5. Punctuation

Quotation Marks

Double quotation marks for full quotations.
Single quotation marks for nested quotations or referenced terms.
Example: “Joe said, ‘Are you sure about that?’”.

Oxford Comma

Always used.

Ampersand (&)

Use “and” in prose. Use “&” only to create internal sub-pairings.
Example: shoes & coat, oranges, tutu, guns & ammunition, and a cake.

Mathematical Operators

Use spacing around operators: x + y = z.
MathJax is first preference: https://www.mathjax.org/#gettingstarted
LaTeX is second preference.

Possessives and Plurals

Names ending in s take only an apostrophe: Louis’ chair.
Plurals do not use apostrophes: As, Bs, 1990s.

Abbreviation Period Rule

• If the abbreviation ends with the final letter of the full word, omit the period (Dr).
• If not, include the period (Prof.).
et al. retains the period on al. because it abbreviates alii.

Return to the manual index.

Licence

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). You may copy, adapt, and share the material for any non-commercial purpose, provided that appropriate credit is given.

Full licence text: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Commercial use:

For-profit institutions must obtain explicit written permission before using or adapting this material. Enquiries: hello@louisneilson.com