29 November 2005 The Tartan Style Manual — Fall 2005

This is a style guide intended for The Tartan’s writers, proofreaders, and section editors. This is not your only resource; we also have a Tartan layout manual, as well as the dictionary, the thesaurus, and the AP stylebook. And, as always, the copy manager has the last word. — Arthur O’Dwyer October 2004

How to Use This Guide

• Examples of a term’s usage are given in quotes: “Like this.” • Main ideas of items in a list are bolded. • Entries that appear with no further explanation are there for spelling, italicization, or punctuation reference. • Acronyms are given with their full names afterward. • If a cross-listing is within the same section, the reference is in bold: “See affect.” • If a cross-listing is in another section, both the reference and the section’s name are given in bold: “See pronouns in the Punctuation and Grammar section.” • If a cross-listing is a section, it will be referred to by name and bolded: “See the Carnival section for more information.”

Contents

General 2 Sports 21 Student Organizations 25 Punctuation and Grammar 27 Technology and the Internet 31 General

added, adds — Do not use these words to attribute A quotes; use “said” or “says” instead. See quoting. AB — Activities Board ad hoc committee abbreviations — Follow these rules: administration — not capitalized. “The Bush adminis- tration.” See also president. In general, don’t abbreviate a word you can spell out. Use “department” instead of “dept.” and “October” administrator — Use this term only when the person instead of “Oct.” being referred to is acting in an administrative and not a faculty role. For instance, the dean of H&SS can If a word is commonly spoken aloud as an abbre- be called an “administrator” when he or she works to viation, however, you may abbreviate. Examples are change the college’s curriculum, but not when he or “CMU,” “SDC,” “NASA,” and “DataComm.” she publishes academic findings. Explain an abbreviation on first reference unless it advisor is so common as to not require it. For instance, ex- plain what “FoodCom” means, but don’t bother to affect — a verb meaning “to influence;” not to be con- explain “CMU” or “GSIA.” fused with the verb “effect,” which means “to bring about” or “to accomplish.” Note that this word can- For specific abbreviations used in The Tartan, see not be used as a noun; see effect. specific entries in this manual, as well as the entries for state abbreviations, room numbers, and politi- African-American — This is the preferred term for cal affiliations. Americans of African descent. See race. a cappella AFROTC — Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. See ROTC. accents — English is not French. In general, English words in The Tartan should not contain any diacriti- AFS — Andrew File System. See Andrew and the cal marks or accents. The only exceptions are: Technology and the Internet section. café ages — In general, only supply the ages of people who résumé are not members of the campus community. How- El Niño ever, you should give the ages of members of the Sí Señor, the Dining Services-run food vendor campus community in obituaries. Foreign words and phrases in The Tartan are itali- Put the age, as a numeral, after the person’s name; cized and should use the typographical conventions commas go before and after: “Smith, 41, has been of their native tongues. Example: “raison d’être.” working in Oakland all his life,” and “Lisa Chan, 6, See foreign phrases. loves to come to Carnival.” To get some common accents on Mac OS X, type the AI — Amnesty International, or artificial intelligence. following keystrokes: Al-Jazeera option-C ç a.k.a. option-E E é — means “also known as”; use sparingly. option-I E ê a la — No grave accent. See accents. option-N N ñ allegedly — Avoid this term, which provides no legal option-U I ï protection and may actually prove a liability in a li- See also spelling. bel case. Always attribute to a named source instead. quoting acronyms — Follow the reference rules for abbre- See . viations for acronyms. Do not use an apostrophe to ALLIES — one of CMU’s gay, lesbian, and bisexual make the plural form of an acronym. For instance, support groups, along with cmuOUT. the plural of “POW” is “POWs,” not “POW’s.” a lot — not “alot.” A.D. — Anno Domini. The Tartan does not use this ab- al Qaeda — not “al Qaida” or any other variant. See breviation. See BCE.

 also Al-Jazeera. “viewers,” “members of the audience,” or “audience alumni — Follow these rules: members” for plural. See collective nouns. “Alumnus” refers to a single male graduate. avenue — Spell out the word “avenue,” and capital- ize it after the name of a specific avenue, but keep it “Alumna” refers to a single female graduate. lower-case when referring to a generic avenue. Note “Alumnae” refers to several female graduates. that most streets around campus are actually avenues; “Alumni” refers to a group of male graduates, a see also street names. group of graduates with mixed gender, or a group of graduates when gender is unspecified. B “Alum” and “alums” may be used informally to re- BA — bachelor of arts. As a major, Business Admin- fer to any graduate or group of graduates. istration (what used to be called Industrial Manage- To identify an alum, follow the identification stan- ment). dards set forth in the most recent version of the bachelor’s degree — See also masters degree. Alumni Directory. ballpark the Alumni Directory — The formal title of this pub- Ballroom Dance Club — Informally, “Ballroom.” lication is “Carnegie Mellon University Alumni Di- rectory,” although the informal form is preferred for B.C., BCE — The Tartan uses the abbreviation “BCE,” most uses. Neither form is italicized or quoted. “Before Common Era,” to refer to years before the year 1, and the abbreviation “CE,” “Common Era,” am — the 12 hours between midnight and noon, not to refer to years after and including the year 1. Both including noon; see times. Do not capitalize. abbreviations come after the number they modify. Ex- ambience ample: “The Roman vase has been dated to 157 CE.” Andrew — Always capitalize when referring to CMU’s The space between the number and “BCE” or “CE” intranet. See the Technology and the Internet sec- should be non-breaking. tion for more information. Beaux Arts Ball the AP — the Associated Press (not italicized). Bellefield Towers Arafat, Yasser Beta line — The single line running up Hills 3–5 on the Architect’s Leap — the stairwell. Not to be confused buggy course and used by drivers to steer, so named with Andrew’s Leap, the summer program. because it is painted every year by the members of the art store Beta Theta Pi fraternity. as — (1) Write “x is as good as, if not better than, y”; Bethany College never “x is as good, if not better, than y.” between — generally not “in between.” See also for- (2) “As” with most verbs is superfluous; write “Bo- ward, toward. vik was named the chairman,” not “Bovik was named BHA — Bachelor of Humanities and Arts as the chairman,” and similarly “consider,” “deem,” bin Laden, Osama “account,” “esteem.” However: “regard as.” bioterrorism (3) “as well as”: see both black — not capitalized: “black students.” See race. Asian — never “Oriental.” Board of Trustees — informally, “the trustees”; do not Asian-American — the preferred way to refer to use “the Board” or “the Trustees.” Americans of Asian descent. See race. BOC — Business Opportunities Conference assure, ensure, insure — Use “assure” to mean “set the bookstore — Officially, it’s part of the University another’s mind at ease.” Use “ensure” to mean “make Shoppe. certain.” Use “insure” only to mean “provide an in- surance policy for.” booth, Booth — Names of Spring Carnival booths are quoted: “Pioneers’ booth ‘Dr. Seuss’ took first audience — “Audience” is singular: Use “the audi- prize.” ence was ...” instead of “the audience were....” Use

 The word “booth” itself is lower-case unless refer- use this form: ring to the formal booth competition: “Chi Omega by Matt Adler won 1991 Booth,” but “Our house does pretty well & Laurie Wilkison in booth every year.” See the Carnival section for Staffwriters more information. both — “The school offers courses in both literature On a story with two writers holding two different po- and history.” “The school offers courses in history, sitions, use this form: as well as in literature.” The two constructions do not by A.J. Durassi mix; to write “both literature as well as history” is a Science & Technology Editor grievous error. & Randy L. Udavcak boy — A male under the age of 18. Most male college Senior Staff students are men. If a name or title is too long to fit on a line, try to Breed Hall — Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall 103 abbreviate it; use “Asst.” and “Ed.” if needed. BS — bachelor of science A staff member who is not on the editorial board is buggy, Buggy — The formal event is capitalized, while a junior staffwriter if he or she has contributed to the generic term for the sport or the race vehicle is four or fewer issues of The Tartan; after that, he or not: “Friday marks the beginning of 1991’s Buggy she is a staffwriter. Section editors may also appoint competition,” “Frew Street will be closed due to senior staff. buggy practice,” and “One buggy spun out in the Chute.” C Proper names of buggies are italicized: “Spirit’s the C-Book buggy Quantum Leap placed third.” Cabinet, cabinet — The first is a group of advisors See the Carnival section for more information. appointed by the head of state; the second is a piece bulletin board — refers to a physical bulletin board. of furniture. Use “electronic bulletin board” or “bboard” for the café — See also accents. online type. See the Technology and the Internet section. the Caffee Room The Bylaws of the Student Body of Carnegie Mellon Campus Police — The name of the security depart- University — not italicized or quoted. Do not capi- ments at Carnegie Mellon and Pitt. The Campus Po- talize unless complete title is being given. May be re- lice field two types of officers: police officers, who ferred to as “student body bylaws” or just “bylaws.” carry guns and are authorized by the state to make ar- May not be referred to as “Senate bylaws.” rests; and security guards, who do not carry weapons and merely enforce security. The Carnegie Mellon bylines — Follow these rules: Campus Police can be abbreviated CMPD on sec- Separate the byline from the story with a blank ond reference. line. Campus Security — Do not use this term to refer to On a story with only one writer, the byline has two either Carnegie Mellon’s or Pitt’s Campus Police. lines. The first line has the word “by” followed by Campus Xpress the writer’s name in bold. The second line lists the writer’s position at The Tartan, in italics. If the writer Carleton College is not an activities fee-paying student, his or her po- Carlow University sition is given as “Special to The Tartan.” Here’s an the Carnegie — informal name for the group of muse- example: ums and the Carnegie Library down Forbes Avenue. by Kevin Barney Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT, Carnegie Contributing Editor Tech) — The formal name of the University from 1912 to 1967, “Carnegie Institute of Technology” On a story with two writers who have the same title, now refers only to the engineering college.

