The Tartan Style Manual — Fall 2005
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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. 2 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 3 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.