Punctuation

• Do not use a comma before Jr., Sr., II, III, IV, etc.: William P. Smith III presented the guest lecture.
• Dates
  • Dates are punctuated month, day, year:
  • Example: "May 12, 2001 , was the date set for commencement.”
  • This differs from the Chicago Manual , which prefers day, month, year.
  • If using only the month and year, there is no comma: "Commencement was in held in May 2000."
  • When using a numbered date in text, write the number without a “th” or “nd” suffix, “June 7” – this eliminates the need to use subscript type styles.
• Quotation marks are placed outside commas and periods and inside semicolons and colons.
• Question marks and exclamation points are placed inside quotation marks if they are part of the quote and outside if they are not.
• Items placed inside quotation marks include
  • article titles
  • direct quotes
  • parts of books
  • song titles
  • short poems
  • television and radio programs
• Italics are used for
  • book titles
  • periodicals
  • newspapers
  • pamphlets
  • proceedings
  • movie and play titles
  • works of art
  • operas and other long musical compositions
• Acronyms (Should be avoided almost always See our guide to Bellevue College Terms, Names & Formatting). If you do need to use them
  • Acronyms should be all caps, no periods, closed up: GPA, ID cards.
  • Acronyms should be introduced by the full title the first time used on a page or section, and followed with an abbreviation introducing the acronym in parenthesis following the title.
• When capitalizing a compound (hyphenated) word, just capitalize the first part, as in Late-start.
• Ampersand (&) may be used in titles, headings and headlines to save space. Please spell out “and” in text.