 Carnegie Pipes and Drums — the formal band of Chosky Theater — the Phillip Chosky Theater. drummers and bagpipers. the Chute — In buggy, the area of freeroll with the Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Mellon, CMU, tightest turn; it is also the point where buggies travel the University) — From 1967 to 1986, the Univer- their fastest. See the Carnival section for more in- sity was called “Carnegie-Mellon University,” but formation. since 1986 it has dropped the hyphen in all but the Circle K most formal of documents. The Tartan has followed CIT — the Carnegie Institute of Technology, the origi- suit; accordingly, use the hyphen only when referring nal name of the University and currently the name of to the formal name of the University between 1967 the engineering school. and 1986. CivE — Civil Engineering. See departments & Carnegie Tech Amateur Radio Club (Radio Club) majors. — Do not confuse the name of this student organiza- tion with the group’s call letters, which are W3VC, the Class of 1987 Room or with the campus radio station WRCT. classes — (1) The classes of current students are lower- Carnegie Technical Schools — the original name of case in The Tartan: “sophomore Katie Culbertson,” the University, from 1903 to 1912. “first-year orientation.” Carnival — see the Carnival section (2) Alumni classes are capitalized and referred to by either four- or two-digit year: “Class of 1969,” “Class cartoon names — Italicize the names of cartoons: of ’80.” The word “the” is not capitalized. “Dilbert is the most popular strip on campus.” (3) Course titles are capitalized; see course titles for ccon — cluster consultant. See the Technology and more information. the Internet section. cliche, cliched — See accents. Note that “cliche” is a CE — The Tartan uses this abbreviation in place of noun; the adjectival form is “cliched.” “A.D.” See BCE for more information. the Clock Central Property Services (CPS) club sports — The names of club sports are capital- CERT — formerly Carnegie Mellon Emergency Re- ized when referring to the organizations and orga- sponse Team, now CERT Coordination Center; they nizational issues, but are lower-case when referring deal with computer viruses and such. to the sports teams and sports issues. For instance, CFA — refers to both the college and the college’s write “The rugby club lost a close match to Pitt on building. A reference to the CFA building can leave Saturday,” but “Student Senate approved a $2000 ex- “building” off the end if the meaning is clear. penditure for the Rugby Club.” CFP — Council of Fraternity Presidents CMAP — Carnegie Mellon Action Project Chabad House CMRI — Carnegie Mellon Research Institute chair — This word is used in The Tartan as a noun cmuOUT — one of CMU’s gay, lesbian, and bisexual as well as a verb. Thus, the head of a committee is support groups, along with ALLIES. Because of the the “chair,” not the “chairman,” “chairwoman,” or difficult capitalization of this acronym, avoid using it “chairperson.” at the beginning of a sentence. Chatham College coed — As a noun meaning “female student,” this term ChemE — Chemical Engineering. See departments is sexist and should be avoided. However, it can be & majors. used sparingly to mean “involving people of both Children’s School — located in Margaret Morrison genders.” Plaza. Not to be confused with the Cyert Center for co-editor — When two people share an editorial posi- Early Learning. tion at The Tartan, each is a “co-editor.” For instance, Christmas break, Christmas vacation — The terms we could have two “News co-editors”; the title is “winter break” and “winter vacation” are preferred never “co-News editors.” because not all students celebrate Christmas. collective nouns — when a noun represents a group as

 a singular body, use the singular: “the group has two connoisseur albums out.” When referring to the individuals in the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) group, use the plural: “The editorial board members course titles — Course titles are capitalized, but are have nothing to do after 8 pm on Sundays.” See au- not quoted or italicized: “Discourse and Historical dience, faculty, and the Punctuation and Gram- Change is a requirement for all English majors.” mar section for more information. When it is necessary to give a course number, put it College of Humanities and Social Sciences — can before the course title: “15-412 Operating Systems is be referred to as H&SS. Note that the ampersand in said to be a very hard course.” See sections of classes “H&SS” is a smaller point size; see H&SS for more for more information. information. court cases — Italicize court cases and use the abbre- co-manager — Same as “co-editor,” but for manag- viation “v.”: “Roe v. Wade.” ers. CPS — Central Property Services Comics — Capitalized when referring to the section of the crew team — University Rowing Club, CMURC The Tartan, but lower-case otherwise. See also car- toon names. Crime and Incident Report (C&I) commander-in-chief — Used for the supreme com- CS — computer science mander of armed forces (the President, unless some- CSW — Computing Skills Workshop thing goes wrong), this title is hyphenated and fol- cum laude lows normal rules of capitalization. See titles. currently — This term is nearly always redundant in commas — The Tartan always uses the serial comma: a newspaper, because the mere fact that a story is “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” in place of “sex, drugs being reported in the paper implies present action. and rock ’n’ roll.” See the Punctuation and Gram- Accordingly, use “currently” sparingly, and never in mar section for more information. a lede. The same advice goes for “presently,” “at the commencement — the formal name for graduation. moment,” and other such phrases. committees — Names of committees are capitalized the Cut — the grassy area between the UC and the Pur- only when the name is the full, formal name of the nell Center leading up to the Fence. committee: “Student Presidential Search Commit- cutline — a photo caption. tee” but “student search committee.” Cyert Center for Early Learning — located in More- company — Always spell out this term in reference to wood Gardens. Not to be confused with the Chil- a theatrical group, but follow the lead of a particu- dren’s School. lar company in deciding whether to abbreviate it or not: “Ford Motor Co.” For possessives, append an D apostrophe-“s” after the word: “Ford Motor Co.’s profits.” Dancer’s Symposium computer cluster — can be first referred to as a “clus- the Danforth Lounge ter.” dashes & hyphens — See both Dashes & Hyphens Computer Services and Hyphens in the Punctuation and Grammar Congressman — To avoid sexism, do not use this term section. to mean both genders of Congressional representa- data — This term applies only to the plural case. Avoid tives, although it may be used to refer to a specific the stilted “datum.” See the Technology and the In- male representative, just as “Congresswoman” can ternet section for more information. refer to a specific female representative. Use the per- DataComm — Data Communications son’s specific position — Senator or Representative — or say “Congressional representative” or “mem- datelines — As these only appear in The Tartan in AP ber of Congress” to refer generally to representatives stories, follow AP style for them. elected to Congress. dates — Follow these rules: the Connan Room Within one week of the issue date, use day of the

 week alone: “next Wednesday,” “last Friday.” The different from — preferred grammatically over “dif- words “next” and “last” should be eliminated if they ferent than.” are not needed for clarification. DineXtra Outside a week from the issue date, use the date distances — Use numerals for all distances, and abbre- — and not the day of the week — unless the day of viate names of English measurements as follows: the week is significant for some reason: “The produc- inches, feet: Do not abbreviate the words “inches” tion runs through March 31,” but “The United States or “feet” when they fall alone: “5 inches,” “6 feet.” bombed Baghdad on January 16, a Wednesday.” When a measurement is given in feet and inches, For a date, use cardinal numbers and omit the current however, you may abbreviate by using straight hash year: “November 1” (e.g., November 1 this year), but marks with no spaces: “All women who are 5'2" tall “March 10, 1969.” Although The Tartan’s folios use are attractive.” European style for the date — “22 June 1968” — use miles: An acceptable abbreviation for miles is “mi,” the standard form elsewhere: “June 22, 1968.” with no period: “1.2 mi from campus.” However, the For a month without a date, give the year if differ- spelled-out “1.2 miles from campus” is preferred. ent from the current one; do not separate the two with doctor of philosophy (PhD) — informally, “doctor- a comma: “The group has been performing together ate.” See titles. since May 1989.” dollar — Abbreviate as “$”; spell out only if referring For a decade, do not use an apostrophe unless you to “the dollar” (on the world market, for instance). want the possessive. For instance, this manual was See money for more information. first written in the “1990s” or “ ’90s,” but it is “2004’s manual.” Dossier — The Tartan’s literary supplement. Not itali- cized or quoted. Daylight Saving Time — “Spring forward, fall back.” the Dowd Room dean’s list Downtown — capitalized when referring to the area of decades — always use numbers, and don’t spell out: Pittsburgh, but lower-case in the generic sense. ’60s, ’70s, ’80s. Note the direction of the apostrophe and the lack of an apostrophe before the “s.” Dr. — see honorifics degrees — Follow these rules in writing academic driver — can refer to either a buggy driver or an Escort degrees: driver; not capitalized in either sense. See the Carni- val section for more information. The preferred way to mention an academic degree is to abbreviate it, using no periods: “PhD,” “BS.” The Duquesne Duke — Duquesne University’s student newspaper. Italicized. Informally, use only these three terms: “bachelor’s degree,” “masters degree,” “doctorate.” Duquesne University (Duquesne) — the Dukes. Do not use “PhD” as a part of a person’s name, E because so many members of the University commu- nity hold doctorates. For example, don’t write “Rich- the E&S Library — Engineering and Science Library ard M. Cyert, PhD.” Earth — In all capital letters (EARTH) when referring See also temperatures. to CMU’s environmental group; first letter capital- the Democratic Party, Democrat — Always capital- ized (Earth) when referring to the planet; and lower- ized; see political affiliations for abbreviation rules. case when referring to the ground, although there are departments & majors — In The Tartan, depart- far better terms for the ground than “earth.” ment names are not capitalized; nor are the names Easter Break, Easter Vacation — Avoid these terms, of majors: “the drama department,” “a senior drama as some students do not celebrate Easter. The name major.” The only exceptions are language names used of the week-long vacation in late March is “spring as majors: “an English major,” “a French minor.” break” or “spring vacation.” Do not write “architect” for “architecture major,” nor Eat ‘n Park — note the curly backward quote and “computer scientist” for “CS major.” lower-case “n.”

 ECE — Electrical and Computer Engineering using it to start sentences. Editor-in-Chief — note the use of hyphens. This title first-year students, first-years — use instead of the is capitalized exactly as other titles; see titles. The word “freshmen.” In headlines, capitalize both com- plural is “editors-in-chief.” ponent words: “First-Year Meal Plans Changed effect — As a noun, “effect” means “result.” As a verb, Again.” “effect” means “to bring about” or “to accomplish”; flag — Often incorrectly called the “masthead,” a flag not to be confused with the verb “affect,” which is a two-inch high heading which usually runs across means “to influence.” See alsoaffect , impact. the top of the entire page. The Tartan has flags on e.g. — means “for example”; use sparingly. Not itali- the first pages of the following sections: News (the cized. See also i.e. “front-page flag”), Forum, Sports, Arts and Living, Entertainment, and Calendar. EMS — Emergency Medical Service. Be sure to distin- guish between CMU EMS and Pittsburgh’s EMS. Focus — Carnegie Mellon’s faculty and staff news- paper, published roughly eight times per year. In The ensure — see assure Tartan, “Focus” is italicized but is not all caps. entitled — A person is entitled to basic dignities. A folio — A folio appears at the top of every page that does novel, play, or exhibition, on the other hand, is titled not contain a flag or a full-page ad; it displays the with a title. See titles. issue date (in European style: “27 September 2004”), Entropy — capitalized when referring to the store in the name of the newspaper, “Carnegie Mellon,” and the UC, lower-case when referring to the phenom- the page number. See also dates. enon in physics. foot, feet — see distances EPP — Engineering and Public Policy foreign phrases — Italicize foreign phrases: “ad the Escort Service (Escort) infinitum,” “raison d’être,” “cause célèbre,” “glas- ESL — Educational Software Library, or English as a nost,” “i-Pheriannath.” Use accepted romanizations Second Language. whenever they exist. Do not italicize foreign words euro — not capitalized when using as currency (think that have made it into English, nor the abbreviations yen, dollar, etc.). “e.g.” and “i.e.” See also accents. Forum — capitalize only when referring to the section F of The Tartan or when part of an event’s name. forward — never “forwards.” See also toward, off of. F&R — Student Senate’s Funding and Recognition Committee FOX — the television network. faculty — “Faculty” is singular: “the faculty has...” in- fractions — Follow these rules: stead of “the faculty have....” Use “faculty members” Spell out fractions less than one, using hyphens: for the plural. See collective nouns. “one-third,” “two-fifths.” the Faculty/Staff Directory — not italicized or Use decimals for values greater than one, if possi- quoted. ble. Do not use decimals for numbers less than one. Fairfax Apartments Use numerals and slashes if you must use a frac- federal, Federal — upper-case when referring to the tion greater than one: “2 1/2,” “3 5/16.” Avoid this government of the United States, lower-case when construction like the plague, however, since it’s ex- referring to any other government. tremely ugly and hard to read. the Fence The Frame — formerly “Forbes Gallery”; the art gal- lery on the corner of Margaret Morrison and Forbes. fiance(e) — The first version is masculine; the second is feminine. See accents. freshman, freshmen — see first-year students Fifth Avenue — never “5th Avenue.” fundraiser filmmaking@CMU — CMU’s filmmaking club. Be- G cause of the lower-case formatting of the name, avoid

