Board of TrusteesĬapitalize when using the whole name. When possible, refer to a person’s country of origin or follow the person’s preference: “Filipino American,” “Chinese American.” BĪcceptable as a racial/cultural descriptor. Acceptable to describe an American of Asian descent. Men’s and women’s sports should also be written with an ’s. Do not use apostrophe in plural cases.īachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees should always be written with an ’s. When referring to years, use only to indicate numerals that are left out. Use only if something is the second or more. “Alum” can be used as the singular, gender-neutral term for someone who has graduated from the College. Alumnae is the plural form for a group of female graduates.
When used as a modifier for a collective noun, use a plural noun: “African American communities,” not “African American community.” Alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnaeĪlumni is the plural noun for a group of male or mixed-gender graduates. Acceptable to describe an American of African descent.
The apostrophe faces away from numerals, e.g., ’83. If a person has earned more than one degree from Whittier College, list the undergraduate year first. If the name of an office, department, or school is part of the title, capitalization rules apply: “Jane Smith, dean of the school of Arts and Humanities.” Academic TitlesĬapitalize and spell out before names, lowercase after: “I am studying chemistry with Assistant Professor John Smith,” but “John Smith, assistant professor of chemistry.” Don’t abbreviate titles. Lowercase except when naming specific Schools, e.g., the School of Arts and Humanities. Otherwise, use Ph.D., after their name on the first reference.įor honorary degrees conferred by Whittier College, use L.H.D. when referring to a person with a medical degree. Degrees in abbreviations: B.A., Ph.D., M.A., and MBA (no periods). Use bachelor’s degree and master’s degree lowercase with an apostrophe doctoral degree is lowercase. Questions relating to this writing style guide should be directed to the Office of Communications at extension 4277. Other guidelines are often applied for academic writing. If not listed here, please refer to the Associated Press Style Guide and Webster’s New World College Dictionary as the source for all marketing and communications writing standards. These standards represent guidelines for language usage often occurring in Whittier College publications. But these days this gets muddied, with some students graduating in 3 years and other in 7, so the terms are not used much except perhaps at "ivy league" schools.The Whittier College Writing Style Guide reinforces general standards for writing, marketing, and communications materials as well as writing for the website. (In college/university the patterns are less well-defined, but traditionally the freshman-senior progression corresponds to the first through fourth years of a standard 4-year baccalaureate program. (Though, for practical reasons it's likely they will all offer some equivalent of a high school diploma for those satisfactorily completing the equivalent of 12 years of primary and secondary education.) (This does not affect the freshman=ninth, senior=twelfth association.)īut keep in mind that there are only limited nationwide rules and standards for US primary and secondary education, and some localities may use a radically different system. Often the grades 6-9 are grouped differently, with, eg, 6-8 or 7-9 in "middle school" or some such. This makes most "on schedule" graduating seniors be at or near their 18th birthday on graduation. The high school grades are also referred to as "freshman" (ninth), "sophomore" (tenth), "junior" (eleventh), and "senior" (twelfth). Next are "seventh" and "eighth" in "junior high school", then "ninth" through "twelfth" in "high school".
Then "elementary school", consisting of "first grade" (at about age 6) through "sixth grade". In the US the grades are "preschool" and "kindergarten", prior to the start of the numbered grades.