Style

Abbreviations and acronyms

Where possible, avoid alphabet soup. Spell out abbreviations and acronyms on first reference and follow with parenthesized acronyms or abbreviations.

The following are acceptable on first reference in all uses: FIU, GPA.

Widely known abbreviations and acronyms may be used in headlines: NASA, NSF, EPA.

Abbreviations for months or days of the week are acceptable in some cases. Consult AP style for use.

Consider your audience when deciding if an acronym would be understood on its own.

Capitalization

All caps

All caps can make text harder to read. Don't use all caps, except with abbreviations and acronyms.

Consider using bold or italics to emphasize text.

Bulleted and numbered lists

Use sentence case for list items: Capitalize first letter of the first word of each list item. Do not use title case. See more in punctuation and grammar.

College and school names

Do not capitalize college or school except when using the proper FIU name.

Division, department and program names

In informal and formal uses, do not capitalize department, division, etc., in names:  department of Modern Languages. In informal uses, do not capitalize the department name except when capitalizing a language as part of a department name:  the biology department,  the English department.

Fall, Spring, Summer

Capitalize when used as names of semesters. Do not capitalize when referencing the seasons.

Headings, blurbs and lists

Any element within a heading tag (see Headings/headlines) should be written in sentence case. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word. If the word would be capitalized in a sentence (such as proper nouns and names) it can be capitalized in the heading.

Page names

The H1 or page title should be written in title case. Capitalize principle words. Do not capitalize conjunctions, articles and prepositions unless they start a sentence.

Do not use title case for blurbs any other element that does not act as a header.

Titles, job descriptions

Capitalize proper titles when they precede a name:  President Mark B. Rosenberg. Do not capitalize titles when they follow a name:  Mark B. Rosenberg, president. Job descriptions are not capitalized:  office manager John Doe. Exception – do not capitalize coach before a name: coach Pat Riley.

University

Do not capitalize "university" unless you are spelling out the full university name. Examples: 

Punctuation and grammar

A and an

Use "a" only before words that start with a consonant sound. Use "an" before words that start with a vowel sound. Note that some words that begin with a consonant letter begin with a vowel sound and should, thus, take an "an." Examples:

Ampersands

Use in page titles, navigational elements and buttons. Do not use in paragraph copy. The correct HTML character entity is  &.

Bullet lists

Capitalize first letter of each list item. When a list item consists of a complete sentence, use periods. Only use colons before the beginning of a list, not inside a list item. Instead, use a dash in list items. See  Dashes and Hyphens.

Colons

Do not use colons at the end of a heading.

Dashes and hyphens

Hyphens: Connect two or more words to form a single word or concept (as in compound modifier): “A well-known celebrity,” for example. Use in place of underscores or spaces in filenames for images, documents, etc.

Dashes: There are two distinct forms of dashes.

• Em Dash — The longest of the dashes, it is so named because it spans the width of an uppercase “M.” Stylistically, it’s useful in many cases – like appositives, parenthetical asides, and lists (ahem) – where a comma or parenthesis might be used instead. The em dash implies a more immediate connection to its context. Also used for attribution, as in a quote. Use spaces before and after an em dash. The HTML character entity is  —.
• En Dash — The middle sibling in the dash-hyphen family, it is so named because it spans the width of a lowercase “n.” The en dash is used to separate ranges, as in dates and numerical ranges, where the word “to” might be used. The HTML character entity is  –.

Ellipsis ( ... )

Used to denote a trailing off of speech (a "Shatner Pause" effect) or to condense a quote. While it consists of three periods, the ellipsis is a singular punctuation mark. Use a space before and after an ellipsis. Examples:

"Space ... the final frontier."
"The needs of the many outweigh ... " " ... the needs of the few."
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received ... in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Spaces

Use only one space after a period when starting a new sentence.

Comma

In keeping with AP standards, we do not use the oxford comma, or a comma used in a series after the word and. Exceptions can be made if the lack of a comma makes the sentence genuinely confusing, like in long or complex sentences with other use of punctuation.

Numbers

Numerals

Use numbers in all instances. When a sentence begins with a number, spell it out. Consider rewording the sentence.

Percent

Spell out the word in copy. The symbol is acceptable in charts and tabular information.

Phone numbers

Always use hyphens: 305-348-2000.

Addresses

Do not use periods. Use numerals and spell out in all elements of addresses:

11200 SW 8th Street, PC 515
Miami, Florida 33199

Times

Cut unnecessary characters and make dates and times easier to read:

• No periods or spaces: 11am.
  
• Do not use :00 constructions. Examples of proper use: 9am, 9:30pm.
• Avoid redundancies, such as 11pm at night or 11am Monday morning.
• When expressing a range, use a dash without spaces: 9-10pm, 10am-12pm.
• Used sparingly, the following phrases are acceptable when a colloquial effect is desired: o’clock, noon, midnight. Do not use these phrases in tabular information or listings.
• Consider abbreviating days of the week or months when listing a series of dates and times. See Abbreviations and acronyms.