Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering Style GuideJune 2016

These guidelines were compiled by editors in the Office of Marketing and Communication at the Whiting School of Engineering to encourage consistency and correct usage of terms across the many publications and materials produced. The guidelines draw from current editions of the JHU Style Guide, AP Stylebook, and the Chicago Manual of Style. Written from a Johns Hopkins/WSE point of view, these guidelines are intended to compliment AP and CMOS, and when those sources disagree, to help you choose between them. For points not addressed in the guidelines, AP is the preferred source. For points not listed in AP, use the dictionary it recommends: Webster’s New World College Dictionary. When the dictionary gives two spellings, use the first one; when AP and Webster’s disagree on a spelling, use AP’s. A number of individual JHU publications have their own style sheets, more detailed and directed to handling specialized content.

The guidelines below will supplement those already existing and will contribute to the effort to bring overall consistency to university publications.

abbreviations and acronyms Do not follow an organization’s full name with an acronym in parentheses. If an acronym would not be clear without this arrangement, do not use it. When the full name of an acronym is used, words that are not normally capitalized should be lowercased. (Example: MOOC is an acronym for massive open online course.)

academic and administrative titles In most cases, titles should follow a name and be lowercased (Example: Gregory D. Hager, professor computer science.) Theexception is named professorships and deanships, which stay capped even when they follow a name (Example: Somnath Ghosh, Michael G. Callas Chair Professor).

When a formal title precedes a name, capitalize it. (Example: Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty Scholar Sharon Gerecht, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.)

With lowercase titles that follow names, the capitalization of the discipline or department is determined by the usage:

Example: professor of applied mathematics (lowercase applied mathematics because you are talking about an academic discipline, not a department)

Example: research scientist in the Department of Computer Science (capitalize Computer Science because you are referring to a department, not the discipline in general)

Do not use the title “Professor” preceding a name; instead, the title should follow the name. (Example: Donald Geman, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.)

The only exception to this rule is use in formal programs/invitations for events such as graduation, convocation, PhD hooding ceremonies and the like. (Example: Professor Donald Geman, of the Department of Electric and Computer Engineering, will be honored at a reception to be held at the Johns Hopkins Club.)

Do not use the title “Dr.” preceding a name except when listing/referring to those with medical degrees in formal programs/invitations for events and ceremonies. Otherwise, the title should follow the name. (Example: Henry Brem, professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.)

academic degrees Do not list a person’s degree after his/her/their name, unless referring to a JHU/WSE alumnus. Omit periods (BS, MS, PhD), and avoid abbreviations when possible. (Example: John Jones, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering). Capitalize the formal name of a degree (Master of Science), but lowercase the discipline (Master of Science in computer science) and the informal name (master’s degree in applied mathematics).

Use this format for referring to alumni and their academic degrees: Zhifei Li PhD ’10; Nicholas Gianaris MSE ’92, PhD ’96.

academic year Should be written as YYYY–YY (ex: 2015–16) with an en dash, not a hyphen. (Example: 2015–2016)

acronyms (See WSE below for a list of acronyms.)

Job titles and names of organizations, centers, buildings, forms, tests, and other objects are generally spelled without periods. CEO, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, ID, JHB, SAT

Make acronyms plural without apostrophes, unless the last letter of the acronym is an s, in which case the apostrophe is needed. CEOs, GMATs, IDs, SPS’s, SATs

adviser Not advisor. (Note: This spelling is subject to change. Johns Hopkins is reviewing the preferred spelling for fall 2016.)

ages Always use figures.

aka No spacing.

alphabetization of hyphenated surnames Alphabetize by first surname. (Example: Lori Graham-Brady.) If names are not hyphenated, alphabetize by final surname. (Example: Susan Brown Smith.)

alumnus, alumni

Alumnus is the singular, masculine form. For references to women, use alumna (singular) or alumnae (plural). Alumni is plural for a group of both men and women.

ampersand Use only when the ampersand is part of the formal name of a department, division, company, etc. (U.S. News & World Report) Do not use an ampersand to avoid the repetition of “and,“ as in “The School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering are based at Homewood.” Use instead “the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.” Please note that these should be capitalized even when “Krieger” and “Whiting” are not used.

