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UW Stylesheet print version of this
document
For the use of Office of Admissions staff and others interested in
linguistic usage...
Specific to the UW
| Word(s) |
Proper Style |
| the UW |
When used as a noun, it's "the UW," never just "UW." "The UW is a
leader in AIDS research."
When used as an adjective, no article is necessary: "UW English
professor Jane Smith won a Guggenheim."
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| departments and majors |
Departments are capitalized b/c they are the proper names of
entities. Majors are not capitalized unless a) they are in a list, e.g.,
TAP pp 10-14) or b) the name of the major is itself a proper name, e.g.,
English, German, etc.
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| Homeschool and variants |
When referring to students schooled at home, it's one word: homeschooled
applicants, applicants with homeschooling, etc.
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| academic quarters |
The names of academic quarters at the UW are not capitalized, e.g.,
beginning autumn 2001...
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| Adviser and Advisor |
Both are correct, but at the UW the preferred spelling is adviser.
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Mastering the Web
| Word(s) |
Proper Style |
| the Web |
When used as a noun, it's capitalized. |
| the WEB |
This is incorrect, since WEB is not an acronym for anything. The original
acronym was WWW for World Wide Web but that has been dropped in favor of
simply "the Web."
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| website, online, email |
One word, lowercase, no hyphen, as preferred by the editors of WIRED
Style. This is true whether used as a noun ("I checked my email.") or,
for "online" and "email," as an adjective ("UGA now has an online
application.").
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| www.washington.edu |
Late in the 20th century, we dropped "http://" from all URLs. We
realize they are useful in email since they may function as live links but
they should be eliminated from paper correspondence or publication to save
space and reduce the amount of hyphenation (see below).
The one exception is URLs that do not begin "www", notably
http://depts.washington.edu, because users may be tempted to add a "www." before
the "depts."
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| URLs: hyphenation |
We have adopted the recommendations of the editors of WIRED Style: simply
fill out the line as best you can. Never leave a long space at the end of
one line to begin the URL w/ a new line. Use a line return (usually shift
+ return) to break the URL. Some rules for breaking URLs:
1. use the dot in the URL to begin the new line, rather
than
using it to
end the old line, which might be interpreted as a period.
www.washington.edu/students/reg/begendcal
.html
not
www.washington.edu/students/reg/begendcal.
html
2. never add a hyphen; this will lead to great
confusion!
Just wrap.
3. try to find a way to break the URL naturally, i.e.,
after a
slash or
before a dot.
www.washington.edu/students/sfs/
sao/ttnrates.html
not
www.washington.edu/students/s
fs/sao/ttnrates.html
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Usage
| Word(s) |
Proper Style |
| verbiage |
It means wordiness. It does not mean "wording." Please avoid unless you
are subtly trying to criticize the writing in question. |
Punctuation
| Word(s) |
Proper Style |
| Commas & Quotes, or We Declared Independence in 1776! |
In Britain, the period and the comma go outside the quotation
mark. But here
in the good old USA, they go INSIDE the quotes. Some examples:
Professor McKenzie will give a lecture entitled "The Legacy of the Civil War."
"It's raining," she said.
Please come to a very special "UW Night," in which UW students will tell their stories.
Semi-colons and colons are a bit more complicated.
I love "Frosh Pond"; too bad the fountain is rarely turned on.
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| The serial comma: its past, present, and future |
In UGA publications (paper or Web) we use the serial comma. This means
that in a string of 3 items, we place a comma before the "and": "English,
psychology, and art." The serial comma has become scarce in recent years,
but we maintain it, because it serves a very useful purpose in clarifying what is
being grouped.
Read Strunk & White, The Elements of Style, regarding
the serial comma.
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| Bulleted lists |
This can be very tricky, but in general, punctuate as though the bullet
isn't there.
If a string of words at the bullet constitute a complete
sentence, they should end with a period.
If the string is merely words or phrases, then the end of each
line should end with a comma, and the penultimate [next to last] line
should end with ", and"
If there are commas within at least some of the phrases being
bulleted, use a semi-colon at the end of each line, since that's what you
would do if the bullets weren't there.
Example
of a bulleted list
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