The following standards apply to all editorial materials relating to National Park
College. These materials include digital, electronic or print messages intended for,
or accessible to, an off-campus audience. These materials may include, but are not
limited to:
Magazines
Annual reports
Newspapers
Fliers
E-newsletters
Programs
Brochures
Posters
Catalogs
Display or broadcast advertisements
Web pages
If you have questions as to whether your material falls under these guidelines, contact
the Marketing and Public Relations Department at communications@np.edu.
Institutional Name
The official name of the institution is National Park College. The following are acceptable:
National Park College
NPC
The partial name “National Park” should not be used. When referring to National Park
College as “the College,” college should always be capitalized.
Building / Structures(Proper Name/Abbreviations)
Student Commons/CO
Dogwood Hall/DH
Gerald Fisher Campus Center/CC
Charlotte Phelps/CP
Computer Resources/CR
Frederick M. Dierks Center for Nursing and Health Sciences/FD
Lab Sciences/LS
Legacy Hall/LH
Business Division Offices/BD
Communications and Arts and Social Sciences Division Offices/CA
Library/LIB
Liberal Arts/LA
Ish Stivers/IS
Ralph Pinkerton/RP
HVAC/HVAC
Welding/WL
Criminal Justice/CJ
Adult Education/AE
Marine Technology/MT
Wood Technology/WT
NPTC Student Center/SC
Automotive Technology/AT
Advance Automotive Technology/AA
Technical Sciences/TS
Advertising and Design/AD
Engineering/EG
Community and Corporate Training Center/TC
Maintenance Department/MD
Note: Use “residence hall” or “on-campus housing” when referring to campus housing, never
use “dorms” or “dormitories.”
Office Names and Titles
National Park College uses the following structure:
Office of the President, Office of Admissions, Office of Marketing & Communications,
etc.
Vice President for (not “of”)
Director of (not “for”)
Clauses
Non-discrimination Clause
In compliance with state and federal laws, National Park College has a responsibility
to clearly communicate its commitment to equal opportunity in education and employment,
and to make its programs and services accessible to those with disabilities. Please
use the following statements as appropriate on printed materials and related websites.
Full Statement
National Park College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and administers
its educational and employment programs in conformance with federal and state laws
prohibiting discrimination based upon sex, sexual orientation, race, age, disability
and Vietnam Era Veterans' status.
Use the short statement below for posters, advertising and publications in which space
is severely limited:
National Park College does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, religion,
national or ethnic origin, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status or sexual
orientation.
Use this statement for known audiences (example: alumni, invitations, etc.) and when
space is minimal:
National Park College is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Employer.
Disability Accommodations
The College’s disabilities access statement should be included in all programs for
public events.
The College complies with applicable provisions of the Rehabilitation Act and the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Should you need accommodations, please contact
disability specialist Robyn Hendrix, 501-760-4227 or robyn.hendrix@np.edu.
Language and Grammar Guide
National Park College’s Office of Marketing and Public Relations understands there
are a number of style manuals available. Also, individuals may have learned styles
somewhat different than what is in the National Park College Graphic and Editorial
Guidelines. Regardless of the style you use in your private work, it is imperative
that all communications that represent the College reflect the same standards.
The Office of Marketing and Public Relations uses the AP Stylebook, the official style
manual referenced by professional media organizations. All employees who write to
promote the College and its activities and reputation are encouraged to utilize an
AP Stylebook as well as a good dictionary when drafting editorial.
Be consistent with style and punctuation within a single document. Cutting and pasting
from a variety of sources can create a visually distracting and unprofessional compilation
of tenses, capitalization and styles. In addition to using spell check when your document
is finished, read the document for consistency of form.
