ABBREVIATIONS

 

ABBREVIATIONS

As a general rule, abbreviate as little as possible.

1. Titles with surnames:
         When only the surname is used in a sentence, spell out all titles except Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. and Esq.

              Ms. Wilkes was invited to the lecture by Professor Morrow.

         When using an initial or initials within an individual's name, capitalize the initial and follow it with a period and space.

• Cody G. Crawford
• C. G. Crawford

Abbreviate Junior (Jr.) and Senior (Sr.) following personal names. Abbreviate or spell out Esquire (Esq.). Do not use a personal title such as Mr. or Ms. with Esq.

• Mr. John Gregory, Sr.
• John Gregory, Esquire
• Ellen Baer, Esq.

2. Academic Degrees:

Abbreviations of academic degrees require a period after each element in the abbreviation, but need no internal spaces.

      M.S.         M.D.      Ph.D      D.D.S.

When an academic title follows an individual's name, do not use titles such as Ms., Mr., or Dr. before the name.

     Janet Rosen, Ph.D. (not Dr. Janet Rosen, Ph.D.)

3. Names of organizations

    Write the name of an organization the way it is preferred by the group. To be accurate, use the letter head of the organization as an example.

  Names of well-known business organizations, labor unions, labor unions, societies and associations are often abbreviated, except in the most formal writing. When these abbreviations contain all-capital letters, they are keyboarded without periods or spaces.

• EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• IBM    International Business Machines
• NOW  National Organization for Women

4. Government agencies, radio and television stations

Do not use periods or spaces between letters indicating the names of government boards or after the call letters of radio or television stations.

• NBC National Broadcasting Company
• CIA Central Intelligence Agency
• UN   United Nations

5. Compass Points

Spell out compass points when they are used as ordinary nouns and adjectives. They have returned from the convention in the Midwest. Spell out compass points when they are included in the street names.

The meeting will be held at their office at 459 West 55 Street.

However, when compass points are used following a street name to indicate a section of the city, compass points are abbreviated without periods.

   5180 Liberty Street, NE

6. Days and months
Do not abbreviate the names of days of the week and months of the year.

Wednesday, April, November, December.

7. Measurements
Spell out units of measure, except in technical writing

    10 by 20 inches
     an 8-gallon container
     4 by 8 feet

8. Time
     Use the abbreviations a.m. and pm.m - with periods and no space between the letters - with numbers

      10 a.m                    8:30 pm.

9. Additional punctuation and spacing guidelines

• Keyboard one space between the initials in a name.
• Mr. R.D. Hamilton
• Abbreviations consisting of small letters and single initials require a period but no space after the internal periods.
• a.m.                  c.o.d
• One space should follow an abbreviation within a sentence, unless another mark of punctuation immediately follows. 
• The sales staff will attend a meeting at the company headquarters in Washington, D.C., but they will then continue on to the conference in Atlanta.
• Two spaces should follow an abbreviation at the end of a sentence, as the period that ends the abbreviation also marks the end of the sentence.
• The meeting will begin sharply at 10.a.m
• No space should follow an abbreviation that is followed by a question or exclamation mar.
• The Chair will convence the meeting at exactly 10 am.!
• Will you be ready for your presentation at 9:30 a.m?