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Editors | Emeritus | Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) Guidelines for Emeritus Content

This card covers CMoS guidance for Emeritus materials for the following areas:

  • Dialect/Spelling
  • Punctuation
  • Capitalization
  • Lists
  • Numbers
    • Currency
    • Times/Dates
  • Referencing/Citations
  • Marketing Content Specifics

Dialect/Spelling

Punctuation

  • Use the serial comma in US English.
    • Do not use the serial comma in UK English unless required for clarity.
  • Hyphenate compound adjectives when required for clarity (fastest-growing company; high-level discussion).
    • Exceptions:
      • Do not hyphenate compounds for commonly understood terms (high reliability organization).
      • Do not hyphenate compounds where the first word is an adverb ending in "-ly" (greatly exaggerated claims).
      • Do not hyphenate compounds with figures/units (two percent rule).
  • Use unspaced em dashes as parenthetical dashes or to indicate a break/setting off part of a sentence.
  • Use en dashes for date/number ranges.
  • Use double quotation marks.
  • Periods/commas always go inside closing quotation marks in US English.
  • No periods in acronyms (US, not U.S.).
  • "Decision-making" is always hyphenated.

Capitalization

  • Use the Title Case Converter to confirm correct approach to header/sub-header capitalization.
  • Lowercase after a colon unless what follows is two or more complete sentences.
  • In title case, the second word in a hyphenated term should have an uppercase first letter, with the following exceptions:
    • When the second word is an article, preposition, coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, or, nor), or a modifier such as flat or sharp following musical key symbols.
      • Under-the-Counter Transactions
        Bed-and-Breakfast Options
        Record-Breaking Borrowings
        A History of the Chicago Lying-In Hospital (“In” functions as an adverb, not a preposition)
        The E-flat Concerto
  • Third-party content: titles of publications, artworks, albums, movies, etc. should be italicized and in title case.
  • Job titles: only capitalize if preceding a person's name.
    • Vice President John Smith
    • John Smith, vice president of marketing at [Company Name].
  • Universities, schools, academic titles, etc.: capitalize if referring to a specific person or institution, but not otherwise.
    • University of Oxford
    • the university
  • When a task or activity is mentioned in the running text, use capitals only when the full name of the task/activity is given.
    • "There’s no time limit for this knowledge check"
      But:
      "There is no time limit for Knowledge Check 2.2"
    • "In this discussion, you will be asked to..."
      But:
      "In Discussion 3.2, we asked you to..."
  • For anything where the capitalization is unclear (e.g., web browser tabs, classes, functions, scripts, projects), usually lean toward sentence case. Leave a comment for Emeritus to confirm.

Lists

  • If you see content that you believe would be better as a list, feel free to implement this and leave a comment asking Emeritus to review your changes.
  • Ensure lists are grammatically parallel in terms of person, tense, and verb forms.
    • e.g., "developed xyz, organized xyz, and created xyz"; NOT "developed xyz, organized xyz, and creating xyz"
  • Bulleted and numbered lists
    • Capitalize the first letter of each item.
    • Use a period at the end if the bullet is a full sentence or if the bulleted list contains a sentence.
    • Do not use end punctuation if none of the bullets are full sentences.
    • Symbols for multi-level unordered (bulleted) lists should go bullet > dash.
    • Symbols for multi-level ordered (numbered) lists should go number > lowercase letter > lowercase Roman numeral.
      • Add a period after the numbers and letters.
      • Knowledge checks/practice quizzes etc. are prefaced with, e.g., "Question 1," so the first level of lists in these contexts should start off with lowercase letters.

Numbers

  • Spell out numbers one through nine; use figures for 10 and above.
  • Spell out any number if it starts a sentence (often preferable to rephrase the sentence to avoid this).
  • Use figures in tables.
  • Fractions:
    • Write out as text, always hyphenate (e.g., a two-thirds majority; two-thirds of those present).
    • Use figures for decimal fractions.
  • Percentages:
    • Always use figures.
    • Write out "percent" in text.
      • e.g., 8 percent
    • Use % symbol in graphs, tables, etc.
  • Always use thousand-separator commas in figures.

currency

  • Always spell out the words million and billion, and use figures for the amounts (e.g., 2 billion).
  • For USD, use the $ symbol with figures (e.g., $2 billion).
  • Foreign currencies: 1 million yen (sentence) vs. ¥1 million (graphic).

times/dates

  • In US English, use a comma when full date and year is written out:
    • April 2
    • April 2011
    • April 2, 2011
    • No comma needed in UK English: 2 April 2011
  • Decades:
    • 1980s (no apostrophe)
    • the '80s
    • If spelling out, use an initial capital: the Sixties
  • BC/BCE/AD:
    • AD precedes the year: AD 1800
    • BC/BCE follow the year: 75 BC
  • Times:
    • 10 a.m.
    • 10–11:30 a.m.
    • 10 a.m.–10 p.m.

Referencing/Citations

  • Use CMoS Notes and Bibliography style for referencing.
    • Use Bibliography style for references in documents.
    • 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.
  • Format any source with a URL as "Website Content," including YouTube videos, blogs, online magazines, and PDFs.
    • Treat the online publication date of the article as the "last modified" date.
    • The only exception is links to articles that have appeared in well-known physical magazines/newspapers with physical publication dates.
      • e.g., Farnsbarns, Charlie. "Why Real Magazines Are Better than Online Blogs." Harvard Business Review, June 18, 2019. http://www.hbr.org/example/.
  • A reference to ChatGPT being used in the creation of content should appear in the following format. Please do not adjust it for the referencing style of the course/school:
    • ChatGPT. (YEAR). Starting Point for Connective Text, Video Context Statements, and Multiple Choice Questions. Chat conversation.

Marketing Content Specifics

  • decision making (noun) / decision-making (adjective)
  • United States (noun in running text) / US (adjective)
  • Use spaced em dashes. Exceptions: No spaces should be used around the em dash in brochures or month in the life (MITL) documents.
  • For singular nouns ending in s, to make them possessive:
    • US English: just add an apostrophe (e.g. Emeritus')
    • UK English, add an apostrophe and an s (e.g. Emeritus's)
  • Program titles, module titles, and module topics should be written in title case.
  • In mailer (email) subject lines: no italics, and use numerals for all numbers.

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