apostrophes No apostrophe is needed for decades. 1990s, 1980s, 2000s

Make acronyms plural without apostrophes unless the last letter of the acronym is an s, in which case the apostrophe is needed. CEOs, GEDs, IDs, SPS’s

blogs Titles of named blogs should be italicized. Titles of blog entries should be placed in quotation marks. (Example: “Attack of the Week” was the latest entry in Matthew Green’s A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering)

Blue Jays Use the plural, even as an adjective: a Blue Jays lacrosse fan, a Blue Jays uniform. But when referring to an individual write “Bob Smith is proud to be a Blue Jay.”

board of trustees/advisory board Lowercase. (Examples: the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees and The Whiting School of Engineering advisory board)

books, journalsItalicize the titles of books and journals. (Example: John Smith has a paper coming out in Nature.) Use quotation marks around the titles of articles/papers appearing in journals. (Example: “The physics of cancer: the role of physical interactions and mechanical forces in metastasis,” appeared in the Nature Reviews of Cancer.)

building names On invitations and in event listings, use an academic building’s full name. (Examples: Hodson Hall; Maryland Hall; Hackerman Hall.) The room number precedes the building name. (Example: 125 Malone Hall.)

ca. Preferred abbreviation for circa, meaning about or approximately.

campus Lowercase: Homewood campus, East Baltimore campus, MountWashington campus. Exception: Montgomery County Campus.

canceled, canceling, canceling, cancellation

capitalization On second reference, words such as university, school, hospital, institute, department, center should not be capped. Exceptions: the Laboratory/the Lab (for APL), and the Beach (lawn in front of the Eisenhower Library).

class standing When writing about students currently enrolled at the Whiting School of Engineering, use the designations freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior, rather than their year of graduation.

comma Use a serial comma (i.e., before and in a series). (Example: the schools of Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health.) If a serial comma does not appear in a proper name (Department of Family, Population and Reproductive Health), do not add it.

Commencement Capitalize it when referring to the university’s end-of-year ceremonies. Also capitalize Commencement Day.

contact information It is not necessary to preface telephone numbers and emails being used as contact information in publications and emails with the words “phone number” and “email.” Simply list the phone number and/or the email address. Readers can easily recognize what they are without those labels. In addition, do not include http://www in URLs, unless you are giving an https://address

co-sponsor

co-manager

course titles Do not italicize course titles or use quotation marks around them.

course work

cross-disciplinary, cross section

data The word “data” is plural. Use phrases such as "data were," "data are," "these data."

When the word data refers to separate elements, use plural verbs and pronouns. (Example: Data have been collected from many countries.) When the word functions as a collective noun, use singular verbs and pronouns. (Example: The data you collected is helpful in this project.)

database

dates, months, years, days of the week (Also see events.)For dates and years, use numbers. Do not use st, nd, rd, or th with dates. Always capitalize months. Spell out the month unless it is used with a date. (Example: The meeting is set for Thursday, July 7.) When used with a date, abbreviate only the

following months: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. (Example: The symposium will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 3.)

Commas are not necessary if only a year and month are given, but commas should be used to set off a year if the date, month and year are given. (Example: Malone Hall was dedicated on October 16, 2014.) Use the letter s but not an apostrophe after the figures when expressing decades or centuries. (Example: The 1800s). Do, however, use an apostrophe before figures expressing a decade if numerals are left out. (Example: The ’90s.)

If you refer to an event that occurred the day prior to when the article will appear, do not use the word yesterday. Instead, use the day of the week. Capitalize days of the week, but never abbreviate.

D.C. Periods should be used to separate D.C. as in Washington, D.C.

degrees Capitalize the main words in the names of degrees when they are spelled out and capitalize abbreviations of degrees. (Note: There are no spaces between elements.) Bachelor of Arts--BABachelor of Science--BS Master of Arts--MAMaster of Science--MSDoctor of Philosophy--PhD

Capitalization of names of degrees should match the registrar's official degree list. If the official degree name contains the words “of Science,” the discipline is capitalized. (Refer to the Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering or the Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering.) Similar rules apply to references made to master’s and doctoral degrees.

