalization for titles.

*Italicize (no quotes)*	"Roman and Quote"	Simply Capitalize (no quotes or italics)
books	articles	conferences*
exhibits	blog entries	lecture series
video games	chapters	manuscripts (work in progress)
long poems	lectures	newsletters
movies	manuscripts (not accepted for publication)	projects
musical compositions	papers	reports
named blogs	podcasts	symposia
periodicals	single episodes of a continuing radio or TV show	websites
plays	short stories	web pages
radio or TV programs	theses	workshops*
	video blogs
	workshop or panel presentations

*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)

AY2013, academic year 2013, the 2012–2013 academic year (not AY2012–2013)

B

bachelor's degree, bachelor of science

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

C

catalog (when referring to the MIT Course Catalog)

CD-ROM (or cd-rom)

Class of 2012

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

edX

e.g. (roman, not italics)

F

faculty is/are (follow author)

the Faculty (when referring to the voting MIT Faculty)

fall term, fall 2012

federal

full-time

FY2013, fiscal year 2013

G

G (when referring to a graduate student, e.g., John Smith G)

H

half-time

headmaster

HM (when referring to an honorary member of the MIT Alumni Association, e.g., Jane Smith HM)

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, master of science

MacVicar Faculty Fellow

MIT150

MITx

MIT 2030

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

the 21st century; 21st-century technology

U

URL (or url)

V

W

web, on the web (not World Wide Web, unless the reference is historical)

website

X-Z

Last updated May 10, 2013