Page 2 - Style Book 2020

• Introduction.............................................2 • What to call us.........................................2 • School Board...........................................2 • Abbreviations...........................................3 • Capitalization..........................................3
Official Names........................................3 Governmental bodies..............................3 Titles......................................................4 Academic degrees..................................4 Committees............................................4 Departments..........................................4 Nationalities and races...........................4 • Grammar.................................................5 Collective nouns......................................5 Noun/pronoun agreement.......................5 • Numbers..................................................5 Money....................................................6 Ages.......................................................6 Decades and centuries...........................6 Room numbers........................................6 Dates and years......................................6 Times......................................................6 Fractions................................................ 6 • Punctuation...........................................7 Apostrophes...........................................7 Brackets.................................................7 Colons....................................................7 Commas.................................................8 Dashes...................................................8 Ellipses..................................................8 Exclamation points.................................8 Hyphens.................................................8 Parentheses...........................................9
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Periods...................................................9 Question marks.......................................9 Quotation marks...................................15 Semicolons..........................................10 Slashes................................................10
Nonsexist writing...................................11
What to do with he and his....................11 And then there’s he/she, him/her.........11 And man..............................................11 Occupational titles................................11 A few more words.................................12 Salutations...........................................12 Correspondence...................................12
Writing clearly.......................................13
Jargon..................................................13 Active voice...........................................13 Strong verbs..........................................13 Redundancies......................................13 Use shorter words.................................14 Use fewer words....................................14 That or which, who or whom..................14
Publication requirements.......................15
EEO statement......................................15 Brevard Public Schools logo..................15 Official Seal..........................................15 Letters vs. memos.................................15 Personal Assistance Request statement......16 Publication approval.............................16
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Brevard Style was produced by the Brevard Public Schools Office of Government and Community Relations and is based on Orange County Style, a publication developed by Orange County Public Schools. Special thanks to the OCPS Employee Communications Division for permission to use materials from Orange County Style (2016).
The School Board of Brevard County, Florida, does not discriminate in admission or access to, or treatment or employment in, its programs and ac- tivities on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, handicap or any other reason prohibited by law. District administrators responsible for Equal Opportunity compliance for students and/or employees may be contacted at (321) 633-1000.
District Publications..............................17 E-mail Etiquette....................................18 Telephone & Voice Mail Etiquette...........18 • S-p-e-l-l-i-n-g..........................................19 • Acronyms and abbreviations...................20 • References............................................24
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