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