Do not capitalize academic degrees used in a general sense. Note that bachelor's and master's end in 's. a bachelor's degreea master's degreea doctoral degree or a doctorate

In references to degrees, the word “degree” is never capitalized. (Example: She earned her Master of Science in Engineering degree.)

Make plural abbreviations of degrees with s (no apostrophe). PhDs

department Do not capitalize “department” on second reference. (Example: Tony Dalrymple of the Department of Civil Engineering retired in June. He had been with the department since 1999.)

email In printed works, it is often necessary to break an email address or a uniform resource identifier such as a URL at the end of a line. Such a break should be made between elements if at all possible: after a colon or a double slash; before or after an equals sign or an ampersand; or before a single slash, a period, or any other punctuation or symbols. To avoid confusion, an address that contains a hyphen should never be broken at the hyphen; nor should a hyphen be added to break an email address or URL. If a particularly long element must be broken to avoid a seriously loose line, it should be broken between syllables according to the guidelines offered above (Chicago 7.42).

When listing a person’s email address in a publication or in email correspondence, simply use the address. JHUemployee@jhu.edu No need to preface it with the word “email.” People are familiar enough with the format of email addresses to understand.

em dash Em dashes are most often used in pairs in Hopkins publications to set off a phrase: More than 1,000 members of the university community—deans, trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni—helped refine the plan. For a fuller discussion, see Chicago 6.82.

emojis Never use emojis in any business writing.

en dash En dashes are used with inclusive numbers (pages 8–10, the years 2012–13) and in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of its elements is compound. (Examples: a Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist, the Johns Hopkins–led study, University of Wisconsin–Madison.) An abbreviated compound, like U.S., is treated as a single word and therefore uses a hyphen, rather than an en dash, in compounds. A single word or prefix should be joined to a hyphenated compound by another hyphen rather than an en dash; if the result is awkward, reword (Chicago 6.80). (Examples: a two-thirds-full auditorium; better, an auditorium that was two-thirds full.)

exclamation points Avoid the use of exclamation points.

events The correct format is: time of day, day of week, month, location. (Example: The symposium will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 16 in Hodson Hall Auditorium.) There is no need to list the year unless the event is planned far in advance and will be the following year. Exception: the year may be listed in formal invitations.

fall, fall semester Lowercase references to seasons and academic periods.

follow-up (noun, adjective), follow up (verb).

foreign words If foreign words are listed in AP or Webster’s, do not italicize them.

foreign students Use the phrase “international students” instead.

from … to When from introduces a range, the word to must complete it. (Example: The seminar is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) Do not use a hyphen between start and end times. Use to.

fundraiser, fundraising

gender neutral language Helpful techniques for achieving gender neutral language are listed in Chicago 5.225 and 5.227. Chairman and chairwoman are acceptable when they refer to specific people; otherwise use chair.

global Use global and not "multinational" (ex: global employers).

Hanukkah

headlines Johns Hopkins Magazine and the Gazette use both upper- and lowercase headline styles. For lowercase style, follow AP Stylebook, headlines; for uppercase, see Chicago 8:157. A few points: Capitalize prepositions of four or more letters. Enclose in single quotation marks titles and other words that are normally italicized. Use single instead of double quotation marks in headlines and callouts. Designers have free rein in headlines of features and do not need to follow these rules.

health care Two words unless spelled as one word in the official title of an organization, bill, etc. Do not hyphenate as an adjective. Note: The Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare is correct as one word.

home page Two words.

Homewood Schools This term refers to the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering. If possible, avoid this designation.

Hopkins The preferred shortened name of the university and hospital is Johns Hopkins rather than Hopkins.

hyphen Compounds: Both AP and Chicago prefer a spare hyphenation style. If no suitable example or analogy can be found in either stylebook (AP Punctuation section, under “hyphen” and Chicago 7.85) or in the dictionary, hyphenate only if doing so will aid readability.

Hyphenate and a half only if used as a compound adjective: one and a half inches, a one-and-a-half-inch hem.

Do not hyphenate then as an adjective. (Example: then Soviet Russia.)

Do not hyphenate number + percentage. (Example: a 10 percent raise.)

Do not hyphenate dollar amount. (Example: She signed a 10-year, $250 million contract.)

Do not hyphenate certain words, even when used as adjectives. (Examples: high school class, health care law.)

