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Proofed | Editors | Emeritus | Cambridge Judge Business School (CJ) Marketing Content Style Guide

General Notes

The notes below refer to CJ marketing materials. This guide should not be used for CJ learning content. The general rules for Emeritus content should not be consulted for CJ marketing materials.

SEPO-specific notes are listed at the bottom of this card.

  • Use British English
  • Don’t use certification, certified. Only certificate.
  • Serial commas are not to be used [only use to avoid ambiguity].

HEADINGS

  • Headings, headlines and subheadings take an initial capital only (i.e. they are in sentence case).
  • Use sentence case for captions for figures and tables.

ACRONYMS/abbreviations

  • United States (noun in running text) / US (adjective)
  • Degree titles take the following form: BSc, MLitt, PhD.
  • Do not use full stops in abbreviations: eg, am, pm, op, no, cf, ie, ed, etc or after Mr, Mrs or Dr.
  • Spell out abbreviations/acronyms in full when they are first mentioned in text, for instance: Department of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP).

school name

The school can be referred to as Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education, Cambridge Judge Business School, Cambridge Judge, or Cambridge Judge Exec Ed. The school must never be called ‘Cambridge' or 'Cambridge University.

Capitalization/casing

  • Use sentence case in headlines: Teachers from state schools learn how Cambridge really works (not 'Teachers from State Schools Learn how Cambridge Really Works')
  • In text, use a capital first letter if the noun is specific, i.e. the Faculty of Education, but use lower case letters in general use.
  • Capital letters are used for positions/job titles, such as Senior Tutor, Admissions Tutor and Director of Studies.
  • Degree titles use initial capitals, e.g. BA Honours in History. Single Honours, Joint Honours, etc also use initial capitals.
  • Qualifications should also be capitalised eg GCSEs in Mathematics, Chemistry and History.
  • Significant words in titles of books, magazines and newspapers take initial capitals (aka title case), and the titles of periodicals should be in italics. However, 'a', 'and', 'at', 'for', 'from', 'in', 'of', 'on', 'the' and 'to' are not usually capitalised (except at the start of a title). Only two UK news outlets use full italics in their titles: The Times and The Economist (in contrast to The Guardian or The Independent).
  • Titles of papers/journal articles should have initial capital letters eg This includes the paper 'Historical Argument and Practice'.
  • Follow a colon in headlines with lower case and not a capital letter.
  • Use lower case letters and no hyphenation for phrases such as cleantech, medtech, fintech.
  • See also: alumni affiliation, titles

Numbers/Dates

  • Friday, 16 January 2004 (not 16th January)
  • 1890s, 1930s not 1890's, 1930's
  • 20th century not twentieth century (use 19th-century only for adjectives: Late 19th-century architecture saw an increase in heavy detailing. Leave th or st as roman, not superscript).
  • Use two digits when representing a span of years within the same century: 2009–10, and four digits: 1892–1925 when spanning more than one century.
  • Dates are expressed as date/month/year, eg 1 July 2017, or Monday, 1 July 2017 (note the comma following the day of the week). Time zone: BST /GMT
  • Numbers up to and including ten are spelled out [all subsequent are numerals].
  • Use numerals for all numbers in mailer (email) subject lines.
  • When a sentence starts with a number, it should be spelled out [although try to avoid starting sentences with numbers if possible].
  • Spell out million, billion wherever possible: one million, preceded by a space. Use figures when working with currency: £1 million and when quoting specific amounts. Include the GBP equivalent of non-GBP currency amounts.
  • Numbers over a thousand should use a comma, eg 1,234 not 1234.
  • Fractions do not use a hyphen, eg two thirds, not two-thirds (but hyphenate if used as an adjective: a two-thirds majority).
  • Page references are always the shortest admissible within the range. For example, pages 34–5 or 46–54 or 107–17 or 136–8.
  • When giving a percentage, always use % with a numeral, eg 3%, 8.8%, 100%. The word ‘percent’ should be reserved for discussing the concept.

time

  • Time is expressed following a 12-hour clock, using a full stop between the numbers and without full stops in am and pm: 12.45pm. Times on the hour are shown without the full stop and minutes: 8am.
  • Use am and pm when referring to time in the body of text: Opening hours are 11.30am to 6pm.

