Princeton Theological Seminary Style Guide Communications and Marketing December 2019 The Princeton Theological Seminary style guide provides editorial guidelines for internal and external communications, for content creators, editors, and writers of print and online content that is written for and about the Seminary. The purpose of the style guide is to ensure that content is consistent and appropriate in all formats across multiple platforms. The Seminary communications team generally follows the Associated Press Stylebook, used by major college and university communications departments. Seminary-specific names and titles and exceptions specific to the Seminary’s style and branding are listed in the Glossary. Published content and research for academic purposes may specified by an individual department or degree program. All Seminary communications must remain true to the Seminary’s mission; maintain a voice that is clear, compassionate, and honest; and be expressed in a tone that proclaims the integrity, faith, and scholarship of our service to theological education in the Christian tradition. Please reference the Princeton Theological Seminary Brand Standards Manual as a complement to the editorial style guide. All questions may be directed to the Department of Communication at [email protected]. Glossary A abbreviations – see Names and Abbreviations section academic alert academic degrees – the word “degree” doesn’t follow an abbreviation Examples: He has a master’s degree in theology. She received her MDiv and PhD from the Seminary. degrees: no periods in the abbreviations (see separate list of all PTS degrees) Master of Divinity – MDiv Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Bachelor of Art - BA Master of Business Administration - MBA admissions/admissions office/Office of Admissions and Financial Aid African American, Asian American, Native American (no hyphen) alumni – alumni (male plural; group of men and women), alumnus (male), alumna (female), alumnae (female plural) and, & – avoid using the ampersand (&) except if it is in a specific business name or to shorten social or digital headings Annual Fund B bachelor’s degree, Bachelor of Arts billion black – acceptable for a person of the black race; African American is acceptable for an American black person of African descent, African American as an adjective bursar, Bursar’s Office Board of Trustees, trustees C campus-wide chair – instead of chairman or chairwoman church, Church • As part of a formal name of a building, congregation or denomination Examples: United Methodist Church, Roman Catholic Church • All other uses, lower case, when church is used in an institutional sense. Example: Their church meets in a parking lot. Class of 2020 commencement composition titles – • Use italics for book titles. • Use quotation marks for song titles, albums computer and video game titles, movie titles, opera titles, play titles, poem titles, radio and television program titles, and the titles of lectures, speeches and works of art. Exceptions include the Bible, the Quran and other holy books and reference books. Do not use quotation marks around software titles like WordPerfect or Windows. • Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters. • Capitalize an article — the, a, an — or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title. • Names of most websites and apps are capitalized without quotes: Facebook, Foursquare. An exception is "FarmVille" and similar computer game apps which are in quotes. • All verbs in a title should lead with a capital letter. Example: This Is the Final Word comprehensive examination Constitution continuing education; Office of Continuing Education century, 20th century (noun), 20th-century literature (adjective) D degrees – no periods in the abbreviations (see separate list of all PTS degrees) Master of Divinity - MDiv Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Bachelor of Art - BA Master of Business Administration - MBA Distillery podcast doctorate – Dr.; Rev. Dr. – preferred usage is Joe Smith, PhD. PTS allows Dr. as a title for the academic doctorate degrees. AP uses Dr. for medical doctors only. dual-degree program – MDiv/MACEF is the dual-degree program E email; Email (as first word in a sentence) emeritus, emerita; in a title Emeritus, Emerita enews evangelical F Facebook page fall Farminary, The Farminary Project (Farminary as second reference) first-year student (used instead of freshman) fundraising, fundraiser (one word) H handicapped – use “accessible” rather than handicapped or disabled Hispanic – A person from or whose ancestors were from a Spanish-speaking land or culture. Latino and Latina are sometimes preferred. Follow the person's preference. Use a more specific identification when