Proofed | Editors | Emeritus | Columbia Business School (CBS) Style Guide | OPST / TCIN / BSM / REI / IMFI / AFSA / B2BM.RED / FAEN / ANGI / DSB.RED / CEO.SEPO / DMS.RED / DMS R4 / PRST / CIO.SEPO
Key Style Guide Information and Links
- This guide is for CBS e-learning documents (Floryboards and associated materials).
- For any style points not covered in this guide, refer to:
- Editors | Emeritus | Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) Guidelines for Emeritus Content
- Spelling: Merriam–Webster
- Dialect: US English
- For marketing documents, use:
- For video editing specifics, refer to:
School and Course Terminology
course, teacher and learners
Bold green indicates the preferences for this school/the specified courses.
Course | Program | Programme | |
Module | Week | ||
Program Leader | Learning Facilitator | Success Coach | [Other] |
Exception for CBS-CEO.SEPO / CBS-CIO.SEPO
Course | Program | Programme | |
Module | Week | ||
Program Leader | Learning Facilitator | Success Coach | [Other] |
Learner | Participant |
school name and faculty
- Generally, refer to the School as Columbia Business School, which can subsequently be shortened to the Business School, or the School.
- When it will be absolutely understood that the Business School is being referred to, it may be shortened to Columbia.
- Capitalize School and University when referring to Columbia Business School and Columbia University.
- Always spell out program titles in full, even if they include acronyms — e.g., Chief Financial Officer Program, not CFO Program.
- Use Professor, not Prof or Dr.
- For CBS-DMS: Don't use Professor. Refer to the program faculty as "David," "David Rogers," or "faculty."
Important School-/Course-Specific Notes
- Please do not edit program learning outcomes or weekly outcomes. As per the Floryboard template, just leave a comment if there is anything you think should be changed (unless there are obvious typos/errors).
- Don't remove prepositions etc. in titles. So, e.g., "Assess the price", not "Assess price".
- Avoid shortening words where possible — e.g. company and department, not co./dept.
- Avoid overly casual/phrasal verbs (e.g., check out this new video).
- Use singular rather than plural pronouns when referring to companies or organizations
- e.g., The organization is good to its employees
- For CBS-ANGI, LP, GP, and VC are acceptable abbreviations and don't need to be written out/defined.
- See the bottom of this card for definitions and additional terminology for CBS-ANGI.
- For CBS-VALU, please allow for the use of "firm" instead of "organization" and for "non-operating" with a hyphen.
- For CBS-TCIN / CBS-FAEN:
- Please don't change "company", "business", or "firm" to "organization". We can leave all these terms as they are in both videos and documents.
- Please allow for "tech" instead of "technology".
- For CBS-CEO.SEPO / CIO.SEPO:
- Use participant, not learner.
Capitalization
- Capitalize both words in a compound adjective in title case.
- If a program title has "Program" in it, it should be capitalized ("program" is not capitalized on its own).
- For a question following a colon, the first word will be lowercase.
Headers/subheaders
- Headers: CMoS title case
- Capitalize prepositions in headings if they are four letters or more, e.g., With, From, to, in.
- Subheaders: sentence case
- Exceptions—the following should always be in title case:
- Suggested Time Commitment:
- Suggested Length:
- Suggested Word Count:
- Suggested File Type:
- Learning Outcome(s) Addressed:
- In addition, for CBS-CIO.SEPO, the following should always be in title case:
- Submission Instructions
- Estimated Time to Complete
Punctuation
- Use the serial comma.
- Parenthetical dashes: use unspaced em dashes.
- CBS recommends hyphenation with the prefix “co”: co-founder, co-director, co-CEO, co-teacher.
- When mentioning America, use U.S. (only use US without periods when it is used as an adjective).
In running text, it should be spelled out (United States). - Commas and periods go inside quotation marks; colons and semicolons go outside.
- When a word is being used with its standard meaning, do not put it in quotation marks. For a technical term that may not be familiar to readers, italics may be used for the first mention, but standard font should be used for subsequent mentions.
- Do not use ampersand anywhere (except in brand names, where required).
- Avoid exclamation marks.
Numbers
- Spell out numbers one to nine; use numerals for 10 and above.
- When used as a compound adjective in running text, all words are spelled out (e.g. eleven-month program, not 11-month program).
- When used as a compound adjective in bullet lists, all numbers are written as digits (e.g. 6-week course, not six-week course).
- Spell out "percent" in running text (use % in display text).
- Numeric ranges are separated by an en dash unless preceded by “from” or “between”
- December 21–28
- From December 21 to 28
- Between December 21 and 28
Times and Dates
- Time format: 9–10 a.m. ET
- Use of commas to separate elements of a date range:
- The program will run from May 30, 1996, to June 17, 1997.
Bullet Lists
- Capitalize the first letter.
- Period at the end if the bullet is a full sentence or if the bulleted list contains a sentence.
- Nothing at the end if none of the bullets are full sentences.
- Exception: B2BM.RED: use periods when all bullets are full sentences; do not use periods if there's a mix of sentences and fragments.
- Make sure that your bullet points scan correctly. For example, it would be "Learn... Understand... Know...", not "Learn... Understanding... Know".
Citations/Referencing
- Use CMoS Notes and Bibliography style for referencing.
- Use Bibliography style for reading lists.
- Use Notes style for references in videos.
- Title-only is fine for hyperlinked third-party content (e.g., web articles), but follow CMoS guidelines for capitalization/italics as per the Notes and Bibliography link above.
- Italicize titles of books and periodicals in the running text.
Subject-Specific Terminology/Spelling Preferences
- a dot com company
- co-founder, co-director, etc. (hyphenate "co-" prefix)
- decision-making (as both noun and adjective)
- deep dive (noun)
- early-warning
- e-commerce
- email (not e-mail)
- enroll in, not enroll for
- future leaders — don't use this phrase to describe students
- ground zero — never use this unless in relation to 9/11
- internet (lowercase)
- life cycle (two words)
- log in (verb); login (noun)
- mythbuster (one word)
- newsletter, not e-newsletter or enewsletter
- quality-adjusted
- road map
- startup (one word, no hyphen)
- website
- World Wide Web, the web
For CBS-ANGI
- See this link for some additional subject-specific terminology, acceptable written out or as abbreviations
- VC: abbreviation acceptable, no need to define/write out (stands for "venture capital")
- LP: abbreviation acceptable, no need to define/write out (stands for "limited partner")
- GP: abbreviation acceptable, no need to define/write out (stands for "general partner")
- follow on – two words, no hyphen
- non-financial – should be hyphenated
- pro rata – only hyphenated when used as a compound adjective (e.g., "pro-rata rights")
- "Due diligence" and "diligence" are acceptable as verbs
- Acceptable to use "M" and "B" for "millions" and "billions"
For CBS-CIO.SEPO
- Use "Certificate of Participation" not "Certificate of Completion"