 gender — use instead of “sex” to refer to a person’s H&SS — the College of Humanities and Social Sci- chromosomal makeup. See sexism. ences. The ampersand in “H&SS” ought to be for- girl — A female under the age of 18. Most female col- matted one or two point sizes smaller than the sur- lege students (including those on sports teams) are rounding text, for balance. When the surrounding women. text is 9pt (as it is in most of The Tartan), the am- persand should be 8pt. When the surrounding text is God — All pronouns referring to God should be capi- 12pt, the ampersand should be 10pt. talized (e.g. “God, in His magnificent glory ...”) Hamerschlag Hall — the academic building. Note the government officials — Whenever an official repre- single “m.” sentative of the Federal legislature is mentioned, in- dicate his affiliation and state as follows: “Senator Hamerschlag House (’Schlag) — the dorm; see also Strom Thurmond (R–S.C.).” See political affilia- towers. tions. Hanukkah Grab ’N Go headlines — The rules for headlines are essentially the grade point average (GPA) — see quality point av- same as those for body text, with the following no- erage. table exceptions: grades — Report letter grades as capital letters: “I got Abbreviate the following: an A,” “she earned a B.” The plural of “A” is “As,” percentages “Tuition up 10% in 2005” with no apostrophe. The grades “Incomplete” and million, billion “Expansion to cost $300M” “Withdrawal” should be capitalized and spelled out: “number” “Swim team at #2” “I got an Incomplete from my English professor.” See Use a colon for the word “says”: “Mehrabian: ‘No quality point average for information on QPAs. tuition hikes foreseen.’ ” graduation — informal term meaning “commence- Use single quotes wherever double ones would nor- ment.” mally appear, and vice versa. Grammy, Grammys Never use any form of the verb “to be” in a head- grassroots line. Always use an active verb where possible. Try to make a complete sentence: “Nation underestimates gray — not “grey.” vile alien threat.” Capitalize only the first word in the Greek Council headline. Greek, Greeks — any member of a fraternity, soror- health care, healthcare — Use the two-word com- ity, or honor society identified by Greek letters. Also pound noun whenever possible: “health care reform,” refers to people from Greece. “health care professionals.” Greentree — an area of Pittsburgh located in the South Health Services — not “Student Health Services” or Hills. “Student Health.” Gregg Hall — Porter Hall 100. Heinz — H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and GSIA — Graduate School of Industrial Administra- Management; the Heinz School. tion Hewlett Gallery — gallery on the main floor of CFA. g-string — See also T-shirt. hike — Following AP style, do not use “hike” as a verb Guns N’ Roses — and lead singer Axl Rose. meaning “to increase.” gymnasiums — Wiegand Gymnasium in the UC is the hill — (1) A buggy term; see the Carnival section. “new” gym; Skibo Gym is the “old” gym. (2) A set of campus dormitories formally defined by the Housing Office but running roughly from Ham- erschlag House to Donner Hall: “the Hill.” H hip-hop hippie — “Hippy” is a different kind of insult.

 holiday — Avoid in referring to days without classes. capitalize on first reference but abbreviate thereaf- Use “break” or “vacation” instead: “mid-semester ter: “Interstate 70,” “I-70.” In the generic sense, this break,” “spring vacation.” word is lower-case: “The interstate stretched on for Homecoming miles.” home page — use “website” instead. See the Technol- Intramural Office (IM Office) ogy and the Internet section. IS — Information Systems, an undergraduate interdis- homophobia — means “fear of gays and lesbians.” Do ciplinary program in H&SS. not use to mean “prejudice against gays and lesbi- italics — Italicize the following: ans;” write out the phrase instead. names of buggies honorifics — Avoid honorifics like “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Spring Carnival themes except on second reference in a story dealing with court cases (see court cases) a husband and wife or parent and child. Also avoid foreign words and phrases the honorifics “Dr.,” “Professor,” and “Coach.” See names of television series and radio shows also titles. names of newspapers and magazines other than The housefellow Tartan and the Associated Press titles of books, plays, and movies The HUB major (epic) poems (“the Iliad”) HUB abbreviations — see room numbers symphonies, operas, and dances hyphens — See the Punctuation and Grammar sec- titles of music albums tion. titles of art shows names of video games I See headlines for use of italics in headlines. IDS — Information and Decision Systems. This is a ITC — Information Technology Center field of study in the Heinz School. SeeIS . J–L i.e. — means “that is”; use sparingly. This is different from e.g., which means “for example.” Neither ab- JFC — the Joint Funding Committee, formed between breviation is italicized. Student Senate and the Graduate Student Assembly IEEE — Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engi- to determine student organization funding and such. neers junior, senior — lower-case when referring to a stu- IFC — Interfraternity Council dent’s year in school. Architecture students are not impact — Not a synonym of either “affect” or “effect”: juniors or seniors; write “a fourth-year architecture “The new policy will affect the campus community.” major,” for example. See names for information on “The total effect of the new policy will not be appar- using the designations “Jr.” and “Sr.” ent for several months.” kicker — A kicker is an underlined and italicized head- index — see inside box ing which can be found in exactly one place in The Tartan: above feature photos. indie rock Kickers should be short and attention-grabbing. Un- inside box — the index on the front page of the Tartan; less they end with an exclamation point or a question not capitalized, quoted, or italicized. mark, they should end with no punctuation (in par- insure — see assure ticular, no period). International Festival — This is the name to use for kids’ meal — See also visitors center. the fall festival that focuses on the culture of one Koran — The preferred Tartan spelling is Qur’an. continent. lacrosse — There are two distinct lacrosse clubs and the Internet — See the Technology and the Internet Carnegie Mellon: Men’s Lacrosse Club and Wom- section. en’s Lacrosse Club. Both may be called the “La- interstate — when referring to a specific interstate, crosse Club” when the context makes clear which is

10 which; however, do not use “Lacrosse Club” as service. Lower-case, a characteristic of matter. a synonym for “Men’s Lacrosse Club.” See club masters degree, masters student — The apostro- sports for capitalization rules. phe is optional in common usage; Tartan style is Letters to the Editor — Capitalized when referring to omit the apostrophe. to the feature in the paper, but lower-case when masthead — Informally called the “staff box,” the referring to individual letters: “Our Letters to the masthead appears in the Forum section. Between Editor deadline is 5 pm Friday,” but “In a letter fall 1990 and spring 2004, it listed The Tartan’s to the editor which appeared last week, President entire staff; now it lists only staff members with- Cohon wrote....” out individual credits in the paper. It also contains All letters to the editor should be edited to con- important legalese about the newspaper, including form to Tartan style guidelines. the copyright notice. In identifying the authors of letters to the editor, MBA — Master of Business Administration include all information pertinent to the subject of McConomy Auditorium (McConomy) — never the letter, including the writer’s class and major “the McConomy Auditorium” or “McConomy and the writer’s position or affiliation with any auditorium.” relevant Greek house, student organization, or the McKenna Room — along with the Peter Room University department. and the Wright Room, one of three rooms in the Capitalize titles, classes, and majors when iden- UC that can be used singly or jointly with its tifying the authors of letters to the editor. immediate neighbors. When two or more of the Put the name and date of any article to which the rooms are used jointly, join their names with letter refers in brackets. See brackets in the Punc- slashes: “McKenna/Peter/Wright.” tuation and Grammar section. MCS — Mellon College of Science lyrics — no space after “/” used for line break. measurements — see distances “Happy birthday to you/You live in a zoo/You MechE — Mechanical Engineering. See depart- look like a monkey/And you smell like one too.” ments & majors. M member at large — non-voting member of Student Senate; formally, Senator at Large. Plural: “mem- MA — Master of Arts; see also masters degree. bers at large.” magna cum laude Merson Courtyard — the courtyard outside the UC majors — see departments & majors facing the tennis courts. Malcolm X — Use “Malcolm X” on every refer- MFA — Master of Fine Arts; see also masters ence. degree. the Mall — the open area bordered by Doherty, middle initials — see names Wean, Hamerschlag, Porter, and Baker Halls. midnight — Use instead of “12 am.” Avoid “12 man — a male who has passed his 18th birthday. Do midnight,” which is redundant. not refer to such people as “boys.” mid-semester, mid-semester break Margaret Morrison Apartments Midway — not “the Midway.” Margaret Morrison Carnegie College (MMCC) mile, miles — see distances — One of the original colleges of the University. military titles — see titles In 1970, this college’s programs were merged with those of H&SS. Miss, Mr., Mrs., and Ms. — Avoid these terms; see honorifics. Marybelle Apartments money — Use the following conventions for amounts Mass — Capitalized, a Roman Catholic religious

