Style: Titles, Names and Times
Titles- Short titles go before names and are uppercase. Long titles of four words or longer go after names, are in commas, and are lowercase.
Examples:
- Superintendent-President Dr. Andreea Serban is expected to speak at the student luncheon.
- Dr. Jack Friedlander, executive vice president of educational programs, will be guest speaker at the awards banquet.
- Student Senate Adviser Dr. Ben Partee helped circulate the agendas.
- Matt Riley, president of the associated students, said he wants to get students more involved.
- Formal and informal titles, including academic titles such as Dr., are used on first reference, then dropped on second.
- Courtesy titles—Mr., Mrs, Ms. or Miss—are never used.
Examples:
- Dr. Kimberly Monda teaches English literature and composition at City College. Monda earned a doctorate from UCLA.
- Coach Scott Fickerson said this will be his best year ever for cross-country recruits. Fickerson has been building his team's momentum...
- Use the first and last name the first time you refer to a person. After that, on second reference, use the last name only.
Examples:
- Film Studies Professor Nico Maestu will take his students to the Palm Springs Film Festival this winter. Maestu also crafts online courses around several other festivals.
- Baseball standout Zach Edgington has been named Male Athlete of the Year for SBCC while Meghan Maiwald earned the Female Athlete of the Year honor.
Edgington and Maiwald were honored at the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Monday night.
- Times are written as concisely as possible.
- Don’t use o’clock. The preferred ways of referring to morning or afternoon are a.m. and p.m. (note lowercase and periods).
- Seconds are rarely important, except for sports and some crime stories.
- noon (not 12 o’clock p.m.) and midnight (not 12 a.m.)
- 3:30 p.m. (not 3:30 in the afternoon)
Time Sequence
- The proper sequence for writing about events is time, date, location. (TDL or tiddle)
Examples:
- Philosophy Professor Dr. Joe White will meet with his students at 1 p.m. Thursday in IDC-Room 113.
- She will be buried at noon Friday at Oakmont Cemetery in Goleta.
- She returned home at midnight Wednesday.
Seven-Day Rule
- If an event happened or will happen within seven days of publication, use the day of the week.
- If an event happened or will happen outside this seven-day window, use the month and date.
- The Channels always publishes on Wednesday. Look at a calendar and include the Wednesday of publication in the seven-day window.
- For Channels style, we use today, but not tomorrow or yesterday.
Abbreviating Dates
- Never abbreviate the days of the week.
- Abbreviate months longer than five letters. Spell out March, April, May, June and July.
Examples:
· The attack took place on Monday Dec. 25.
· They were married in July.
Numbers
- Spell out one through nine and use figures for 10 and above. This includes ordinal numbers (first, second, third, fourth....and so on to ninth).
- Consult the AP Stylebook, P. 171-173, for numerous exceptions to this guideline, which include addresses, ages, centuries, course numbers, dates, dimensions, fractions, highways, millions and billions, page numbers, percentages, ratios, room numbers, speeds, telephone numbers, times, weights and years, among many others.
- Don’t use a figure when a number starts the sentence. Better yet, recast the sentence. The only exception is when the number is a calendar year; use the figure.
Examples:
· Twenty-five people applied for positions on the Associated Students Senate.
· A total of 25 students applied for the Associated Students Senate.
· 2000 came in with a whimper, not a bang.
Money
The following are correct ways to deal with money
The following are correct ways to deal with money
· $5
· 31 cents
· $3,179
· $1 million instead of $1,000,000.
· $1.5 million instead of $1,500,000.
- For large amounts keep it as short and easy to understand as possible. For both large and small amounts, round off then drop the cents (unless you want to use cents for a specific effect.)