Do not hyphenate very and adverbs ending in –ly (Examples: a highly regarded author, a very good student).

When a compound modifier follows the verb to be, hyphenate it. (Example: Her work is well-regarded.)

No hyphens for online; lifelong; weeklong; daylong; extracurricular; cocurricular; schoolwide; course work, dual degree program; decision making (as noun or verb.)

Hyphenate: fine-tune; part-time; full-time; hour-long; university-wide, tenure-track (adj.); decision-making (adj.)

i.e. or e.g. Do not use italics and do follow with a comma (e.g., seminars and recruiting activities)

incorporated Abbreviate and capitalize as Inc. when used as a part of a corporate name. Do not set off with commas. (Example: Time Warner Inc. announced its new plan.)

initials If an entire name is abbreviated (e.g., MLK, JFK), omit spaces and periods (Chicago 10.12; see also 7.62). When an individual uses initials instead of a first name (e.g., E.L. Doctorow, H.L. Mencken), use periods with no space between the initials. Use a single initial (e.g., J. Jones) only when it is the individual’s preference or a first name cannot be learned.

internet AP recently changed the rule on this; it is now lower case.

Intersession Capitalize when referring to the academic term during winter break.(Example: During Intersession 2016, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering offered a course on the science on chocolate.)

italics In addition to the words to be italicized that are listed in composition titles and paintings, statues, and such (see AP Style Guide), named blogs, ships and other vessels (but not abbreviations USS or HMS), exhibitions, and symposium series need to be italicized.

Please note that italics are not to be used to provide emphasis to words that ought not to be italicized. Use italics only as directed above.

Johns Hopkins at Green Spring Station, Johns Hopkins at Eastern, Johns Hopkins at Keswick, Johns Hopkins at Mount Washington

Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics Supported by SPH, JHM, JHN, and KSAS; serves the entire university and health system.

Johns Hopkins Health System The components of the health system are the Johns Hopkins Health System Corp., the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, Johns Hopkins Employer Health Programs, Howard County General Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital, and All Children’s Hospital. The Johns Hopkins Health System Corp. is a legal entity that employs 1,060+ people who support several legal entities with services that include Legal, Finance, Human Resources, and Compliance. The corporation wholly owns the subsidiaries of the health system. The School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins HealthCare, and the Johns Hopkins Home Care Group are part of Johns Hopkins Medicine but not part of the health system.

Johns Hopkins Institutions The use of this term is discouraged. It is sometimes used to refer collectively to the following entities: Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Health System Corp., Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, Johns Hopkins Employer Health Programs, Howard County General Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital, All Children’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins HealthCare, the Johns Hopkins Home Care Group and subsidiaries, Johns Hopkins Medicine International, the Whiting School of Engineering, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions This term is sometimes used to refer collectively to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

Johns Hopkins Medicine Components are the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Health System Corp., the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, Johns Hopkins Employer Health Programs, Howard County General Hospital, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Suburban Hospital, All Children’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins HealthCare, the Johns Hopkins Home Care Group and subsidiaries, and Johns Hopkins Medicine International.

Johns Hopkins University divisions

The Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences: Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the Krieger School, the School of Arts and Sciences, KSAS

The Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering: the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering, the Whiting School of Engineering, the Whiting School, the School of Engineering, WSE

The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University: Peabody. Its divisions are the Preparatory and the Conservatory.

The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns

Hopkins University: SAIS, Johns Hopkins SAIS The Johns Hopkins University School of Education: SOE The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: Medicine, SOM The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing: Nursing, SON The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Bloomberg School,

School of Public Health, JHSPH (never BSPH), SPH The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory: APL, the

Laboratory, the Lab

Johns Hopkins University president’s name President Daniels can be referred to as either Ronald J. Daniels or Ron Daniels, depending on the formality of the context. (Note the capitalization style: She spoke with university President Ron Daniels at the dinner. The preferred style is: He spoke with Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, at the dinner.)

