Academic Degrees:

• Use lowercase when referring to degrees in a general way:
  •  Mary has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard. 
• Use uppercase when writing out a full degree:
  • He earned his Master of Arts in Theology.
• Apostrophe use: 
  • associate degree, not associate’s degree
  • bachelor’s degree, master’s degree
  • doctorate and doctoral degree
• Omit periods in Marketing & Communications materials and on the web for abbreviated degrees:
  • AA, BA, BS, BSW, MS, MBA, MSW, MEd, PhD
     

Degree Years after Names:

• Use a backwards apostrophe before the year.
• Only the year is needed for undergraduate degrees. 
• For graduate degrees, use a comma between the name and the degree.
• For multiple degrees, use multiple commas.
• Examples:
  • Sally Thomas '18
  • Trevor Jenkins, MBA '22
  • Maria Martinez '12, MBA '14, PhD '22

a.m./p.m.

• Keep letters lowercase. Minutes are not needed for the head of the hour:
  • 10 a.m. not 10:00 a.m.
  • 7:30 p.m.

Commas:

• Use the serial (Oxford) comma in a list of three or more:
  • I filled my basket with apples, oranges, and pears.

It’s/Its:

• It’s = a contraction meaning “it is.”
  • It's a beautiful day today.
• Its = possessive.
  • The tree lost its branches.

Quotation Marks:

• Periods and commas always go INSIDE quotation marks. If inner and outer quotation marks are closing side by side, the period or comma precedes all the marks. Example:
  • She said, “Buy me a copy of ‘Treasure Island.’”
• Colons and semicolons go OUTSIDE all closing quotation marks.
  •  He defined “missiology”: the study of God’s mission on earth.
• Question marks and exclamation points may come before or after quotation marks, depending on whether the symbol applies to the entire sentence or just the quoted material.
  • Have you read “The Color Purple”?
  • The crowd shouted, “Long live the king!”

That/Which

• Use that for a restrictive clause -- a clause necessary to the reader’s understanding of the sentence. (There should be no commas around the clause.)
  • Eastern is the school that he chose.
• Use which in a nonrestrictive clause -- one providing added information, not essential to understanding. (Precede which by a comma.)
  • Eastern, which is in St. Davids, is his alma mater. 

That/Who:

• Use who or whom to refer to people. Use that or which to refer to objects.
  • She is the professor who won the award.
  • We love our alumni, who serve our community faithfully.

Toward, not “towards”

You’re/Your:

• You’re = a contraction meaning “you are.”
  • You're our top choice.
• Your = possessive.
  • Your lights are on.

• alumna (female); alumnae (female plural)
• alumnus (masculine); alumni (masculine plural or mixed group)
• biblical (capitalize Bible but not biblical)
• campus (lowercase), even when used as St. Davids campus
• capital (city); capitol (building)
• catalog
• database
• Dean’s List
• Eastern University
  • When referring to Eastern University, capitalize "the University." But the general use of "a university" should NOT be capitalized.
• email
• freshman: Try to use "first-year student" but when you can’t, remember that “freshmen” is plural except when used as an adjective (“freshman year”)
• full time (noun and adverb); full-time (adjective)
• healthcare (one word)
• inner city (noun); inner-city (adjective)
• McInnis Learning Center
• multi (most compounds formed with multi are one word, such as multicultural)
• nonprofit
• online
• Scripture (capitalized)
• software
• sophomore
• theatre (not theater, per the EU department)
• versus
• vita (singular) vitae (plural)
• worldview (one word)
• Waterwheel (one word)