Abbreviations and acronyms
A few universally recognized abbreviations are required in some circumstances. Some
others are acceptable depending on the context. Do not use abbreviations or acronyms
a reader would not quickly recognize. Guidance on how to use a particular abbreviation
or acronym is provided in entries alphabetized according to the sequence of letters
in the word or phrase. Some examples:
before a name: abbreviate the following titles when used before a full name outside
direct quotations: Dr., Gov., Lt. Gov., Mr., Mrs., Rep., The Rev., Sen. and certain
military designations. Spell out all except Dr., Mr., Mrs. and Ms. when they are used
before a name in direct quotations. For guidelines on how to use titles, see the entries
for the most commonly used titles in the AP Stylebook.
after a name: abbreviate junior or senior after an individual’s name. (For clarification,
see under Jr., Sr.) Abbreviate company, corporation and incorporated when used after
the name of a corporate identity. In some cases, an academic degree may be abbreviated
after an individual’s name. (see academic titles, credentials and certifications)
With dates or numerals: Use the abbreviations A.D., B.C., a.m., p.m., No., and abbreviate
certain months when used with the day of the month. Right: In 450 B.C.; at 9:30 a.m.;
in room No. 6; on Sept. 16. Wrong: Early this a.m., he asked for the No. of your room.
Right: Early this morning, he asked for the number of your room.
Special cases: Abbreviations are used in tabulations and certain types of technical
writing.
Academic degrees
For materials other than news releases, use Associate of Arts (first reference), A.A.
(second reference); Bachelor of Arts (first reference), B.A. (second reference); Master
of Science (first reference), M.S. (second reference); Doctor of Education (first
reference), Ed.D. (second reference); Doctor of Philosophy (first reference), Ph.D.
(second reference). No space after periods in abbreviations. The word degree should
not follow a degree abbreviation: he has a B.A. in history, not he has a B.A. degree
in history. Use associates, bachelor’s and master’s degrees, never associate’s, bachelors
and masters degrees. When referring to degrees in general, lowercase the first letter
of the degree and use the ‘s’ ending; “They all had master’s degrees in engineering.”
Capitalize formal names of academic degrees: Associate of Science, Bachelor of Arts
in Accounting, Doctor of Philosophy. Check the preference of AP Stylebook regarding
the use of academic degrees and the prefix “Dr.”
Academic departments/offices
Capitalize the name of departments and the words department, office and school only
when they appear as part of the official divisional name (Department of Anthropology,
anthropology department). But for news releases, use lowercase except for words that
are proper nouns or adjectives: the department of history, the history department,
the department of English, the English department.
Academic titles, credentials and certifications
Capitalize and spell out formal titles such as professor, dean, president, chancellor,
graduate research professor, professor emeritus and chairman when they precede a name.
Lowercase elsewhere. Lowercase modifiers such as history in history Professor Jane
Doe or department in department Chairman John Smith. Place longer titles after the
name. Example: John Smith, executive director of the Center for the Study of Environmental
Conservation, said he agrees.
Here is the preferred style for a list of staff or faculty when you want to name their
degree and credentials, certifications and/or other associations:
Name (no courtesy title even if Ph.D., because that will be listed after, and a double
listing would be redundant)
Highest degree a person has received
Certifications following a name should be avoided if they are vague to the general
public. However, if they are to be listed, they should go in order received. No periods.
Licensing/memberships/associations should be avoided if they are vague to the general
public. However, if they are to be listed, they should go in alphabetical order. No
periods.
For example:
Betsy Ross, Ph.D., CPA, AICPA
George Washington, MBA*, CFP *MBAis an exception to this rule (no periods are necessary
Advisor
Not adviser.
Alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnae
Use alumnus (alumni in the plural) when referring to a man who has attended a school.
Use alumna (alumnae in the plural) for similar references to a woman. Use alumni when
referring to groups of men and women. Never use “alum,” which is a crystalline compound
containing aluminum.
Annual
An event cannot be described as annual until it has been held in at least two successive
years. Do not use the term “first annual.” Instead, use “first” or “first-ever,” indicating
there will be more.
Boardroom
At National Park College, the correct form is one word: boardroom.
Capitalization
In general, avoid unnecessary capitals. Use a capital letter only if you can justify
it by one of the principles listed here. Many words and phrases, including special
cases, are listed separately. If there is no relevant listing for a particular word
or phrase, consult a dictionary
Proper nouns: Capitalize nouns that identify a specific person, place or thing: Heather,
Atlanta and Africa.
Proper names: Capitalize common nouns such as party, river, street, west, when they
are an integral part of the full name for a person, place or thing: Democratic Party, Arkansas
River, College Drive, Texas. Lowercase when they stand alone in subsequent references:
the party, the river, the street. Lowercase names in all plural uses: the Democratic
and Republican parties, Main and State streets.
