Formatting

Italics

• Book and journal titles
• Foreign words (except commonly used)

Quotation Marks

• Song, article and poem titles
• Catch phrases and slogans

Numbers

• Spell one through nine
• Numerals 10 and above
• Percent in numbers (40 percent)
• Dollars: $10, nine dollars
• 100 degrees Fahrenheit
• 1903–1904
• 1930s
• 19th-century army; developed during the 19th century
• Ages in numerals if greater than nine (and hyphenated): eight-year-old; 11-year-old son; 11 years old
• Runs of numbers all in numerals (42 killed, 112 wounded, 7 deported . . .)
• Do not begin sentences with a numeral (use “Three” instead of “3”)

Miscellaneous Formatting

• One space after periods
• Spell out titles (Lieutenant, General, Governor, President) prior to a surname. Titles are normally lower case if they do not precede a person’s name (President Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt was president). Abreviate title (Lt., Gen., Gov.) prior to a given name (Gen. William Jackson Palmer).
• Spell out months (Use “September” instead of “Sept.”)
• Ellipses between phrases are made with three periods separated by spaces (. . .)
• Ellipses between sentences, or a sentence and a phrase are made with four periods separated by spaces, with the first period immediately after the first sentence. . . . as demonstrated
• Do not use ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote
• Use brackets [ ] to indicate writer’s additions within quotes
• Place period and commas within the quote marks “like this.”
• Do not make every sentence a new paragraph
• Do not use contractions