OUR WORDS

4.1 Grammar

Following rules for grammar is another way to keep messages clear and consistent.

Abbreviations

Text with abbreviations is hard to read, especially for non-English speakers. Avoid abbreviations when an option exists.

  • Abbreviations that have become household terms are acceptable: CBC, CTV, NATO, radar
  • Do not use abbreviations for days or months in your writing
  • Omit periods in all-capital abbreviations: UBC
  • Use periods for mixed abbreviations: Jr., B.Comm.
  • Omit periods when mixed abbreviations begin and end in a capital letter: PhD, U of T

Capitalization

We use a few different forms of capitalization. We do not use all capitals in curriculum or promotional materials. All caps is difficult for English language learners to read. Use sentence case, or if it is a title or sub-title you can capitalize each word.

Job titles are capitalized when we refer to a person, and not capitalized when referring to a specific job. For example:

  • David is the Program Assistant
  • The program assistant helped me with the document

We do not capitalize random words in the middle of sentences. Here are some words that we never capitalize in a sentence. For more, see the Word List.

  • immigrant
  • online
  • email
  • employer

Punctuation

Punctuation within Quotation Marks

The period and the comma always go within the quotation marks. The dash, the semicolon, the colon, the question mark and the exclamation point go within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.

Commas and Conjunctions

We prefer the Oxford comma, or serial comma, in a sentence to avoid confusion. For example:

  • I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.
  • I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty. ✓

Put a comma before the concluding conjunction in a series if an integral element of the series requires a conjunction:

  • I had orange juice, toast, and ham and eggs for breakfast.

Hyphenation

Use a hyphen to avoid duplicated vowels or tripled consonants. For example:

  • anti-intellectual
  • pre-empt
  • shell-like

Do not use a hyphen after “after” when it is used to form a noun:

  • aftereffect
  • afterthought

Make it “after-” with a hyphen when it is used to form a compound modifier:

  • after-dinner drink
  • after-theater snack

Numerals

Outside of reports, there are two instances where it is OK to use a numeral at the beginning of a sentence:

  • Starting a sentence with the year
  • Starting a sentence with a numeral-and-letter combination:
    “3D movies are drawing more fans.”