Johns Hopkins University/Johns Hopkins Hospital In running copy, the university and hospital do not need to retain the capitalized The traditionally used with their formal names. In stand-alone copy, however, it is often appropriate to keep the capitalized The. When used as shortened forms of JHU and JHH, university and hospital should not be capitalized. The preferred shortened name of the university and hospital is Johns Hopkins rather than Hopkins.

joint vs. separate possession When two nouns “possess” the same thing, they are considered a unit, and only the second element takes the possessive form. (Example: Michael Willis and Robert Hathaway’s New Security Challenges in Asia is available from Johns Hopkins University Press.) When two nouns possess different things, both nouns take the possessive form. (Example: Roger Hart’s and William Turkel’s new books are also available from the Press (Chicago 7.22).)

Jr., Sr. Abbreviate junior and senior only with full names of persons or animals. Do not use commas around Jr. or Sr. (Example: Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration.)

Money See numerals.

named deanships Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering; James B. Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; Frances Watt Baker,

M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D., Dean of the Medical Faculty; Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums.

named centers The Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare.

named professorships Capitalize named professorships. (Examples: Jin Kang is the Jacob Suter Jammer Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering; Denis Wirtz is the Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor in Engineering.) Note that one holds a chair.

It is also acceptable to say: Jin Kang holds the Jacob Suter Jammer Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

For a complete list of WSE named professorships, go here: http://engineering.jhu.edu/about/named-professorships/

NIH institutes, offices, and centers For a list of the institutes, see AP underNational Institutes of Health; for more information, go to nih.gov/icd/index.html.

nonprofit (n. and adj.)

nonsexist language Avoid words and usage that reinforce sexist stereotypes. Do not use “he” as an all-inclusive pronoun. “He or she” can be used, but the following solutions are preferable:

Change the subject to the plural and use “they,” making sure there is verb/noun agreement.

Change the singular third-person reference (he/she) to the second person (you).

Use neutral words to replace personal pronouns (such as “one” or “several”). Repeat the noun or use a synonym. Revise the sentence to eliminate the pronoun altogether.

Consult The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing by Casey Miller and Kate Swift, published by Barnes & Noble, New York. See gender neutral language.

numerals In general, spell out one through nine, and use figures for 10 or above. (Example: The professor, who came to Johns Hopkins 10 years ago, had nine graduate students working with him.)

Ages: always use numerals.

Grades: follow AP rules for ordinal numbers (e.g., fifth grade, 12th grade). She finished ninth grade at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, and will start 10th

grade there next September.

Money: Use $ sign and numerals. (Example: The lab equipment cost $400,000.) For amounts of more than $1 million, use up to two decimal places. (Example: The $4.35 million grant from NIH will fund the new center.) Do not use “k” to designate thousands. Instead, use “$1,000,” etc.

Scores (games, sports): always use numerals.

Use a comma to separate hours and minutes (Example: Susan Brown Smith completed the race in 3 hours, 45 minutes) Do not say “3 hours and 45 minutes.”

Dimensions, formulas, and speeds: Always use numerals. (Examples: 5 feet 6 inches tall. But: He drove four miles.)

Office of the Dean Capitalize “Office of the Dean” because it is a formal title. The use of “the dean’s office” is fine for more informal communications.

Percentages: For percentages, see percent.

part time/part-time Hyphenate as an adjective before the noun; otherwise use two words. (Examples: Johns Smith goes to school full time and has a part-time job. Most of our graduate students work part time.)

percent Percent should be written out a one word in formal communications and in running copy rather than using the % symbol. The % symbol may be appropriate for charts, graphs or graphic artwork. (Examples: We have received 25 percent of our deposits back. Sixty-seven percent of students are attending the lecture.)

period spacing Use only one space after a period to start the next sentence.

plural of Latin nouns Use the form that Webster’s lists first: curricula, colloquia, symposiums.

possessives Three examples to note in Johns Hopkins usage: campus’s, SAIS’, andJohns Hopkins’. See AP possessives for a complete discussion.

pre- Hyphenate the prefix pre- when the compound it creates is not listed in AP or Webster’s or is a proper noun. (Examples: pre-July Fourth celebration, pre-retirement party.) In most cases, hyphenate to avoid a double vowel (per AP): pre-existing, pre-eminent, pre-empt, pre-exist. Exception: preeclampsia.

principal investigator Lowercase.

quads on Homewood campus The upper and lower quads should be referred to by their proper names: Keyser Quad (upper quad) and Wyman Quad (lower quad). The newest quad is the south quad, the Decker Quad.

room numbers Preferred order is room number before the building. (Examples: 148 Hodson Hall, 212 Maryland Hall.)

school Lowercase “school” when using it to refer to the Whiting School of Engineering (as well as to the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) on second reference. (Example: The school has 21 centers and institutes.)