possible, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, or Mexican American Holy Spirit homepage I intergenerational internet italics – use for book titles K kingdom of God L Latino/Latina – often the preferred term for a person from a Spanish-speaking land or culture or from Latin America lifelong login (noun) log in, log out (verb) M master’s program, plural is master’s programs (master’s remains singular) Master of Theology, plural is Masters of Theology men, women – refer to as individuals, students, candidates million MDiv MA Move-In Day N names – In text, following the first reference full name, use the person’s last name. Example: John Jones is tonight’s speaker. Jones will discuss his new book. Doctorate candidate Mary Fulbright will deliver the sermon. Fulbright is expected to complete her dissertation in the spring semester. Examples of name format: Rev. John Jones, Jr. Rev. Dr. Michael Smith, Jr. Rev. Michael Smith, Jr., PhD Dale C. Alison, Jr., PhD Dr. Sam Adams (medical doctor) Jane Doe, MDiv ’03, PhD ’10 Mike Smith, MBA nationalities – capitalize the proper names of nationalities, peoples, races, tribes, etc.: Arab, Arabic, African, American, Caucasian, Cherokee, Chinese, French Canadian, Japanese, Jewish, Nordic, Sioux, Swede. Near Eastern New Testament numbers – • spell out one through nine; 10 and up use numerals 10, 11, 12, etc. • use commas in numbers over 999 (exceptions are house numbers, broadcast frequencies, telephone numbers, years) • million, billion, trillion in all except casual uses. Examples: I'd like to make a billion dollars. Or: I need $7 billion. The government ran a deficit of more than $1 trillion. • Do not go beyond two decimal places. 7.51 million people; $256 billion; 7,542,500 people; $2,565,750,000. Decimals are preferred where practical: 1.5 million. Not: 1 1/2 million. O Old Testament offices – (see full list of PTS offices below) Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, financial aid office Office of the Registrar, registrar’s office online on campus, on-campus housing P percent – spell out percent. Use % only in charts and graphs. Presbyterian Church (USA); abbreviation is PC (USA) presbytery President (U.S. President only), President Barnes (title), Princeton Seminary president Princeton Theological Seminary (first reference), Princeton Seminary (second reference) - for all external communication PTS (only for casual internal communication with colleagues and students, ok for social media) Q The Quad – the Seminary newsfeed quad – the center of the campus, generally a central location for outdoor events and casual student gatherings R Reformed reunion, 2020 Reunion Rev., the Reverend; Rev. Dr.; Most Rev.; Very Rev. • While there are some phrasing exceptions, the Rev. is preferred on first reference to clergy • The first reference to a clergy normally should include a capitalized title before the individual's name. In many cases, the Rev. is the designation that applies before a name on first reference. • Use the Rev. Dr. only if the individual has an earned doctoral degree (doctor of divinity degrees can be honorary) and reference to the degree is relevant. • On second reference to members of the clergy, use only a last name: the Rev. Billy Graham on first reference, Graham on second. • The Most Rev. is used before the names of the archbishops of Canterbury and York. • In the Roman Catholic Church, bishops and archbishops titles can be Archbishop Gregory Aymond, or the Most Rev. Gregory Aymond, archbishop of New Orleans. • Very Rev. is used as a title for various ecclesiastical officials (such as cathedral deans and canons, rectors of Roman Catholic colleges and seminaries, and superiors of some religious houses.) registrar S Scripture Seminary, seminary – when referring to PTS use Seminary Spirit spring states – New York state, state of Washington (see list below of state abbreviations) Student Government Association (SGA) summer synod, Synod of the Northeast (as a title in title caps) T telephone numbers – use “.” between numbers 609.220.1234, except when for online or mobile use where phone numbers should be hyphenated to ensure autodialing capability time – 5:00 a.m. 5:00 p.m. titles – in caps when preceding the name; lower case when following the name: Associate Professor of New Testament Eric D. Barreto Eric D. Barreto, associate professor of New Testament Twitter, Twitter feed U university-wide U.N. United States, spell out when possible; U.S. used for official titles like U.S. Army, U.S. Department of State, US for social media when space requires W Washington, D.C. web, website well-being winter World Christianity, worldwide Christianity World Mission World Wide Web worshiped, worshiping (per Calvin Institute style) Names and Abbreviations Religious Institutions/Seminaries