11 of money: newspapers — Italicize the names of all newspapers Eliminate the “.00” when a dollar amount is a round except The Tartan. Also be careful to note whether number: Use “$9” instead of “$9.00.” the word “the” is a part of a newspaper’s name; see specific names of newspapers in this guide. Do not spell out the word “dollar” unless specifically referring to “the dollar” (on the world market, for in- The New York Times — italicized. stance): Use “$300” instead of “300 dollars,” but use Nippon — Japan’s name for itself, and the name of the “The dollar is less valuable than it used to be.” Japanese cultural organization on campus. Spell out “million,” “billion,” and “trillion” when- noon — Use instead of “12 pm.” Avoid the redundant ever possible: “$2.8 million” instead of “$2.8 M” or “12 noon.” “$2,800,000.” Never write “$2.8 million dollars.” the North Side For ranges of money, do not use any kind of dash. N*SYNC Instead, use the word “to”: $4 to $5. number sign (#) — Do not use the symbol “#” in body Spell out the word “cents” instead of using such text. In headlines, however, “#” is preferred over the forms as “$.50” and “0.50” to indicate amounts less word “number.” than one dollar. Example: “50 cents.” numbers — Follow these rules: Mr. Small’s Theatre & Funhouse Always use numerals for ages, distances, dates, MS — Master of Science; see also masters degree. sums of money, percentages, sports scores, and page MSIA — Master of Science in Industrial Administra- numbers: “Sally Jones, 5, loved the Carnival rides,” tion. GSIA awards this rather than an MBA. “For in-depth Tartan coverage of the Warner Hall Murray Avenue disaster, see page 17.” Spell out numbers from one to nine: “one duck,” “two squealing pigs.” N–O Use numerals for numbers greater than nine: “10 cor- pulent oysters,” “100 bottles of beer on the wall.” names — As a rule of thumb, people should be called what they wish. In particular, when first referring to Do not use commas in numbers less than 10,000: a person, use the form of the name that he or she pre- “5635 bottles of beer on the wall,” “12,768 bottles of fers. For instance, “Bill Elliott,” “William Elliott,” beer on the wall.” and “William F. Elliott” are all acceptable from The Use the words “million,” “billion,” etc., for num- Tartan’s point of view; the form used should reflect bers greater than 999,999: “2.3 million bottles of what Elliott himself desires. beer on the wall.” The designations “Jr.,” “Sr.,” and “III,” if included, For ordinal numbers, spell out “first” through should not be preceded by a comma: “F. Howard “ninth,” but switch to numerals for ordinals above Pierce III,” “Martin Luther King Jr.” “ninth”: “third base,” “19th place in the race.” Ex- The space after a first initial, before a middle initial, ception: All amendments to the United States Con- or before a designation such as “Jr.” or “Sr.” should stitution are spelled out and capitalized: “the Twenty- be non-breaking. second Amendment,” “First Amendment rights.” On second reference, use last name alone: “Elliott.” Avoid starting a sentence with a number if pos- See honorifics for more information. sible, but spell the number out if it can’t be avoided. Identify alumni of Carnegie Mellon if relevant to See fractions for more information. the story. See alumni for more information. the ‘O’ — The Original Hot Dog Shop. Note the single The Natrat — The Tartan’s annual parody issue; like quotes. “The Tartan,” it is not italicized. the Oakland Review News — capitalized when referring to the section of OC, OCs — Orientation Counselor The Tartan; lower-case in the generic sense. off-campus, off campus — When the term “off- campus” modifies a word, hyphenate it; otherwise,

12 do not. “He made an off-campus telephone call,” but percent — Spell this word in body text, but use the “The party was held off campus.” symbol “%” in headlines. off of — Colloquial; do not use this construction. “Get Person’s Opinion — The Tartan’s weekly “person in off your high horse!” “The Tartans scored two goals the street” feature; not italicized or quoted. Students off the goalposts.” Likewise, do not use the unneces- interviewed in Person’s Opinion are identified fol- sary “of” after the words “inside” or “outside.” See lowing the rules for identifying authors of Letters to also as. the Editor; see that entry for specifics. oftentimes — Do not use this colloquialism. Write the Peter Room — see McKenna Room “often” or “frequently” instead. PGSS — Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sci- The Ohio State University (OSU) — the Buckeyes. ences, a summer science program for high school okay — write out. Never “OK.” students from Pennsylvania. the Old Student Center PhD — see doctor of philosophy, titles on-campus, on campus — “On campus” follows the phone numbers — Phone numbers follow the follow- same hyphenation rule as off campus. ing rules: Oriental — This term may be used to refer to carpeting On-campus extensions have a lower-case “x” plus or food, but not to people; use “Asian” instead. five digits, hyphenated: “x8-2111.” Orientation — Capitalized when referring to the of- Local and long-distance numbers have an area code ficial CMU event for first-year students; lower-case in parentheses, followed by a space and a seven-digit otherwise. local number: “(216) 650-0973.” overworked phrases to avoid — Avoid these over- In Pillbox, numbers have dots instead of parentheses worked phrases. and hyphens: “216.650.0973.” additionally (“in addition”) Pitt — University of Pittsburgh. Write out on first use. both ... and (“We have been through both good “UPitt” is acceptable in headlines, but not encour- times and bad”: “We have been through good times aged. and bad”) The Pitt News — italicized. Pitt’s main student news- however paper. initially (“at first”) the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette speak of (“Their music speaks of loneliness and pain”: “Loneliness and pain are themes in their mu- the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review sic”) pm — the 12 hours between noon and midnight, not various (“Various student groups attended the including midnight; see times. meeting”: “Several student groups attended the meet- police — see Campus Police ing”) political affiliations — On the first reference to a poli- P tician in a story, identify the politician’s party and the area he or she represents in parentheses after the PAAR — Pittsburgh Action Against Rape name, separating the abbreviations with an en dash: PAC — Presidents’ Athletic Conference “Senator Jesse Helms (R–N.C.),” “Senator Arlen Specter (R–Pa.).” See state abbreviations for more the Pake Room information. Panhel — Panhellenic Council political parties — In general, capitalize the names of party affiliations — see political affiliations. political parties and affiliations, but do not capitalize PC — personal computer; politically correct. See the philosophical designations: “Ron Paul, the Libertar- Technology and the Internet section for more in- ian Party’s candidate for President in 1988, spoke on formation. campus,” but “Ron Paul, the conservative, had din- Penn — refers to the University of Pennsylvania, not ner at Gullifty’s.” Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). the Port Authority — the Port Authority of Allegheny

13 County quality point average (QPA) — When referring to Posner Hall grades at Carnegie Mellon, use “quality point av- erage” rather than “grade point average,” although PPT — Pittsburgh Public Theater “GPA” may be used in an informal sense. president — When it refers to the President of the When reporting a QPA, use two digits after the deci- United States, this word is always capitalized. When mal place: “2.53,” “4.00.” it refers to any other president, it behaves as any other title in The Tartan — see titles for more informa- quotation marks — See the Punctuation and Gram- tion. Also: “Presidential election,” “Vice President,” mar section for information on quotation marks. “Vice-Presidential candidate.” quoting — When quoting someone in an article, use presidents of Carnegie Mellon — these rules: Arthur Hamerschlag (1903–1922) Affiliations: Give the person’s name, year, and Thomas Stockham Baker (1922–1936) major: “Harry Bovik, a junior computer science Robert Doherty (1936–1950) major.” “Laura Li, a first-year student majoring in J.C. (John) Warner (1950–1965) French.” When quoting administrators or other non- H. Guyford Stever (1965–1972) student CMU personnel, give the person’s position Richard Cyert (1972–1990) and department. When quoting outsiders, give age Robert Mehrabian (1990–1997) (if the quoted person is a child) or occupation. If the Jared L. Cohon (July 1997— ) person’s residency is relevant to the article, give that profanity — spell out as normal if quoting. Swearing is too: “Reena Patel, a Squirrel Hill resident.” acceptable (if frowned upon) in Comics and Dossier, Try to keep quotes in paragraphs of their own. and should be avoided elsewhere. Always use “said,” never “mentioned,” “added,” professor — always lower-case, even when used as a etc. “Said” is expected by readers and will not be in- title: “professor Kathy McCormick.” terpreted as repetitive. Other words may be distract- PSAC — President’s Student Advisory Council ing and may cause the article to seem biased. Pillbox is allowed more leeway with this rule, especially in PSC — Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center interviews. PTC — Pittsburgh Technology Center “Stated” may be used when quoting from a written Public Relations (PR) — Public Relations is a depart- source, such as a letter or an e-mail, but avoid it. ment in the University Relations division of the Uni- Use a comma before “he said,” but do not use a versity. comma if the quote ends and you’re not commenting Photos from the PR Department should be credited on the quote: “ ‘I like cherry Coke better than classic with the line “courtesy University Relations.” Coke,’ he said. ‘It gets me much more hyper.’ Bovik Pugwash — Use “Student Pugwash” if referring to the is a regular at the CS department’s Coke machine.” student group on campus. When omitting or changing information in a punch — “Punch” is the quality that makes a sentence quote, use a three-dot ellipse to indicate an omission or a paragraph punchy and vibrant, instead of mopey within a sentence: “The Cut ... looks really weird.” and passive. The passive voice kills punch. So does Use a four-dot ellipse to indicate that you’re cutting the progressive tense. So do overworked phrases off the end of a sentence and starting a new sentence: and a reliance on the thesaurus in news articles. See “I think it was really worthwhile.... People really en- overworked phrases to avoid and passive voice and joyed it.” Use brackets when changing actual words progressive tense in the Punctuation and Gram- within the quote: “[The comedian] was very enter- mar section. taining.” Three-dot ellipses have a space both before Purnell Center (for the Arts) and after; four-dot ellipses only have a space after. Remember that people get very angry when they are Q–R misquoted. Be very cautious about changing the content or context of the quote. Quotes are generally the Quad — the fraternity quadrangle not edited for grammar unless the mistake could be

14 confusing for readers or embarrassing for the person Avoid the word “room.” Use “Scaife 220” or being quoted. Check with the section editor or the “SH 220” instead of “Scaife room 220.” editor-in-chief if you’re not sure what to do. On-campus buildings may be abbreviated using The See Articles in the Punctuation and Grammar sec- HUB’s abbreviations (below) if followed by room tion for more information. numbers: “DH 2210,” but “Doherty Hall burned to Qur’an the ground.” (Two buildings may be abbreviated without room numbers: the CFA building and the RA — resident assistant. Do not capitalize this title, GSIA building.) even before a name. When using The HUB’s abbreviation, make sure race — Avoid mentioning a person’s racial or ethnic to leave a space between the building abbreviation background unless it has bearing on the story. As and the room number. with names, people should be called whatever name for their ethnicity they like. However, if you need The HUB’s abbreviations are: to mention it and cannot get the person’s preference, Alumni Concert Hall ACH follow these conventions: Baker Hall BH African-American or black College of Fine Arts CFA Asian (for non-citizens) Doherty Hall DH Asian-American Smith Hall SH Latino, Latina GSIA Building GSIA Native American Hamburg Hall HBH white or Caucasian Hamerschlag Hall HH Hunt Library HL Radio Club — Short name for the group whose call Industrial Administration IA letters are W3VC. See Carnegie Tech Amateur Margaret Morrison MM Radio Club. Margaret Morrison Plaza MMP Rangos Hall — but “Rangos 1,” “Rangos 2,” etc. Mellon Institute MI Red Cross — may refer to either the American Red Porter Hall PH Cross or the International Red Cross Purnell Center PCA religions — Capitalize the names of all religions: Scaife Hall SH “Methodist,” “Catholic,” “a Jewish student.” Like Skibo Gym Gym race, don’t mention it unless it’s relevant to the ar- Software Engineering Institute SEI ticle. Student Center OSC University Center UC representative — Capitalized, this word means a mem- Warner Hall WH ber of the House of Representatives; lower-case, it Wean Hall WEH can mean any elected representative, including Stu- dent Senators and student organizational officers. Roselawn Terrace Use “member of Congress” to refer to members of ROTC — Reserve Officer Training Corps. It can be both houses of Congress, or refer to them as Senator important to specify which division of the armed or Representative. (Student Senators are called just forces a ROTC student trains for. that; see Student Senator.) See government offi- rush — “rush” is a verb; “Rush” is a noun referring to cials for more information. the Greek event at the beginning of a semester. the Republican Party, Republican — always capital- ized; see political affiliations for abbreviation rules. S Resnik — not “Resnick.” SAC — student advisory committee, or student advi- résumé — See accents. sory council. RI — the Robotics Institute SAE —Sigma Alpha Epsilon, or the Society of Auto- room numbers — Follow these rules: motive Engineers SafeWalk — One word. The student walking escort.