Sheridan Libraries They comprise the Brody Learning Commons and the MiltonS. Eisenhower Library, including MSEL’s collections at the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room (“the Hut”) in Gilman Hall, the John Work Garrett Library at Evergreen, and the George Peabody Library at Mount Vernon Place.

smartphone

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Sr. See Jr., Sr.

spring, spring semester Lowercase references to seasons and academic periods.

startup, start up One word as a noun or adjective; two words as a verb.

state abbreviations In running copy, it is preferable to spell out the names of states. When abbreviations of state names are necessary, follow AP style and do not use postal codes except in headlines with state names that have two parts (NJ, NY). To decide whether a state name is needed, consult AP, datelines. Periods should be used to separate D.C. as in Washington, D.C.

titles The WSE uses CMOS guidelines for titles of books, periodicals, articles, and so on. Apply these guidelines to book titles, computer game titles, movie titles, opera titles, play titles, poem titles, album and song titles, radio and television program titles, and the titles of lectures, speeches and works of art.

Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters

Capitalize an article – the, a, an – or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.

Italicize the names of all such works except the Bible and books that are primarily catalogs of reference material. In addition to catalogs, this category includes

almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, handbooks and similar publications. (Examples: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Seinfeld, Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.)

university names In running copy, lowercase The even if it’s included in theformal name of a university. (Example: the Ohio State University.) See also Johns Hopkins University/Johns Hopkins Hospital and The. When the name of a university includes a location, follow the practice of that school. If the university uses a comma and the name occurs midsentence, put commas both before and after the location. (Examples: At the University of California, Berkeley, pollarded London plane trees frame the view of the Campanile.) If the university uses at, retain it. (Example: University of Texas at Austin.) If the university uses a hyphen, change it to an en dash because one of the elements will be compound. (Example: University of Wisconsin–Madison.) If the university uses neither a preposition nor a comma, follow that style. (Example: University of Colorado Boulder.) See also en dash.

University Do not capitalize university on second reference to the Johns Hopkins University.

URL Do not the phrases http:// and www when giving URLs.

U.S. In headlines, use periods; an exception to AP style.

verbs, singular or plural Some Johns Hopkins entities with plural names take singular verbs, others plural ones. (Examples: The Friends of the Libraries is holding a meeting. The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions are in East Baltimore. )The Sheridan Libraries encompass the Brody Learning Commons and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, including MSEL’s collections at the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room in Gilman Hall, the John Work Garrett Library at Evergreen Museum, and the George Peabody Library at Mount Vernon Place.

Two other agencies that appear frequently in JHU publications are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Both take a singular verb when either the formal name or the acronym is used.

vice president Use for, not of, as the preposition: vice president for communications, vice president for human resources.

wait list

website Also webcam, webcast, and webmaster. But as a short form and in terms with separate words, the Web, Web page, and Web feed. Do not italicize or put in quotes the names of websites.

WSE, Whiting School Though it is preferable to use the school’s formal title, “The Whiting School of Engineering” in most communications on first reference, the use

of the acronym “WSE” or the shortened “Whiting School” is acceptable on second reference, or in more information communications such as email.

WSE acronyms

CAMCS: Center for Advanced Metallic and Ceramic Systems

CBID: Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design

CCNE: The Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence

CEAFM: Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics

CEIMM: The Center of Excellence on Integrated Materials Modeling

CMEDE: Center for Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments

CIS: Center for Imaging Science

CLE/MSEM: Center for Leadership Education/Master’s of Science in Engineering

CLSP: Center for Language and Speech Processing

EOC: Engineering in Oncology

ERC: Engineering Research Center

ERG: Energetics Research Group

E2SHI: Environment, Energy, Sustainability and Health Institute

HEMI: Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute

ICM: Institute for Computation Medicine

IDIES: Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Sciences

INBT: Institute for NanoBioTechnology

JHUISI: Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute

LCSR: Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics

MRSEC: Materials Research Science and Engineering Center

SI: Systems Institute