Writing and Spelling Style Guide (2024)

HumberStyle Guide(Writing and Spelling)

In order to maintain consistency in our Humber communications, please refer to the following list for writingprinciplesand spelling for words commonly used in memos, letters, publications and online. For further reference useThe Canadian Press Stylebook, The Canadian Press CAPS and SPELLING, andThe Canadian Oxford Dictionary. This list will be updated as required.

These general principlesarefollowed on the Humber website, in media documents and in corporate publications.

Table of Contents

Writing

• Abbreviations
• Acronyms
• Capitalization
• Commonly Confused Words
• Dates and Time
• Faculty Names
• Hyphenation
• Numbers
• Punctuation
• Seasons
• Terms and Semesters
• Social Media and Web Only

Spelling

• Academic
• General
• Web Related/Digital

Writing

Abbreviations

• U.S.
• a.m. and p.m.

Acronyms

When using acronyms, please place the acronym in brackets after the full word or phrase, before using the acronym.

e.g.Silver Linings News was a multi-disciplinary, student-driven project supported by the Office of Applied Research & Innovation and in collaboration with the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts (FMCA)to give the community a daily dose of positivity and provided a paid placement opportunity for students. Check out ourFMCAprograms at mediaarts.humber.ca.

Capitalization

• Program/course names are capitalized but not the correspondingcredential

e.g.Business Communications certificate of achievement program,Introduction to Counselling course​​​​

• The word "faculty" is capitalized, depending on the use
  • In reference to the faculty employee group, use lowercase
    e.g."This handbook is intended to provide key information to faculty"
  • In reference to Humber's six academic Faculties, use uppercase
    e.g. "We are having a Faculty Town Hall"
    
• Capitalize formal titles that directly precede aname

e.g.President, Ann Marie Vaughan; Vice-President of External Affairs and Professional Learning, Kelly Jackson

• Lower-case titles that appear after a name, or are set off from a name bycommas

e.g.Gina Antonacci, senior vice-president academic;Andrew Leopold,director of marketing and communications

• Capitalize the name of an office, department or faculty when it appears in full as a formal name; lowercase informal or shortforms

e.g.Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology; the faculty,Office of the Registrar; the registrar’s office,Office of Student Success and Engagement; the student success office

• Modified downstyle

Use a modified down style, i.e.,where a reasonable choice exists, use lowercase.

Basic rule:Capitalize all proper names, trade names, government departments and agencies of government, names of associations, companies, clubs, religions, languages, nations, races, places and addresses. Otherwise, lowercase isfavoured.

Commonly Confused Words

• Less/Fewer

Normally, fewer is used withmulitples e.g. fewer students and less is used with singulars e.g. less tuition.

When the subject of the sentence implies quantity use “Less than”; if the subject implies number, use “fewerthan”.

• Further/Farther

Generally, “farther” refers to physical distance. “Further” may be used to mean “moreover” or “additional”.

• Toward/Towards

According toMeriam Webster, the words are identical in meaning and can be used based onpreference.

Dates and Time

Write the complete dates whereverpossible.Just use the number withoutst,nd,rd. e.g.January 29,2021notJanuary 29th, 2021.

The exception would be ifthe date appears in a sentence, such as “on May 3rdwe will hold a meeting.”.

Use a hyphen to connect dates except when preceded by from or between.e.g.the 1982-83 tax year, but from January to May (not from January-May).

If you are referencing a date in the current year, you do not need to include the year.

Times should be listed with periods, such as 11 a.m.

Toronto is in the eastern time zone. From mid-March to early November this would be referenced as "10 a.m. EDT" For Eastern Daylight Time. From November to March, this would be referenced as "10 a.m. EST" for Eastern Standard Time.

Faculty Names

• Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology (FAST)
• Longo Faculty of Business (FB)
• Faculty of Health Sciences & Wellness (FHSW)
• Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences (FLAS)
• Faculty of Media & Creative Arts (FMCA)
• Faculty of Social & Community Services (FSCS)

Hyphenation

Hyphenation is often used for compound adjectives that appear before a noun, such as “full-time faculty.” Hyphenation is not used when the first word finishes with anly, as in “highly skilled faculty.”

Here are some common examples:Full-timefaculty;faculty who are fulltime, working full time; full-time staff, on-campus services; services offered oncampus.

Numbers

• Whole numbers: write one to nine as words, 10 and up asnumerals

e.g.The student bought four coffees and 12 bagels for his classmates. It was the fifth week of classes, and the 13th time he had waited in line at the coffee shop.

• Use numbers when writing decimals and with uncommonfractions

e.g.0.54, 2 ½ days,three-quarters, two-fifths

Punctuation

• Commas:most popular error/inconsistency - the varied use of the comma between the elements of a series

In CP Style, use a comma to separate each element but not before the finalfor, and, nor, but, or,yetandso e.g., apple, pear and plum.

Exceptions apply if the use of the above style causes confusion in the sentence e.g., Breakfast consisted of oatmeal, eggs, and bread and butter.

• Use one space after period

Seasons

Seasons should be lowercase (winter, spring, summer andfall).

Terms and Semesters

Terms are defined by season (winter term, summer term and fall term), term is not capitalized unless it is in atitle.

Social Media and Web Only

• Times

  remove “.” in “am” and “pm” or AM &PM

• Website URLS

  Remove“https://”, "http://", “www” and last forward slash (“/”).

  e.g.humber.ca (nothttps://www.humber.ca/)

Spelling

Academic

• bachelor’s degree (BA)
• B.Comm;B.Sc;M.Sc
• corequisite
• full time (working full time); full-time (full-time calendar)
• inquiry not enquiry
• master’s degree (MA)
• part time (working part time); part-time (part-time calendar)
• per cent; percentage
• PhD;P.Eng
• post-secondary (CP Style)
• prerequisite
• work-integrated learning (WIL)

General

• acknowledgmentnotacknowledgement
• analyze
• co-op, co-operate,co-operation
• co-ordinate,co-ordinator
• counsellor
• decision-making
• defence, defensive
• enrol, enrolment, enrolling,enrolled
• esthetic
• fulfil; fulfilled;fulfilment
• fundraiser, fundraising;fundraise
• health care (n.);health-care(v.) (health-care practitioner)
• HumberCentresof Innovation
  • Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation (Barrett CTI or the Barrett Centre)
  • Centre for Creative Business Innovation
  • Centre of Innovation in Health & Wellness
  • Centre for Entrepreneurship
  • Social Innovation
  • Humber Centre for Trades and Technology
• Humber Lakeshore Campus
• Humber North Campus
• indepth, in-depth (adjective)
• judgment
• Lake Shore Blvd. West
• leading-edge (adjective)
• licence(noun); license (verb); licensed; licensee; licensing
• Lifelong
• log in (verb), login (noun and adjective)
• practice (nounor adjective);practise(verb)
• principal (main, most important)
• principle (fundamental belief)
• resumé
• setup (noun), set up (verb)
• startup (noun and adjective)
• world-class (adjective)

Web Related/Digital

• blog
• chat room
• cyberspace
• email
• home page
• hyperlink
• internet
• online
• Twitter, tweet
• web, web browser, webcam, webcast, web-enabled, webmaster, web page, weblog, web server, website, World Wide Web

General note: Above all else, be consistent! If you need assistance or havequestions, pleasecontact Emily Milic,Associate Director, Communications.