Dashes

  • A hyphen is used to separate two vowels used together in a word when they are the same vowel, eg co-ordination, micro-organism, co-operate. Where vowels are different, we do not use a hyphen: it's 'reappointed' not 're-appointed'.
  • We do hyphenate Co-ordinator, Vice-Chancellor and Pro-Vice-Chancellor.
  • Use unspaced en dashes (–) for number ranges
  • Use spaced parenthetical en dashes.
  • Adverbs that end in 'ly' do not use hyphens, e.g. slowly moving train, highly educated scholar.

italics

  • Use italics for non-English words and book/journal titles
  • No italics in mailer (email) subject lines.

Punctuation

  • For singular nouns ending in s, to make them possessive, add an apostrophe and an s (e.g. Emeritus's)
  • Do not use full stops in abbreviations: eg, am, pm, op, no, cf, ie, ed, etc or after Mr, Mrs or Dr
  • Full stops are not used after initials, eg Dr M P S Handley (with space between each initial).
  • No comma between a name and honorarium, e.g. Dame Jane Goodall DBE.
  • & not to be used. Can only be used only when there is a character limit restriction
  • When a noun ends with an s and the final syllable is pronounced, the possessive s is added, e.g. Thomas’s lunch, Dr Huw Jones’s research, Octopus’s Garden.

SINGULAR/PLURAL

  • Companies, countries and institutions should all be singular (AstraZeneca believes that…Cambridge United is having a good season…).
  • Data should also be treated as singular.

QUOTATION MARKS

  • Use single quotation marks for thoughts or reported quotations that are sourced from text.
  • Single quotes also signify unfamiliar words or phrases.
  • Use double quotation marks for directly quoted speech.
  • When using single quotation marks, quotes within quotes use double quote marks; this pattern is reversed for quotes within reported speech.
  • Full stops outside the quotation mark except if the quote is a complete sentence.

BULLET LISTS

If you use a complete sentence to introduce the bulleted list, then end it with a full stop, not a colon.

  • Start each point with a capital letter.
  • End full-sentence bullets with a full stop.
    • If lead-in + bullet forms a full sentence, then end the bullets with full stops.
      • e.g. This programme is ideal for:
        • Executives looking to use sustainability as a competitive advantage.
        • Consultants seeking to provide their clients with innovative and sustainable solutions.
  • No full stops for bullets that aren't full sentences.

File naming

If you intend a file to be downloadable, use lowercase letters, and substitute spaces with dashes: chart-showing-migration-of-birds.pdf

sUBJECT SPECIFIC SPELLING/USAGE

    • biomedical
    • cleantech
    • 'data' is a singular noun (not plural)
    • decision-making
    • email
    • fintech
    • focused / focusing / focuses
    • fundraising
    • learnt
    • log in (verb) (NOT log on)
    • login (noun)
    • medtech
    • micro-level
    • micro-scale
    • multidisciplinary
    • online
    • postdoctoral
    • spinouts
    • start-up
    • under-representation
    • website

INCIDENTALS REGARDING TEXT COLOURS:

  • We must never use yellow text, regardless of the colour of the background.
  • All yellow backgrounds must only have black text on them. The school does not allow white text on yellow background.

sepo-specific notes (only for documents specifically marked as sepo in the notes)

  • 'Cambridge' is an acceptable abbreviation for the school name in combination with the programme:
    • Cambridge Chief People Officer Programme
  • Always capitalise 'Programme' when given as part of the programme name
  • Hyphenate 'decision-making' in all instances
  • Don't use an em dash to indicate a pause/clause break: use a colon or comma instead as appropriate.
  • Parenthetical dashes
    • Unspaced em dash for print collateral (brochure and 'month in the life'/session summary document)
    • Spaced em dash for all digital materials
  • It's acceptable to use figures for low numbers for consistency in graphics
  • Do not use an en dash for complex range hyphenation in running text
    • Correct: 9- to 12-month
    • Incorrect: 9–12-month
  • Bullet lists: no periods
  • Subheaders: sentence case
  • Don't capitalize 'success coach' unless preceding a person's name
  • Don't make changes to module titles
  • Standard usage for introducing criteria: inclusions/exclusions, not included/excluded
  • No colon to introduce "call to action" (i.e., clickable) buttons

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