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:
• Proofed | Editors | Emeritus | Columbia Business School (CBS) Marketing Content Style Guide
• For video editing specifics, refer to:
• Editors | Emeritus | Columbia Business School (CBS) | Video Style Guide

School and Course Terminology

course, teacher and learners

Bold green indicates the preferences for this school/the specified courses.

Exception for CBS-CEO.SEPO / CBS-CIO.SEPO

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"