Titles: Capitalize formal titles when used immediately before a name. Lowercase formal
titles when used alone or in constructions that set them off from a name by commas.
See academic titles.
Chairman, chairwoman
Chair is preferred: department chair. Never chairperson unless it is an organization’s
formal title for an office.
Classes, courses
Lowercase when referring to courses and classes: I took a history class and a math
class. Uppercase if referring to specific name of a class or the class uses a proper
noun or numeral: I took Biology 200 and English 100.
Coach
Capitalize only when used without a qualifying term before the name of the person
who directs an athletic team: Coach Jason Hudnell, head coach Jason Hudnell, the coach
said.
Courtesy titles
Do not use Miss, Mrs., Mr. or Ms. before full or last names. First reference of the
use of Dr. in the print media is reserved for medical doctors. Otherwise, if an individual
has earned a doctorate, the name should be followed by the appropriate degree abbreviation
(e.g. Ph.D. or Ed.D.) set off by commas: Jane Doe, Ph.D., announced today... Also,
examples of subsequent references are as follows: first reference would be President
John Hogan; second reference would be Hogan. Also see formal titles.
Dates
Spell out days of week and months without days: September 2000. Abbreviate months
— except March, April, May, June, July — when used with specific dates: Sept. 1, 2000.
Never use a comma between month and year when a specific day is not mentioned. Same
is true for seasons: fall 1991. Comma should follow year when specific date is given:
Feb. 8, 1990, was the date mentioned.
Do not use “on” with dates when its absence would not lead to confusion: the program
ends Dec. 15, not the program ends on Dec. 15.
Spell out numerical designations first through ninth and use numerals with letter
suffixes for 10th and above: the first semester, the 10th anniversary.
Do not use “st” or “th” with dates: submit applications by Oct. 14, not Oct. 14th.
Use ‘s’ without apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries: During the 1940s;
the 1700s. Use an apostrophe for class years: She belonged to the Class of ’72.
Days of the week
Do not abbreviate, except when needed in a tabular format: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu,
Fri, Sat. Three letters, without periods, to facilitate tabular composition.
Dean’s list
Lowercase in all uses: He is on the dean’s list. She is a dean’s list student.
Department/office titles
Use uppercase when department is part of the official and formal name: National Park
College Department of Math and Science. Otherwise, AP style calls for lowercase except
for proper nouns or adjectives: the department of biology, the math department, the
department of English or the Business department.
Director
Lowercase in most uses, unless it is an official title.
Ellipsis (…)
Use an ellipsis to indicate the deletion of one or more words in condensing quotes,
texts and documents. Treat an ellipsis as a three-letter word. See details in the
AP Stylebook.
Email
Electronic mail. Note lowercase ‘e’. While email does not include a hyphen, words
like e-commerce, e-trading and e-retailing do. When writing email addresses, use all
lowercase unless the address is case sensitive.
Faculty
Lowercase unless part of the name or title.
Formal titles
Capitalize professional or academic titles immediately before the name: President
Tracy Fitzsimmons, Ph.D. For professional or academic titles immediately following
the name, use lowercase and set them off with commas: Tracy Fitzsimmons, Ph.D., president,
introduced the speaker. If the individual has more than one title, use only the one
most appropriate to the context of the publication. A long list of titles can interfere
with the clarity of the message.
full time, full-time
Hyphenate when used as a compound modifier: He works full time. She has a full-time
job.
Graduation/commencement
A student graduates when he/she fulfills all the requirements to graduate. A student
does not have to participate in a commencement ceremony in order to graduate. National
Park College holds one commencement exercise each year in May.
Hyphens
Hyphens are joiners. Used to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or
more words. The fewer hyphens the better; use them only when not using them causes
confusion (small-business owner, but health care center).
Internet
Always lowercase.
It’s, its
It’s is a contraction for it is or it has: It’s our option. It’s been a long day.
Its is the possessive form of the neuter pronoun: National Park College has earned
its reputation.
Lectures
Capitalize and use quotation marks for their formal titles, as described in composition
titles.
Long term, long-term
Hyphenate when used as a compound modifier: We will prevail in the long term. It is
a long-term issue.
-ly
Do not use a hyphen between adverbs ending in -ly and adjectives they modify: an easily
remembered rule, a badly damaged island, a fully informed student. See the compound
modifiers section of the hyphen entry in the AP Stylebook.