15 said, says — For most stories, these are the only two ence. Thus, although it is “Jared Cohon” and “Eliza- words to use to attribute quotations. See quoting for beth Bailey,” they are “Cohon” and “Bailey,” respec- more information. tively, on second reference. SARC — Student-Alumni Relations Council See the entries for coed, chair, spokesperson, Lady Scaife Hall Tartans, and Congressman for more information. Schatz Dining Room Shadyside Schedule of Classes — the official schedule issued Shiite each semester by The HUB; not italicized or quoted. Shirley Apartments Schenley Park shuttle — Carnegie Mellon’s shuttles are run by the ’Schlag — Abbreviation for the dorm Hamerschlag Escort Service. House. Note the direction of the apostrophe. Sí Señor — A campus food vendor. See also accents. Science & Technology — the section of The Tartan. Skibo — building that existed prior to the construction Note the ampersand. The editor of this section is the of the University Center. Also the name of Skibo Science & Technology Editor. The section is infor- Café in the UC and Skibo Gym, as well as Andrew mally known as “SciTech.” Use the full name in the Carnegie’s ancestral castle in Scotland. “In This Issue” box. Skibo Gym (gymnasium, gym) — “Skibo Gym” is Scotch ’n’ Soda (S’N’S) both the formal name of the gymnasium building and SCS — School of Computer Science the name of the larger gym inside the building. SDC — Student Dormitory Council Slippery Rock University (SRU) SDS — Social & Decision Sciences the South Side seasons — Seasons are lower-case in The Tartan: “last spelling — The Tartan uses American spelling for summer,” “spring semester.” all words. Whenever a word can take either a single or a double letter, use the single letter: “traveling,” sections of classes — The word “section” is always “worshiped,” “buses.” Use “-er” instead of “-re” in lower-case, although the section letter itself is cap- words like center and theater, but see these indi- italized. Set off the section with commas: “15-411 vidual entries. See also accents. Compiler Design, section A.” See also course titles. splash — an entire page in the newspaper devoted to a sections of The Tartan — The name of any section is single topic. capitalized, but the word “section” is not: “the Fo- rum section.” spokesman, spokeswoman, spokesperson — Follow these rules: SEI — Software Engineering Institute In the case of a named spokesperson, use the semesters — There are only four semesters at the Uni- gender-specific term as title, but do not capitalize it: versity: “fall,” “spring,” “summer 1,” “summer 2.” “Selective Service spokesman Larry Waltman.” Senator — This term is always capitalized, regardless In the generic sense, or when dealing with an un- of whether or not it precedes a name. See also Stu- named source, use “spokesperson,” but again, never dent Senator and government officials. capitalize it: “according to a University spokesper- senior citizen — never “senior.” son.” sexism — The Tartan avoids sexist language. Do not The plural of “spokesperson” is “spokespersons,” use the generic “he.” Use “he or she” in the generic but avoid it like the plague. sense; never “he/she” or “(s)he.” Avoid the singular sports teams — see teams in the Sports section “they.” When at all possible, try to rewrite the sen- tence so that the pronoun is plural or eliminated en- spring break, spring vacation tirely. See the pronouns entry in the Punctuation Spring Carnival (Carnival) — Follow these conven- and Grammar section for more information. tions for Carnival terminology. Carnival themes are Refer to people by last name alone on second refer- italicized: “From Cover to Cover.” Carnival slo- gans are quoted and capitalized as if they were ti-

16 tles: “ ‘When You Just Can’t Get the Real Thing.’ ” South Dakota S.D. Buggy names are italicized. See the Carnival sec- Tennessee Tenn. tion for more information. Texas no abbr. staff box — see masthead Utah no abbr. Vermont Vt. staffwriter — capitalized as any other title. Virginia Va. state abbreviations — When the name of a state stands Washington Wash. alone or is a part of a formal name, do not abbreviate West Virginia W.Va. it. Use these abbreviations in an address, after a city Wisconsin Wis. name, or in identifying a political affiliation: Wyoming Wyo. Alabama Ala. statement of assurance — The legalese found on all Alaska no abbr. official University documents (“Carnegie Mellon Arizona Ariz. University does not discriminate on the basis of...”). Arkansas Ark. Always written lower-case, and never quoted or itali- California Calif. cized. Colorado Colo. street — Spell out the entire word — never “St.” — and Connecticut Conn. capitalize after the name of a street but not by itself: Delaware Del. “Beeler Street,” but “down the street.” Florida Fla. Georgia Ga. street names — Most streets near campus are actually Hawaii no abbr. avenues. Idaho no abbr. Streets Avenues Illinois Ill. Beeler Beacon Indiana Ind. Frew Centre Iowa no abbr. Tech Ellsworth Kansas Kan. Fifth Kentucky Ky. Forbes Louisiana La. Morewood Maine no abbr. Murray Maryland Md. Wightman Massachusetts Mass. Wilkins Michigan Mich. The exception is Bigelow Boulevard. Minnesota Minn. the Strip District — informally, “the Strip.” Mississippi Miss. Missouri Mo. student activities fee Montana Mont. the student body Nebraska Neb. student body president — not “student government Nevada Nev. president” or “Student Senate president”; capitalized New Hampshire N.H. according to rules for titles. New Jersey N.J. New Mexico N.M. the student government — This is not a proper noun. New York N.Y. Student Senate — Any committees formed by Senate North Carolina N.C. should be capitalized: “the Constitution Commit- North Dakota N.D. tee.” Ohio no abbr. Student Senator — Like the word “Senator,” this title Oklahoma Okla. is always capitalized, even when it does not precede Oregon Ore. the name. The word “student” should be omitted if Pennsylvania Pa. context allows. Rhode Island R.I. The Student Union — Carnegie Mellon’s “alterna- South Carolina S.C.

17 tive newsjournal,” founded in 1986 and disbanded write “from 7–9 pm.” shortly thereafter. titles — Identify a person by his or her title on first Studio Theatre reference; thereafter, use last name alone. See names summa cum laude for more information. Sweepstakes — the formal name of the buggy compe- Do not abbreviate titles, including military titles: tition held during Spring Carnival. See the Carnival Use “Sergeant Jim Smith” instead of “Sgt. Jim section for more information. Smith” and use “President Hyun Shin” instead of “Pres. Hyun Shin.” T Capitalize a title only if it falls right before the person’s name: “Carnegie Mellon President Jared TA — teaching assistant. The plural of “TA” is “TAs.” Cohon,” but “Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Tangent — The Tartan’s Orientation magazine. Mellon.” See also Articles in the Punctuation and The Tartan — The title of our newspaper has two Grammar section. words, so be sure to capitalize both. “The Tartan” is Occupations are never capitalized. Thus: “Carnegie never italicized. Mellon professor Helmut Vogel,” “Morewood TartanTrak — the Career Center’s Jobtrak service. A Tower resident assistant Harry Q. Bovik.” temperatures — The Tartan writes temperatures with a A few titles are always capitalized, regardless of degrees symbol and either “C” (Celsius) or “F” (Fahr- whether they precede a name or not. They are “Presi- enheit), with no intervening space: “70˚F.” To get dent” (when it refers to the President or Vice-President the degrees symbol in Mac OS X, type option-K. of the United States), “Senator,” and “Student Sena- Temperatures given in kelvins do not have a degrees tor.” See those entries for more information. symbol: “373 K.” Italicize the titles of published media. This includes theater — Use the American spelling unless referring titles of novels, plays, periodicals, movies, cartoons, to Kresge Theatre, Mr. Small’s Theatre, or Studio albums, etc. Theatre. Do not italicize titles of songs, poems, or short sto- Thistle Gym — Skibo Gym, the “old gym.” ries; use quotation marks instead. “ ‘Another Post- card’ is a song from the album Everything to Every- The Thistle one.” See quotation marks in the Punctuation and Thistles and Thorns — The annual year-end edito- Grammar section for more information on when to rial in which The Tartan recognizes good initiatives use quotation marks. (by awarding Thistles) and bad ones (by awarding TOC — Technical Opportunities Conference Thorns). In this context, the words “Thistle” and “Thorn” are capitalized. toward — never “towards.” See also between, off of. time out — plural: “time outs.” As a computer term, towers — When referring to towers in dormitories, the noun is “timeout.” capitalize the tower’s letter and the word “Tower,” and separate the two with a non-breaking space, no times — The correct form for am and pm is just that: hyphen: “Morewood Gardens E Tower,” “ ’Schlag lower-case, no periods. Set off the time with a space: B Tower.” “8:30 am.” If the time is on the hour, omit the colon and zeros: “8 pm” instead of “8:00 pm.” The space trustees — informal for “Board of Trustees.” between the number and “am” or “pm” should be a T-shirt — See also g-string. non-breaking space. TV — television Use “midnight” and “noon” in place of “12 am” and “12 pm,” respectively. Never spell out a time; avoid “two o’clock in the U–Z morning.” UCP — University Choice Program Use an en dash to denote a range of times: “7–9 pm.” The dash means “from ... to”; it is a grievous error to unique — means “one of a kind,” not “rare.” Never use

18 “almost unique” or “totally unique.” Wiegand Gymnasium United Nations (UN) — See also United States. winter break, winter vacation — not “Christmas va- United States (U.S.) — See also United Nations. cation,” as not all students are Christian. University — Capitalize this term in the names of spe- woman — A female who has passed her 18th birthday cific universities, including CMU, but make it lower- is a “woman” rather than a “girl.” Alternate spellings case in the generic sense. CMU alone may be referred of “woman” or “women” are not allowed outside of to as “the University.” quotes or Letters to the Editor. See sexism for more information. University Relations — The division of the University that includes the Public Relations Department and the Women’s Center Campus Printing and Publishing, among others. It Woodlawn Apartments employs about 50 people. The Word the University Shoppe — includes the bookstore and WRCT — 88.3 FM. Not the Radio Club. the souvenir store. the Wright Room — see McKenna Room UPMC — University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Wright-Rogal Chapel USA Today X-ray, X-rays utilize — Never use this overworked and punchless yinz, yinzers word. Write “use” instead, or if absolutely necessary, “employ.” See punch. Vermillion — the anime (Japanese animation) club. Not the same as “vermilion,” the color. versus (vs.) — Do not use the abbreviation “v.” except when referring to federal court cases. very — Apply this overused term sparingly. Vice-President visitors center The Wall Street Journal — italicized. Warner Hall (WH) — not to be confused with Wean Hall (WEH). Washington, D.C. — Do not abbreviate as “D.C.,” although “Washington” is acceptable if the context makes clear that you’re not referring to the state or to Washington, Pa. the Washington Post the Waterfront — use when referring to the shopping area. Wean Hall (WEH) — not to be confused with Warner Hall (WH). webcast website — preferred over “home page.” Refers to a page or group of pages on the World Wide Web lo- cated at the same domain and dealing with the same subject. Italicize website addresses. See the Tech- nology and the Internet section. Welch Hall — not “Welsh Hall.”

