Names

Use a person’s first and last name the first time they are mentioned. Only used last names on subsequent references.

Punctuation

Use a single space after a period.

Use commas to separate elements in a series.

Apples, bananas and cucumbers are healthy snacks.

Include a comma in a simple series if omitting it makes the meaning unclear.

The $10 million grant is to be split among Organization A, Organization B, Organization C, and Organization D. Omitting the comma after Organization C would indicate that Organization C and Organization D would have to split one-third of the grant.

Time

Date

Month, day, year: September 10, 2009

Time

Use a.m. and p.m. for formal work such as press releases. Use am and pm for less formal work such as social media posts.

To indicate duration of time, use “to” between the hours in text, and en dash in calendars: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 9-11 a.m.

The asthma workshop will be held from 3 to 4 p.m.

Use noon and midnight instead of 12pm and 12am. Do not use “12 midnight” or “12 noon” as it is redundant.

Months

Abbreviate months when used with a specific date: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec. Spell out if used alone or with a year.

The asthma workshop is on Sept. 22.

The asthma workshop will be held in September.

The asthma workshops will be held on Sept. 1, Sept. 22 and Sept. 25.

Days of the Week

Capitalize days of the week and do not use periods to abbreviate them.

Use the following abbreviations Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat.

 

Word List

Checkup (n.); check up (v.)

diabetes type 1 and type 2

dietitian

email

e-newsletter (E-newsletter at the beginning of a sentence)

follow-up (n. and adj.); follow up (v.)

health care

health center: lowercase when referring to health centers in general

K-12

login (used as a noun or adjective, like “login ID”); log in (used as a verb, to “log in”)

P.