Gavilan College Styleguide
Editorial Guidelines

Acronyms

Always spell out the full name or phrase the first time, followed by the acronym in parenthesis; then use the acronym alone in subsequent references:

The California State Employees Association (CSEA) will meet at noon. CSEA members will be taking a vote.

Common Gavilan acronyms include:

ASGC Associated Students of Gavilan College

CalWORKS – California Work and Responsibility to Kids

CARE – Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education

CDC – Child Development Center

CSEA – California State Employees Association     

DRC – Disability Resource Center                          

EOPS Extended Opportunities Programs and Services

FTES – Full time equivalent student

GCFA – Gavilan College Faculty Association

GECA – T. J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy

MESA – Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement

ROP – Regional Occupation Program

STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Title V – expand educational opportunities for, and improve the academic attainment of, Hispanic students

TRIO –  federally funded program to assist first-generation, low-income, and/or disabled students

VTEA –Vocational and Technical Education Act

Capitalization

College Name, Board, and District

• Capitalize full names or short forms:

  Gavilan College

  Gavilan Joint Community College District

  Board of Trustees

• Lowercase when used alone, as a general term, or in the plural:

  The college sent out letters last week.

  The community colleges in the state are …

  The board had a retreat in January.

  Students within the district are invited to attend a luncheon.

   

Departments/Divisions/Committees

• Capitalize the formal names of departments and divisions:

  Student Services; the English Department

  The District Technology Committee meets on Thursday.

• Do not capitalize division, committee or department in subsequent references:

  The division will offer additional courses.

  The committee has approved the budget.

Seasons

• Capitalize the season when referring to a specific semester:

  The Spring 2013 semester begins in January.

  Fall 2012 enrollment increased.

• A generic reference is lowercased:

  The event takes place in the fall.

State/federal

• These are lowercased unless they are part of a formal name:

  He received a state grant and a contract from the Federal Communications Commission.

  The state is experiencing a deficit.

Titles

• Capitalize official titles before and after a name:

  Director of Public Information, Jan Bernstein Chargin has written an article. Kathleen Rose, Vice President of Instruction, will speak at noon.

  (Note: “vice president” is not hyphenated.)

  The coordinator of the Distance Education Department will return your call.

Building names

• The full names of buildings are capitalized:
  

  Classes are held in the Health Occupations Building.

• Generic reference is lowercased:

  The building is located on the east side of campus.

Courses

• The full names of courses are capitalized:

  Managerial Accounting

Academic degrees

• Capitalize degrees when they follow a name: John Smith, Doctor of Law
• Capitalize abbreviations and insert periods with no spaces:

  A.A., A.S., B.A., B.S., M.A., M.S., M.D., Ph.D., J.D. (Juris Doctorate or Doctor of Jurisprudence.)

• Separate degrees by a comma after the name:

  The conference speaker is Jenny Loggins, Ph.D.

• Capitalize formal reference:

  She earned an Associate in Arts, while he earned a Master of Science.

• Lowercase short forms and degrees referred to in general terms:

  She earned a bachelor‘s degree, while he earned a master‘s.

  They earned associate degrees.

Geographic regions

• Lowercase north, south, northeast, northern, etc., when they indicate compass direction. Capitalize these words when they refer to a region:

  Many industries are relocating to the South.

• Other examples:

  Most publishing companies are based on the East Coast.
  He is a Midwesterner.
  The Southwest generally is hot and dry all year.

Publications

• Capitalize the titles of Gavilan College documents, but lowercase in reference:

            2011-2013 Gavilan College Catalog

            I misplaced my catalog.

Date/Time

Date

• Capitalize months.
• When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec.:

  Jan 11 was her birthday

• When only a month and year are used in a sentence, do not separate the month and the year with commas:

  February 2010 was a record-breaking month for attendance.

• When a month, day and year are referred to, set off the year with commas:

  Sept. 15, 2011, will be a very busy day.

• Use figures without st, nd, rd, or th.: July 4 is a holiday for the district.

Time

• Use figures except for noon and midnight. Do not use 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.
• Always use a colon to separate hours from minutes.
• Always include a.m. or p.m. with the time.
• a.m./p.m. – lowercase with periods. No capitals.

 

Numbers/Symbols

• Spell out numbers up to and including nine, and use figures for 10 and over.
• Age – Always use figures.
• Fiscal or academic year: The following expressions are recommended:

FY 2010-11

The budget was approved for fiscal year 2011-2012

The academic calendar for 2011-2012 is posted on the intranet.

 

• Sentence start – Spell out numbers that begin a sentence or the title of a course.
• Use a hyphen to connect a word ending in y to another word:

  twenty-one, one hundred forty-three, seventy-six thousand five hundred.