19 Carnival

booth, Booth — do not capitalize “booth” unless re- of campus behind Hunt, CFA, Posner, and Baker. ferring to the formal booth competition. Names of Sweepstakes is held there. Carnival booths are in quotes. Hill — capitalized when referring to a specific hill on buggy, Buggy — do not capitalize “buggy” unless re- the buggy course and followed by a number, but not ferring to the formal event. Names of specific buggies when speaking of a generic hill: “the buggy went up are in italics. Buggy is also known as Sweepstakes. the hill;” “the buggy went up Hill 3.” cape test — Informal term for “capability test,” a test Midway — the area where the bulk of Carnival is lo- of a buggy’s brakes and the driver’s ability to see. cated. Not “the Midway.” This is mandatory and must be done in the buggy that mobot, Mobot — mobile robot. The name of the event the driver is using on race day. is “Mobot.” Carnival — While it may seem obvious, the word pass test — a test that requires a driver to pass another “Carnival” should always be capitalized when refer- buggy safely during a freeroll practice. ring to Spring Carnival. the Plug — a buggy landmark, the Plug is the fire hy- Carnival Committee — formally, “Spring Carnival drant on Frew Street immediately beyond the ninth Committee.” and last window of Porter Hall. the Chute — In buggy, the area of freeroll with the push practice — The training periods during which tightest turn; it is also the point where buggies travel buggy pushers get in shape to push and practice their fastest. pushing and exchanging buggies. Compubookie — an anonymous entity who publishes push team — The group of five pushers who push a predictions about which groups will win Sweep- single buggy around the course. stakes. race day — the day buggy races occur during Carnival. driver — refers to both those who steer buggies and to Two words. Escort drivers. roll-out — the uphill portion of the freeroll where a drop test — The test performed after each heat on race buggy loses its momentum and is picked up by the day on the sidewalk in front of the Gym; it tests the Hill 3 pusher. buggy’s brakes. spin-out — when a buggy slides sideways while travel- exchange — (1) The act of passing a buggy from one ing through the Chute; when a buggy is in a spin-out, pusher to the next. (2) One of three zones in which the driver has lost control. buggies are exchanged; specifically, between Hills 1 sweepers — people who clear debris off the buggy and 2, Hills 3 and 4, and Hills 4 and 5. course before freerolls and races. flagger — (1) A member of a buggy organization who Sweepstakes — the formal name of the buggy compe- helps restrict traffic during Sweepstakes races, free- tition held during Spring Carnival. rolls, and push practices. (2) A member of a buggy organization who stands on the course to signal the Tech Street — the street running between Posner and drivers and help them navigate the course. the Thistle Gym, facing Margaret Morrison. freeroll — (1) The part of a buggy’s run during which themes — themes are quoted: “Children’s books.” Car- it is not being pushed. (2) The downhill section of the nival slogans are italicized: Where your childhood buggy course between Hills 2 and 3, where freeroll dreams come alive. occurs. Truck Weekend freerolls — The early morning training periods dur- windows — Unit of measure of a buggy’s performance ing the year when drivers practice driving buggies during freeroll. The more windows along Porter Hall on the course and organizations test and improve the that a buggy can pass before being picked up by its designs of their buggies. Hill 3 pusher, the better its performance. Frew Street — the street that runs along the back

20 Sports

All-America — a football or basketball team is an All- other schools — A reference list of those who play the America team; a single player is an All-American Tartans or inhabit our fair city: player. “All-American player Michael Jordan said...” Bethany College “The Tarheels are an All-America team.” Brandeis University — the Judges All-Star Break Carleton College Carlow University ball carrier Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) — the Bucs — the Pittsburgh Pirates, the city’s major-league Spartans baseball team. Duquesne University — the Dukes coach — Follow these rules: Johns Hopkins University — the Blue Jays When used as a title, “coach” is always lower-case, New York University (NYU) — the Violets even when it precedes a name: “Swim team coach Pennsylvania State University (Penn State, PSU) Gerri Q. Bovik said...” The University of Chicago — the Maroons The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) — not to be When used as an honorific — a use which should be confused with Penn State applied sparingly — “coach” is capitalized: “Coach The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) — the Panthers Smith told the guys to run 10 laps.” See honorifics. The University of Rochester — the Yellowjackets When used as a nickname or term of endearment, Thiel College (pronounced “teal”) — the Tomcats “coach” is also capitalized: “Coach said we did great Washington & Jefferson — the Presidents out there today.” Washington & Lee conference — a group of colleges and universities Washington University (Wash. U.) — the Bears that play each other in any sport for a title. Usually NCAA — National Collegiate Athletic Association grouped by region. Pens — the Penguins, Pittsburgh’s NHL hockey team. coxswain (cox) — The member of a crew team who playoff — This is a noun and an adjective. The verb sits in the head of the boat, shouting encouragement form of the word is “play off.” to the rowers. possessives — Always form the possessive of a team cross country — CMU has a women’s as well as a by adding a single apostrophe after the “s” at the end men’s team. See times. of the team’s name, as in “the Tartans’ best game.” head coach — Always lower-case, even when used as postseason, preseason a title. racquet — not “racket.” IM — intramural rain-out — “The game was rained out. It was a indoor sport — not “indoors sport.” rain-out.” the Lady Tartans — This term is considered sexist, so rowing — also known as crew. Score in minutes, sec- do not use it. onds, and tenths of a second. See coxswain, times. leagues — On first reference, give the entire name of scores — the visiting team’s score is always given first, the league and regional division, such as “American then the home team’s. They are separated with an League West.” After that, refer in any clear manner en dash (option-dash on a Macintosh). So a game in you like, making sure to distinguish it from any other which CMU plays Case Western in Gesling Stadium leagues or divisions mentioned subsequently. The and loses by two points would be written “6–4.” exception to this is when the league being referred to Scores should not be broken across lines. is relatively unrivaled, e.g., the NFL. skiing — two “i”s. NCAA — National Collegiate Athletic Association stadium, stadiums — capitalize only when part of a number — Do not abbreviate as “no.” when listing proper name, such as Three Rivers Stadium (replaced team ranks (or ever). Use “#” in headlines. by Heinz Field).

21 the Steelers — Pittsburgh’s NFL football team. first baseman the Super Bowl foul line foul tip swimming — Most events are measured in metric units. ground-rule double Be sure to distinguish between men’s and women’s home plate events if necessary. See times. home run Tartans — members of CMU athletic teams. left-hander teams — Do not capitalize names: “basketball team,” line drive “men’s cross country team.” lineup tennis — Scores are in points, sets, and matches. A on deck circle — the area where the upcoming game goes to a player or team winning two of three batter warms up sets or three of five sets. See the Sports section of the outfielder AP stylebook for more detailed information on ten- passed ball nis scoring. pinch hit (verb), pinch-hit (noun, adjective), pinch hitter times — For timed sporting events such as swim- pitchout ming and cross-country, times should be given thus: RBI — runs batted in. No difference between the minutes:seconds:tenths of seconds:hundredths of singular and the plural of this term. seconds where available. Write out the time on first rundown reference: “He ran it in three minutes, 26.1 seconds.” sacrifice, sacrifice fly, sacrifice hit If times are only in seconds, write the seconds out as shoestring catch a decimal: “It took 9.45 seconds for Barney to fin- shortstop (between second and third bases) ish.” shut out (verb), shutout (noun) track — Includes field events such as javelin throw- slugger ing. Scoring is in distance or time, depending on the southpaw — a left-handed pitcher event. See times. squeeze play UAA — University Athletic Association. CMU is in strike, strike zone Division III. major league, major leaguer (noun), major-league (adjective) Baseball triple play wild pitch Baseball has one top league, Major League Baseball World Series (MLB), divided into the American League (AL) and the National League (NL), which are subdivided into Basketball regional divisions. It also has several minor leagues. Basketball has two major leagues, the National Bas- Frequently used words and phrases: ketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s Na- backstop tional Basketball Association (WNBA). ballclub ballplayer Frequently used words and phrases: baseline assist — a pass made right before a field goal is batter’s box made bullpen backboard bunt backcourt center field, center fielder baseline designated hitter (DH) double-double — reaching double digits in two doubleheader statistical categories in the same game (e.g., double play 15 points and 12 rebounds) ERA — earned run average field goal fair ball flagrant foul fastball foul line

22 foul shot lineman free throw, free-throw line line of scrimmage frontcourt out of bounds full-court press pitchout goaltending place kick, place-kicker guard quarterback halftime runback hook shot running back jump ball split end jump shot tailback layup tight end man-to-man touchback midcourt touchdown (TD) pivotman wide receiver point guard slam dunk Hockey technical foul triple-double Hockey has one league, the National Hockey League zone defense (NHL). It has subdivisions; see leagues for more in- formation on how to refer to them. Note that the NHL Final Four — The semifinals and finals of the college contains both American and Canadian teams. basketball playoffs. Frequently used words: Football assist — A pass made right before a goal is made. Up to two assists are given for each goal scored Football has one major league, the National Football in the NHL League (NFL). Note that “football” means “soccer” blue line in countries other than the United States. crease When referring to yard lines, use a hyphen and a face off (verb) number: “He scored from the 7-yard line.” faceoff (noun, adjective) Frequently used words: goalie goal line ball carrier goal post ballclub goaltender blitz (noun and verb) hat trick — when a player scores three goals in one end line game. Use sparingly. end zone netminder — goaltender fair catch odd man break, odd man rush field goal penalty box fourth-and-one (adjective) power play fullback power-play goal game plan red line Gesling Stadium short-handed goal line slap shot goal-line stand two-on-one break halfback halftime Soccer handoff kick off (verb), kickoff (noun) Soccer in the United States has several leagues. There left guard are two outdoor leagues: the American Professional linebacker Soccer League (APSL) and Major League Soccer

23 (MLS). There is one indoor league, the National Pro- fessional Soccer League (NPSL). There is also one outdoor women’s league, the Women’s United Soc- cer Association (WUSA). Note that the rest of the world calls soccer “football” and refers to the game that the NFL plays as “American football.” Frequently-used words: assist back back header banana kick beat bicycle kick, scissors kick breakaway chip pass, chip shot corner kick crossbar drop ball FIFA — Federation Internationale de Football As- sociation, the official governing body of inter- national soccer goalmouth hand ball hat trick head (verb), header (noun) kick off (verb), kickoff (noun) lead pass outlet pass professional foul push pass shoulder charge square pass stopper, striker, sweeper, winger touchline turn over (verb), turnover (noun) World Cup