Magazine names
Capitalize the name but do not place it in quotes. Lowercase magazine unless it is
part of the publication’s formal title.
Majors, programs
Do not capitalize majors, programs, specializations or concentrations of study in
news releases when they are not part of a designated degree: She received as Associate
of Arts in Geology. She majored in economics. She was a history major.
Master of arts, master of science
A master’s degree is acceptable in any reference. Do not use “a master’s.”
Months
Capitalize the names of months in all uses. When a month is used with a specific date,
abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out when using
alone or with a year alone. When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate
the year with commas: December 2001 was a warm month. When a phrase refers to a month,
day and year, set off the year with commas: Mar. 16, 1979, was her birthday.
More than, over
Acceptable in all uses to indicate greater numerical value. Prices went up more than
$20 per item. Items went up over $20 apiece.
Non –
The rules of prefixes apply, but in general, no hyphen is used when forming a compound
that does not have special meaning and can be understood if not is used before the
base word. Use a hyphen; however, before proper nouns or in awkward combinations:
non-nuclear.
Noon, midnight
Do not use 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. in reference to either noon or midnight. Do not use
“12 p.m. noon” or “12 noon.” It is simply “noon.”
Numbers
Spell out a number at the beginning of a sentence, with one exception: a numeral that
identifies a calendar year: 1968 marked a turning point in the Vietnam War. Spell
out whole numbers below 10. Use figures for 10 and above: They had 10 dogs and four
cats. When large numbers must be spelled out, use a hyphen to connect a word ending
in ‘y’ to another word; do not use commas between other separate words that are part
of one number: twenty, twenty-one, one hundred forty-five.
Numerals
In general, spell out one through nine and first through ninth, use numerals for 10
and 10th and above. For more details, see the AP Stylebook.
On, about
On refers to spatial objects: He sat on the chair. Use about in non-spatial references:
The professor will host a class about history.
On campus, on-campus
On-campus is a unit modifier: he lives in on-campus housing; on campus shows adverbial
location: she has a job on campus.
Online
One word in all cases for the computer connection term. Do not use hyphen.
Organizations and institutions
Capitalize the full names of organizations and institutions: the American Medical
Association; General Motors Corp.; Harvard University; Harvard University Medical
School; the Society of Professional Journalists, Phi Theta Kappa. Use lowercase for
internal elements of an organization when they have names that are widely used generic
terms: the board of directors of General Motors, the board of trustees of Columbia
University, the history department of Harvard University, the sports department of
the Sentinel-Record. For more details, see the AP Stylebook.
Percent
Spell out, except in headlines: Two percent or 15 percent. Always use figures with
percents.
Professor
Capitalize when used as a formal title only before a name. Do not capitalize a course
subject, unless it is a proper noun: He studied history under Professor John Smith.
Seasons
Lowercase for fall, winter, spring and summer and all derived words such as springtime.
Capitalize only when part of a formal name: Winter Olympics.
Telephone numbers
If a publication is strictly for on-campus use, omit area code for university numbers:
555-5555; if publication might or will be sent off campus, include area code in parentheses
with a space between parentheses and number: (501) 555-5555.
That (conjunction)
Use the conjunction that to introduce a dependent clause if the sentence sounds or
looks awkward without it. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but in general: – That
usually may be omitted when a dependent clause immediately follows a form of the verb
to say: The president said he had signed the bill.
Time-date-place sequence
For consistency, when giving time, date and location of an event, list as follows:
The meeting begins at 4 p.m. on Thursday in Room 212. Note order: time, date, location.
Times
Use figures except for noon and midnight: 4 p.m. or 10 a.m. Use a colon to separate
hours from minutes: 11 a.m., 3:30 p.m. The word “o’clock” is cumbersome: not 4:30
o’clock, which would be redundant; the colon and numbers are short for o’clock.
Also avoid redundancies such as “10 a.m. this morning.” Time listings with a.m. or
p.m. are preferred, except in formal invitations and announcements. The construction
4 o’clock is acceptable, but time listings with a.m. or p.m. are preferred. Also,
:00 is not necessary but :30 is.
Website
One word, lowercase w.
examples: webcast, webmaster, website
Web address
In most cases, “http://” as well as “www” may be omitted: np.edu.