Editor’s Note: A University Style Guide primer

Welcome back to Editor’s Note!

I’d like to use this first 2025 edition to reintroduce myself and this newsletter. I’m Brittany Kaufman, the senior editor in the Office of Internal Communications. I manage the University Style Guide, which contains style guidelines for University communications. Editor’s Note is a monthly email with writing and grammar tips, style guide updates, interesting stories, and a style quiz (yes, you can win a prize!).

This month, I want to share some highlights from the University Style Guide. Our style guide is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, and for the most part, we follow those “rules.” The University guide contains a mix of house style quirks and highlights from CMOS so that you won’t have to search through a brick-sized book to find out where to put a comma.

That said, the web page for the University Style Guide—although conveniently set up with a search bar—is still lengthy. Here are some highlights to remember as you write and edit.

job titles
Full job titles are capitalized before a person’s name, but never afterward—unless it’s an endowed title, which (1) is always capitalized, and (2) should always be preceded with “the.”

commas
Serial commas are used in University style.

dates
When writing a date with a month, day, and year in a running sentence, always include a comma after the year. If you have just a month and year, no commas are needed. Note that a year is generally not included if the date falls within the same calendar year. Do not include endings like -th, -rd, -st with a date.

dashes
When you use a dash in your writing, use an em dash (—) with no spaces around it. En dashes (–) are used instead of hyphens when you are indicating a range.

C.S.C.
On first reference to a C.S.C. priest, always include Rev. before his name and C.S.C., with periods and set off by commas, after his name: Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., is the University’s 18th president.

numbers
In most contexts, spell out one through nine and use digits for 10 and above. For the long list of exceptions, click here.

times
Times should be formatted as, for example, 8:00 p.m.—with the double zeros for on-the-hour times, and with periods in a.m. and p.m.

ampersands
Ampersands are best avoided in all cases except where it’s part of a proper name (e.g., the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society). You should not put a serial comma before an ampersand.

seasons
The names for seasons are never capitalized: She’s going home for fall break. I start teaching my class next spring. Registration for the fall 2025 semester opens soon.

titles that go in italics
Books, movies, artwork, newspapers, journals, magazines, plays, operas, reports, podcasts, TV shows, albums

titles that go in double quotation marks
Headlines, book chapters, short stories, essays, most poems, individual episodes of podcasts and TV shows, songs, lectures

Pop quiz

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