24 Student Organizations

AB — Activities Board East End Tutoring Program Advocaids Electronic Media Organization Agapé Christian Ministry ESG — Eclectic Studies Group AIAS — American Institute of Architecture Explorers Club Students Fencing Club AIChE — American Institute of Chemical Field Hockey Club Engineers Fiesta de Primavera committee AID — Association for India’s Development filmmaking@CMU Aikido Friends of the Board — skateboarding club AIME — Association for Industrial Management Fringe and Economics Gaming Club ALLIES — gay and lesbian organization Greek Council All-University Orchestra GSA — Graduate Student Assembly Amnesty International Hawaiian Club ARCC — Awareness of Roots in Chinese Culture Hellenic Students Association ASA — Asian Student Association Hillel — Jewish student organization Asian Christian Fellowship Hindu Students Council ASME — American Society of Mechanical HKSA — Hong Kong Students Organization Engineers Ice Hockey Ballroom Dance Club IRO — International Relations Organization Baseball Club ISU — International Students Union BGSO — Black Graduate Students Organization IVCF — Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship BMES — Biomedical Engineering Society Joyful Noise — Christian a cappella group Brother to Brother Juggling Club BUDAYA — a Malaysian cultural organization Kapatirang Pilipino — Filipino student organization Camarilla —Vampire: the Masquerade live-action KGB role-playing organization Kiltie Band Carnegie Debate Society KSA — Korean Student Association Carnegie Steel — a steel-drum band Lacrosse Club CGSO — Chinese Graduate Students Organization The Master’s Voice Christians on Campus Mayur — Indian cultural organization CIA — Carnegie Involvement Association Mock Trial Circle K — service society Mortarboard CMU Aiki Ju Jitsu club Nippon — Japanese cultural organization CMU Astronomy Club NSBE — National Society of Black Engineers CMUG — CMU Mac User Group NSCS — National Society of Collegiate Scholars cmuOUT — gay and lesbian organization Oakland Review cmuRight Objectivist Club College Bowl OM College Libertarians Order of Omega College Republicans Origami Club Computer Club Originals — men’s a cappella group Cycling Club Orthodox Christian Fellowship Dancer’s Symposium Paintball Doctors of Carnegie — DOCs, the pre-med club Persian Students Organization E-SITE @ CMU Pioneers Earth — campus environmental group Pittsburgh Culture Club

25 Pre-Law Society DU — Delta Upsilon Radio Club — see “W3VC” KDR — Kappa Delta Rho Research Projects Group Kap Sig — Kappa Sigma Rugby Club L Phi E — Lambda Phi Epsilon Russian House Phi Kap — Phi Kappa Theta SAE — Society of Automotive Engineers PDPsi — Pi Delta Psi SALSA — Spanish and Latin Students Association PiKA — Pi Kappa Alpha SARC — Student-Alumni Relations Council SAE— Sigma Alpha Epsilon SCA — Society for Creative Anachronism Sig Ep — Sigma Phi Epsilon Scotch ’n’ Soda (S’N’S) Sigma Nu SCUBA Sig Tau — Sigma Tau Gamma Shotokan Karate Club Theta Xi SHPE — Society of Hispanic Professional Sororities Engineers Tridelt — Delta Delta Delta (sisters are “tridelts,” Singaporean Students’ Association lower-case) Soundbytes — coed a cappella group DG — Delta Gamma SPIC-MACAY — Society for Promotion of Indian Theta — Kappa Alpha Theta Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth Kappa — Kappa Kappa Gamma SPIRIT Zeta — Zeta Psi Sigma Spirit of Skibo Academic honor and/or service fraternities (generally Spring Carnival Committee coed) Student Pugwash APhiO — Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity SWE — Society of Women Engineers Lambda Sigma — sophomore honor and service Sweepstakes (Buggy) fraternity TSA — Taiwanese Student Association Phi Beta Kappa — humanities honors fraternity Thai Student Association (Siam) Tau Beta Pi — engineering honors fraternity The Tartan The Thistle Tzu Chi Student Organization Ultimate Frisbee Club (Yuk) University Entrepreneurial Association University Rowing Club Varsity Club Vermillion — Japanese animation club Voices United Gospel Choir Volleyball Club W3VC — Carnegie Tech Amateur Radio Club Women’s Center WRCT-FM Yan Xin Qi Gong Zi Zugzwang Greek Organizations IFC — Interfraternity Council Panhel — Panhellenic Council Fraternities AEPi — Alpha Epsilon Pi Beta — Beta Theta Pi DTD — Delta Tau Delta

26 Punctuation and Grammar

Apostrophes To refer to an article that appeared in The Tartan. Apostrophes have two functions: to make contrac- In this case, provide the article’s headline (exactly as tions, such as “she’s” (for “she is”), and to indicate it appeared in the paper) in double quotes, followed possession, as in “Kevin’s mom.” No other uses are by a comma and the date of the issue in which the ar- acceptable. ticle appeared. Mention the year only if it is different from the current one, like this: [“How Things Work: When the word is plural and ends in “s,” put the Heart Transplants,” 9/27] apostrophe on the outside: “the cats’ bowls.” When a singular word which is not a proper name ends in an collective nouns — When a noun represents a group as “s,” add the “’s” anyway: “the bus’s tires.” See pos- a singular body, use the singular: “The group has two sessives in this section for more information. albums for sale.” When referring to the individuals in the group, use the plural: “The editorial board mem- When there is joint possession, only the second pos- bers have nothing to do after 8 pm on Sundays.” sessor should get the apostrophe: “despite his mother and father’s care.” However, if multiple people have Colons and Semicolons individual possession, put the apostrophe on both: Colons introduce subordinate phrases: they indicate “despite his brother’s and teacher’s efforts.” that the words following will explain or amplify the When a letter, symbol, or number is being referred original words. to, do not use an apostrophe. Put the character in Capitalize the first word after a colon if what fol- quotation marks, or capitalize it and leave it naked lows is a complete sentence; otherwise, leave the if possible: “I got two As this semester.” “He spelled first word lower-case. For instance, write “Murphy’s ‘bizarre’ with two ‘z’s.” message was clear: He should leave the University Articles immediately,” but “There are three things to watch “CMU student Harry Q. Bovik said...” out for: ice, wind, and snow.” “Harry Q. Bovik, a CMU student, said...” A colon is also an abbreviation for the word “said” “Math Club president Harry Q. Bovik said...” in a headline: “Bush: ‘No new taxes’ ” (Notice the “The president of Math Club, Harry Q. Bovik, use of single quotes as well.) said...” A colon should be used only after a main clause; “Harry Q. Bovik, the president of Math Club, do not use it after a verb or preposition. In particular, said...” never write “He said: ‘Hello.’ ” Use a comma, or no “Harry Q. Bovik, president of Math Club, said...” punctuation at all. These are the only acceptable ways of attaching a Semicolons join two phrases of equal importance title or occupational description to a person’s name. without using a coordinating conjunction. Semicolons Notice the placement of the commas and the use of also list things. Follow these rules for semicolons: articles (“the” or “a”). Use the serial semicolon: “Bill Gates, the CEO of Brackets Microsoft; Michael Eisner, the head of Disney; and Use square brackets for three purposes in The Tar- Peter Griffin.” Avoid the semicolon-separated list tan: whenever possible. To provide elliptical information inside direct quo- Do not capitalize the word after a semicolon: “He tations: “ ‘And that’s really a credit to Keith [Moore] was a senior; therefore, he was always right.” and the job he did here,’ Hale said.” Commas To paraphrase within direct quotations. In this Commas require some degree of caution, as they can case, replace the words being paraphrased with the affect a sentence’s entire meaning. “Teacher Strikes, paraphrase itself surrounded in brackets. In this Idle Kids” isn’t the same headline as “Teacher Strikes example, the word “they” has been paraphrased: Idle Kids”! Commas do the following things: “ ‘[APhiO] did a really good job of running the elec- Separate main clauses linked by coordinating tions,’ he said.”

27 conjunctions: “I stayed up all night, but I finally fin- A hyphen is used in phone numbers and within ished my paper.” words. For example, the word “cross-examine” con- Set off introductory phrases. These phrases link tains a hyphen. See Hyphens in this section for hy- their sentences with the last sentences or introduce phenation rules. the information: “Explaining the similarity, some Ellipses scientists pointed to alien abduction.” There are three types of ellipses: Set off parenthetical information. Without such in- Use the three-dot ellipsis to indicate missing ma- formation, the sentence would still make sense: “Tran terial in the middle of a quoted sentence: “ ‘It’s im- Nguyen, who recently emigrated from Vietnam, lives portant for everyone to note ... what a hard job this is,’ in Shadyside.” Em dashes or parentheses can also be he said.” A three-dot ellipsis consists of a space fol- used for this purpose; which you use depends on how lowed by three periods followed by a space. Do not important you wish to make the information. use the Macintosh “option-;” character. The space In the same vein, commas are used to set off a phrase after a three-dot ellipsis should be non-breaking. that modifies the whole main clause (“Many busi- Use the four-dot ellipsis to indicate missing text at nesses, their profits already decreasing, refuse to re- the end of a sentence, or missing material that spans cycle.”) or to set off a contrasting phrase (“The color, several sentences, in which the text before the ellip- not the size, is important.”). sis stands as a complete sentence: “ ‘I think there are List things. The Tartan always uses the serial comma: a myriad of arguments.... It’s not a simple case,’ he “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” in place of “sex, drugs said.” A four-dot ellipsis consists of four periods fol- and rock ’n’ roll.” lowed by a space; there is no space before it. Dashes & Hyphens Use the three-dot ellipsis with no leading space to There are three types of horizontal lines in The Tar- represent a pause or trailing-off in colloquial writing, tan: such as in Pillbox reviews. Use sparingly, and never in news articles. “I really liked this movie... so why An em dash is used in a dateline or to indicate a does everyone say it’s awful?” pause in a sentence — like this! It offsets extra infor- mation — information that the sentence could stand effect — As a noun, “effect” means “result.” As a verb, without — and indicates a sudden change in tone or “effect” means “to bring about” or “to accomplish”; thought or an especially dramatic aside: “The film it is not to be confused with the verb “affect,” which — if one can call it that — seems to have been writ- means “to influence.” ten by a sixteen-year-old boy.” exclamation point — Use it sparingly! An em dash is always surrounded by spaces. Hyphenation Rules The space following the em dash should be a non- Each hyphenated word should have at least two breaking space. letters before the break and three after. The let- To indicate an em dash, type shift-option-hyphen ter sequence after the break should contain at least on a Macintosh, or use three consecutive hyphens in one vowel that is not a silent “e”; thus, “comforta- plain text. You can abbreviate it on proofs by writing ble” is not a correct break. The letter sequence be- “1/m.” fore the break should indicate its sound; thus, “ac- An en dash is used to separate two numerals (such idic” is not a correct break. Some prefixes should as sports scores), but never in phone numbers. It has never be hyphenated after, including “ac-,” “is-,” no spaces on either side (except in the Horoscopes “se-,” “us-,” and any consonant followed by “a.” section), and looks like this: “March 19–April 21.” Avoid hyphenating a compound word at internal An en dash is also used in party affiliations: “John hyphenation points. For example, in the word “non- McCain (R–Ariz.).” The en dash itself should be breaking,” the word “breaking” itself should actu- non-breaking. ally be non-breaking. Otherwise we get “non-break- To indicate an en dash, type option-hyphen on a ing,” which is just ugly. Mac, or use two consecutive hyphens in plain text. URLs should never be hyphenated; they You can indicate it on paper by writing “1/n.” should be broken after a slash or period when-

