Letters

Letters: Format should be modified block; font is 12 pt. Arial (11 pt. is acceptable if needed for space considerations). 

 

Inside Address

• Do not use class year in inside address

Mrs. Mary Smith (not: Mrs. Mary Smith '82)

 

• Do not use ampersands (&)

Mr. and Mrs. John Smith (not: Mr. & Mrs. John Smith)

• Spell out Street, Avenue, Court, Road, etc.

• When writing the name of an organization, always follow the organization's preference. If you do not know the official form used, spell out the word and; do not use an ampersand (&). Spell out Company and Corporation.

 

Punctuation

• Serial comma:
apples, oranges, and pears (not apples, oranges and pears)

 

• Comma after a state (when following a city):
John Smith moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, this summer.

 

• Commas with months and years:

January 2001 (no comma between month and year nor after year when day not used)
January 12, 2001 Her report of January 12, 2001, reached my desk yesterday. (Use comma to set off the year in complete dates.)

• In personal names and company names do not use comma to set off Jr., Sr., Inc. or Ltd.; however, individual preferences should be respected when known.

• Do not set off II, III, IV, etc. with a comma when following a last name.

• Quotation marks: Place periods and commas inside the closing quotation mark; place semicolons and colons outside the quotation mark: "No," she said, and I think she meant it.
The traditional advice is "write what you know"; many of us are confused by that.

 

 

Numbers

• Do not add a decimal point and zeros to a whole dollar amount when it occurs in a sentence.
I am enclosing a check for $125 as payment.
This model costs $12.50; that one costs $100.

• When a sentence begins with a number, spell it out.
One million dollars was the goal.

• Spell out whole numbers below 10 and use figures for 10 and above.

• Use same style to express related numbers above and below 10.
We use to have two dogs, one cat, and one horse.
We now have 5 dogs, 11 cats, and 1 horse.

 

But:
Our four sons consumed a total of 18 hamburgers, 5 large bottles of Coke, 12 apples, and about 200 cookies-all at one sitting. (Figures are used for all the related items of food; the other numbers - four and one - are spelled out, since they are not related and are not over 10.)

• Use March 6 - not March 6th

Abbreviations

• Spell out Street, Avenue, Court, Road, etc.

• Months: Spell out in most cases.

• States: In almost all cases, spell out (except in addresses)

• Use state zip code abbreviations in mailing addresses on correspondence and in databases.

Typesetting

• In letters, use left justification. Do not use right or full justification.

• Do not underline text. Use italics instead (or in rare cases, boldface for emphasis).

Capitalization

• When in doubt, use lowercase.

• Do not capitalize the word college, except when used as part of Peace College. Exception: when using the word college in place of Peace College, it may be capitalized for clarity.

• Do not capitalize names of academic departments or administrative offices, except when discipline is proper noun (English department, Spanish department, etc.) history department; alumnae affairs; admissions.

• Exceptions: offices that also identify a location, i.e. Writing Center, Admission's Office, etc.

Titles

• Capitalize titles only when they precede a name: use lowercase when the title follows the name (in correspondence, the title following the signature line is capitalized). Confine capitalization of the academic discipline, when referring to professors, to English, Spanish, etc.

Professor of History John Crossno......John Crossno, professor of history
Maria Pereyra, assistant professor of Spanish

Odds and Ends

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