Spelling & Numbers
Always consult a dictionary for spelling and word breaks. The Library Media Center provides a list of valuable internet resources for writers and editors.
Spelling
- advisor, not adviser
- alumna/alumnae (female singular/plural); alumnus/alumni (male singular/plural). Alumni is an acceptable plural form for male and female graduates.
- catalog, not catalogue
- childcare, not child care
- Computer terms: database, data file, debug, hard copy, hard drive, input
- Curriculum (singular); curricula (plural)
- Log on or log in when used as a verb; log-in or log-on when used as a subject or noun
- e-mail, not email
- fundraising instead of fund-raising [as a noun, adjective and verb]
- home page, not homepage
- Internet (capitalized)
- intranet (not capitalized )
- in-depth, in-service when used as an adjective before the noun
- multicultural or multi-cultural, not multi cultural
- multimedia, not multi-media [multimedia as one word is in common usage at BC – Web Multimedia Authoring…]
- noncredit, not non-credit
- nonprofit, not non-profit
- online, not on-line
- password (not capitalized)
- percent, not per cent; spell out percent instead of using the % symbol in text; use the symbol for charts and tables.
- theater is preferred over theatre
- username (not capitalized)
- the Web or web
- web page
- website, not web site
- World Wide Web or WWW
Numbers
- Numbers below 10 are spelled out in non-scientific text. The exceptions are
- percents - 10 percent
- credit hours - 125 credit hours
- grade point averages - 3.5 grade point average
- An exception to the rule is to use numerals in ads and posters, and on websites for ease of reading.
- Treat numbers alike in a sentence if they refer to the same thing: "The class of 15 students was separated into smaller groups of 5 students each."
- Always spell out numbers at the beginning of a sentence or reword the sentence to avoid spelling out a large number.
- Spell out ordinal numbers in text: e.g., first, second, third—not 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
- For numbers of four digits or larger, use a comma: 1,500; 35,000.
- Very large numbers should be expressed with a figure and word: $450 million.
- Exceptions are dates, temperatures, and SAT scores.
- Fractional amounts higher than one dollar are set in figures: "The course notes cost $15.95. But whole dollar amounts use .00 only when in a sentence with a dollar/fraction amount: "The registration fee is $75.50 if you are staying on campus, but $55.00 if you stay off campus."
- Decimals and fractions are set in figures, although in some cases, a fraction may be spelled out: "The professor covered about two-thirds of the chapter during the class." Note that hyphens are used when spelling out fractions.
- Figures plus a.m. or p.m. (lowercase with periods) are used to designate time in both text and schedules for ease of reading. For greater efficiency, drop the :00 after a full hour, 7 p.m.
- This is different from the Chicago Manual , which spells out time in text. "The lecture will begin at 10 a.m. with a luncheon to follow at noon ." Note that "noon" is lowercase and is not used with 12 p.m.
- The plurals of numbers are formed by adding an s (no apostrophe): 5s, 20s, 1980s. When abbreviating a year, use an apostrophe to indicate the missing numbers, class of '94.
- Spell out references to centuries and decades: fifteenth century, the sixties.
- Telephone numbers are written with the area code in parentheses and a hyphen to separate the last four digits of the phone number: (425) 564-1000.
Other
- Full-time, half-time, and part-time are hyphenated whether they precede or follow the noun.
- Use "more than" rather than "over" with numerals: "Enrollment is more than 22,000 students."