• Symbols  – Use % instead of percent (saves space and speeds up reading). When referring to research data or statistics, use the numeral instead of spelling out the number:The figures show that 83% of the budget is compensation to employees.

• Use $ with numerals: $60, but spell out dollar in these instances:

  several thousand dollars, dollars and cents.

Official Terms

• For the college and district: Gavilan Joint Community College District, GJCCD, Gavilan College, Gavilan College Morgan Hill Site, Gavilan College Hollister Site.

                        Do not use Gavilan Junior College or Gavilan Community College

                        Do not use Briggs Building, Hollister Site, Morgan Hill Site

• For the president:  Superintendent/President,

                        Dr. Steven Kinsella, President Kinsella, Steven M. Kinsella, D.B. A., C.P.A.

Punctuation

Apostrophe

• To show possession, add an apostrophe s to singular words, even if they end in s or z: campus's, Liz's, Dickens's.
• To plurals ending in s, add an apostrophe only: nine dogs' tails.
• Omit the apostrophe from plurals: 1990s, POWs, M.A.s and Ph.D.s.
• For singular common nouns ending in s, add ’s (unless the next word begins with s):

the hostess’s invitation, the hostess’ seat.

• For words ending in s, do not add an apostrophe when it is used primarily in a descriptive sense: a teachers college, veterans program.

Bullets, lists

Bulleted items that conclude an introductory sentence should be lowercase and punctuated with a comma or semicolon at the end of each item except for the last. Use the word "and" before the last bulleted item, and end the sentence with a period:

When each item of a list completes the introductory sentence,

• list items should begin with lowercase letters;
• all but the last item should end with a comma or semicolon;
• the second-to-last item ends with "and"
• the last item ends with a period.

Bulleted items that are not part of an introductory sentence may be upper- or lowercase and may end with either periods or no punctuation. However, format should be consistent within any given context:

Santa Clara County area residents enjoy a variety of seasonal recreational activities:

• water sports
• camping and hiking
• picnicking

Usually, there is a space between the bullet and the first word of each item.

Comma

• For dates and times, use the following guidelines:

April 1, 1950, was. . . .
April 1950 was. . . .
The program was scheduled for 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, December 12, 2000.

• A word, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to a noun and that is parenthetical is set off by commas:

Washington, D.C., is. . . .
My wife, Amanda, works. . . .
I live in Santa Cruz, which I enjoy very much.

• In a series, use a comma before the conjunction: 

Cowell, Merrill, and Oakes

• Use a comma before a conjunction connecting two independent clauses:

Course 20 is required for the major, and students should complete it by the end of their junior year.

• As a general rule, do not use a comma before a conjunction connecting a compound predicate:

Joe bought two books and looked at the magazines.

Hyphen

• Use a hyphen for compound adjectives before the noun:

well-known actor, full-time job, 20-year sentence

• Do not use a hyphen when the compound modifier occurs after the verb:

The actor was well known.

Her job became full time.

He was sentenced to 20 years.

• Do not use a hyphen to denote an abrupt change in a sentence—use a dash.

Parenthesis – see “Quotation Marks” below.

Quotations Marks

• The period and the comma always go within the quotation marks. The dash (—), the semicolon (;) the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!) go within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

• In dialogue, each person’s words are placed in a separate paragraph, with
  quotation marks at the beginning and end of each person’s speech.

Titles of Works

• Note that the following rules apply to text only and are not necessarily correct bibliographic form.
• Articles, prepositions, and coordinate conjunctions should be lowercase in titles unless they are the first or last words; lowercase the to in infinitives.

The Last of the Mohicans
A Rage to Live

• In addition to published books, pamphlets, newspapers, and periodicals, the titles of long poems, plays, major musical works, paintings, records, compact discs, audio- and videocassettes, radio and television programs, and movies are capitalized and set in italics:

a story in the San Jose Mercury News
an article in Foreign Affairs
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
the film Monster's Ball

• The titles of articles, songs, short poems, and parts of books are capitalized and enclosed in quotation marks:

"Silent Night"
"The Raven"
Professor Thackeray's article is titled "Which Way Is Up?"

• Note that commas and periods are set inside of quotation marks; colons and semicolons are placed outside of quotation marks (unless they are part of the matter quoted).

His thesis, "Man and His World," was. . . .
Do you like the song "Frere Jacques"?

Technical Terms

These change over time, as common usage changes, and new technologies become commonplace.

• cyberspace
• database
• dot-com
• DSL
• email
• home page
• hyperlink
• hypertext
• internet
• intranet
• login
• logoff
• logon
• myGAV
• online
• shareware
• website
• webcast
• webmaster
• WiFi
• World Wide Web – archaic, don’t use