28 ever possible, and in the middle of an alpha- side effect of breaking the flow of a sentence. When betic word as a last resort. Example: “www.the you do use them, follow these punctuation rules: tartan.org.” The same rules apply to bboard names If the text inside parentheses is a complete sentence and e-mail addresses. or sentences, place all punctuation inside the paren- Hyphens theses. In this case, the parenthetical unit should not Generally, if you’re confused about whether a hyphen fall within another sentence, so that sentence’s clos- is needed to join two words, check to see if the joined ing punctuation should come before the open paren- words are being used as an adjective (“off-campus thesis. For instance: “Bill was a real cool guy. (Of housing” vs. “she lives off campus.”). If not, omit course, he did have an unresolved Oedipal complex, the hyphen. but hell, who’s perfect?)” When someone coins an adjective (“she gave him a If the text inside parentheses is not a complete sen- classic come-and-get-it smile”), its component words tence, the parenthetical unit should fall in the middle must be joined with hyphens. of a sentence and all punctuation should come right after the closing parenthesis: “Bill was a really cool Use hyphens within compound adjectives that guy (she thought), but he did have that unresolved precede the word they modify: “Culbertson is out- Oedipal complex to worry about.” of-state talent.” However, such adjectives lose their hyphens when used after their subject: “The manual passive voice — stating actions without directly attrib- is out of date.” uting the actors: “The passive voice is being used by me.” Use of the passive voice is not a sin, and can be Do not use a hyphen after the word “very” or after helpful, but use it sparingly, as it is bulky and often an adverb ending in the suffix “-ly”: “This is an easily awkward. remembered rule.” possessives — Follow these rules: Use a hyphen after some prefixes, especially when without the hyphen an “e” would be doubled: For plurals and proper names ending in “s,” use a “pre-empt,” “re-elect.” However: “cooperate.” single apostrophe with no additional “s”: “Bill Gates’ money,” “Tartan staffers’ insomnia.” Use hyphens in fractions and in numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine: “two-thirds,” “eighty- For acronyms and singular words, use apostro- seven.” phe-s: “SCS’s prominence in the field,” “the ass’s mouth.” Use a hyphen to clear up confusion that might result from reading the words separately: “Mike progressive tense — Avoid the unnecessary progres- Doonesbury is a comic-strip character” would save sive tense: “The Pentagon is planning on releasing the reader from having to guess whether Doonesbury documents.” Not only is this colloquial grammar, it is a comic character who strips or a character in a lacks punch. Write instead: “The Pentagon plans to comic strip. Similarly, “re-creation” is not the same release documents.” as “recreation.” Pronouns In a series of hyphenated compound words, put A pronoun stands in for a noun: “he,” “them,” “it.” hyphens at the end of all of the first words in the Make sure that pronouns have clear antecedents; if compound word: “They had eight- or nine-fingered a pronoun’s reference is ambiguous, the meaning of hands.” the sentence can change. Generally (and there are ex- its, it’s — “Its” is a possessive and should not be given ceptions), a pronoun refers to the last applicable noun an apostrophe. “It’s” is a contraction for “it is” and or the same thing that the last pronoun referred to. Be should be given an apostrophe. sure that the antecedent is clear and not implied. Parentheses Place your pronoun close to its noun. Parentheses indicate unnecessary information in a Never use the same pronoun to refer to differ- sentence. Parentheses are favored over other meth- ent things in the same sentence: “It is true that the ods of offsetting extra information (such as commas, Constitution sets limits, but it is also flexible.” “Luke em dashes, or a semicolon), because they are the least didn’t like Vader, but then he found out that he was intrusive. Use parentheses sparingly, as they have the his father.”

29 Use “he or she” to refer to a generic person or some- main clauses. one of unknown gender. Avoid “they” as a singular Run-on sentences are complete thoughts attached pronoun. Whenever possible, rewrite the sentence so to other complete thoughts without any punctuation. that the pronoun can be plural, or so that pronouns Look for main clauses and separate them into two can be eliminated entirely. difference sentences, or else add a coordinating con- Quotation marks — Follow these rules: junction or an appropriate punctuation mark. Always use curly quotes. Comma splices are complete thoughts joined without Use double quotes except in headlines and nested any signal that the first complete thought is over: “He quotes. is very committed to his studies, he spends almost all his time on homework.” Make a comma splice Use single quotes in place of double quotes in head- into two separate sentences; join the thoughts with a lines. coordinating conjunction such as “and” or “but”; or Nest single quotes within double quotes, and vice add a punctuation mark that separates the thoughts (a versa: “ ‘Now that we’re a “coalition,” everybody semicolon or em dash). can get involved,’ he said.” The sentence’s subject and its verb should be close Separate side-by-side quotes with a non-breaking enough to each other that the sentence is not confus- space (option-apple-X in InDesign): “ ’90s” and ing. Subordinate clauses should always be after the “ ‘Gee,’ he said, ‘I could have had a V-8!’ ” subject and the verb, or at least set off with commas, Omit the closing quotes on all but the last paragraph parentheses or em dashes: “Subjects and verbs — the when the same speaker is speaking for more than one meat of a sentence — should always be clear.” paragraph. tense — Articles should be written in a tense appropri- When using other punctuation, put the following ate to what is being covered. For a preview article in punctuation marks outside the closing quote: colon, the magazine, this could mean the future tense; for semicolon, and em dash. A question mark goes in- News, it is generally the past tense, unless the story side the closing quote if the quote itself is a question; deals with an ongoing issue. Whatever you use, keep otherwise it goes outside the closing quote. All other it consistent throughout the article — if someone punctuation (in particular, commas and periods) goes “says” something, someone else shouldn’t “said” inside the quotes, even if only one word is quoted. something later on. Put the following in quotation marks: their, there, they’re — The possessive form of “they,” Spring Carnival slogans the opposite of “here,” and a contraction of “they titles of articles and essays are,” respectively. names of individual TV-series episodes (but names which, that — When in doubt, use “that” instead of of TV shows should go in italics) “which”; the latter is generally more formal. In par- titles of debates and speeches ticular, use “which” to introduce parenthetical titles of poems, short stories, and songs information about a specific object, and “that” to classical pieces that aren’t symphonies or operas introduce information that clarifies the identity of Never use quotes for emphasis; it may look as if the object: “The barbecue, which was held in Don- the writer is questioning the veracity of his or her ner Ditch, was a great success” versus “The barbecue own statement: “ ‘Fresh’ apples for sale!” Are they that was held in Donner Ditch was a great success; fresh? the one held on the Cut was not.” Sentences who, whom — “Who” is a subject: “Who wrote the Generally, if you have to read a sentence more than splash article?” “Whom” is an object: “To whom do once to understand it, it needs to be rewritten. Fol- I address my complaint?” Beware the grammatical lowing are ways to correct some common sentence monstrosities introduced by reporting verbs: “The problems: President, who pundits said led the country into an unnecessary war...” is correct, but reads terribly. Sentence fragments need a subject or a verb, or are subordinate clauses which need to be attached to your, you’re — The possessive form of “you” and a contraction of “you are,” respectively.

30 Technology and the Internet

Andrew — Always capitalize when referring to CMU’s home page — use “web page” (for a single page) or intranet. “website” (preferred) instead. AFS — Andrew File System the Internet bboards — electronic bulletin boards. “Bulletin boards” an intranet refers to the physical boards on walls around cam- kilobyte (K) pus. Names of bboards should be slanted 12 degrees: Mac — a Macintosh, a personal computer made by “cmu.misc.market.” Note that only CMU internal Apple. See PC. bboards are called “bboards”; Usenet in general is composed of newsgroups. megabyte (MB) byte online — not “on-line,” unless referring to a proper system, such as “Student Information On-Line.” ccon — cluster consultant OS — operating system. Write out. cluster — acceptable way to first refer to a computer cluster. PC — personal computer, especially an IBM clone. Avoid this term, as it can be ambiguous. Computing Services punctuation — Try to avoid using bboard names, CS — computer science e-mail addresses, or URLs right before or after punc- CSW — Computing Skills Workshop tuation that could be interpreted as part of the bboard, Cyrus — the current mail system, which supports e-mail address, or URL. For the same reason, avoid Pine and Mulberry; the standard system for mailing hyphenating e-mail addresses and URLs. throughout the Internet. RAM — Random Access Memory data — Plural. Avoid the stilted “datum.” ROM — Read-Only Memory DataComm — Data Communications URLs — Universal Resource Locators (web addresses). data storage — Use the following conventions when These should be slanted: “www.andrew.cmu.edu.” discussing amounts of computer memory: Use e.g. Do not include the protocol “http://”; do include “256 bytes” for amounts of memory up to one kilo- any other protocols (e.g., “https://”). If a URL spans byte. two or more lines, it should break after a slash or Use “256K” (no space between the number and period if possible, and otherwise should break in the “K”) for amounts of memory between 1K and the middle of a sequence of letters. Breaks before 1 megabyte. or after numbers or punctuation are bad. A hyphen should never be added at a break; what is “www.the- Use “256 megabytes” or “256 gigabytes” for amounts tartan.org”? A correct break would be “www.the of memory above one megabyte, except when re- tartan.org.” See Hyphenation Rules in the Punctua- ferring to computer systems (“a Pentium III with tion and Grammar section for more information. 256 MB RAM”). userid d-list the Web — the World Wide Web. The word “Web” is e-commerce always capitalized in this context. e-mail — E-mail addresses are slanted 12˚, which is web page, website — preferred over “homepage” or not the same as italics; compare “abc” and “abc”. “home page.” Note that “web page” — a page on the Addresses ending in andrew.cmu.edu may omit the Web — is two words, while “website” is one word. domain name in informal writing in The Tartan; thus, “[email protected]” could be written zone — For computer network zones, capitalize the as “advisor@.” E-mail addresses within italic text name of the zone (e.g. Mudge zone) only if it is a are unslanted, thus: “Harry Q. Bovik (bovik@) is an proper name. imaginary CMU student. He welcomes all respon- sible replies.”

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