Abbreviation: United States
The abbreviation requires periods except in scientific text
Abbreviate when using it as an adjective, e.g., U.S. currency or U.S. involvement in international politics
Spell out when used as a noun, e.g., the United States was established in 1776, but it was not recognized as such until 1783
Clauses of attribution (e.g., Smith states, “…”)
Capitalize the first word of a quotation following such a clause
Do not use “that” with such clauses, e.g., use Smith states, “…” rather than Smith states that “…”
Word Choice
YES homemaker NO housewife
Yes inexpensive/less expensive NO cheap/cheaper
YES state, exclaim, assert, share, declare, and maintain NO say
Capitalization
Only capitalize president and other titles when they precede a name, e.g., President Lincoln
(when referring to the western part of the world or the United States) YES the West and Western NO the west and western
YES Internet NO internet
Hyphenation
(before a noun) YES middle-class (acting as a noun) YES middle class
YES user-friendly (always, not just before a noun)
YES hardworking NO hard-working
(before a noun) YES problem-solving (acting as a noun) YES problem solving
One word or two?
YES data set NO dataset
YES Web site NO website or Website
Commas
Separate e.g. and i.e. from any sentence they are in using commas on both sides, for example, singers, e.g., Mariah Carey and Madonna or put them in parentheses and use a comma on the right, for example, singers (e.g., Mariah Carey and Madonna)
British English
Verbs and nouns spelled with a z in American English are replaced with an s in British English, e.g., analyze (analyse), recognize (recognise), and organization (organisation). I usually use the Word find function to search for zs when working with British English because the spellchecker misses quite a few.
Use towards in British English and toward in American English
Diana Pitt
Editor