The document provides guidelines for abbreviating elements like months, dates, places, names and titles, organizations, symbols, and other elements in writing. It explains when to abbreviate and spell out months, how to write dates and addresses, when to use titles before names, how to identify political parties for legislators, and when to use periods in abbreviations. It also covers writing out numbers, symbols like cents and percent, and casual references to money.

1. Abbreviation Rules

2. Objectives
• 4b2 -Periods in common abbreviations (e.g., titles of
address, days of the week, months of the year)
• LS2
• WS2
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3. Months without dates
• Always capitalize and write out:
The election is in November.
School starts in August.
He hopes to graduate in December.
It will start in January 2000.
The battle ended in October 1866.
If there’s just a month and a year, no comma!
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4. Dates
• Abbreviate months of > 5 letters:
– Jan. 5, 1997 Don’t use ordinal numbers like:
– Feb. 28, 1864 Feb. 2nd
– Aug. 10, 2000 Aug. 23rd
– Sept. 9, 1999 Dec. 12th
– Oct. 14, 1784
– Nov. 1, 1965
– Dec. 22, 1696
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5. Dates
• Write out months of 5 or fewer letters:
– March 30, 2000 Don’t use ordinal numbers like:
– April 5, 1974 March 10th
– May 26, 1998 May 1st
– June 12, 1863 June 23rd
– July 31, 1997 (But July Fourth is OK!)
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6. Now you try!
• June 3rd
• June 3
• They will visit in Oct.
• They will visit in October.
• December 7, 1941
• Dec. 7, 1941
• He graduated in May, 1997.
• He graduated in May 1997.
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7. Now you try!
• Nov. 12th
• Nov. 12
• January 1999
• Correct.
• Which months are never abbreviated?
• March, April, May, June, July
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8. Copy-edit
The tax was scheduled to expire on January 15,
1999, but in August 1998, legislators passed a bill
to extend the levy until July 1st, 2005.
The tax was scheduled to expire on
Jan. 15, 1999, but in August 1998, legislators
passed a bill to extend the levy until July 1, 2005.
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9. Days of the week
• Simple rule:
• Always write them out!
– Monday
– Tuesday
– Wednesday...
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10. Places
• Write out states when they stand alone:
– She is from New Jersey.
– He was born in Alaska.
– Killer bees invaded Texas.
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11. Places
• Abbreviate the state if:
– It’s preceded by a town or city
– The state has 6 or more letters
– Don’t abbreviate: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa,
Maine, Ohio, Texas, Utah
– Check AP Style for state abbreviations
AP doesn’t use the postal code abbreviations!
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12. Places
He is from San Mateo, Calif.
The game will be in Morgan, W.Va.
They met in Austin, Texas.
She lives in Hilo, Hawaii.
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13. Omit the state if...
• You write for a publication
covering that state:
– A tornado flattened Hopewell today.
– The new city manager is from Norfolk.
• It’s a widely known city
(See “Datelines” in the AP Stylebook.)
– The 1998 Olympics were in Atlanta.
– A hurricane hit Miami last year.
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14. Always include the state if...
• The town straddles the state line:
– The meeting was held in Bristol, Va.
• There could be some confusion:
– After growing up in Springfield, Ill.,
he worked in Springfield, Va.
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15. Now you try!
• They flew to San Francisco, Calif.
• They flew to San Francisco.
• She taught in Knoxville, Tennessee.
• She taught in Knoxville, Tenn.
• Anchorage, Alaska, is a beautiful place.
• Correct.
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16. Streets and addresses
• If it’s an exact address, abbreviate
everything you can (the direction & “street,” “boulevard” and “avenue”):
– 901 W. Main St.
– 2005 Grove Ave.
– 70 Monument Blvd.
• If there’s no street address, spell out:
– He lives on Floyd Street.
– The building is on Monument Boulevard.
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17. Streets and addresses
• Always write out “road,” “drive,”
“circle” and “court.”
– 1067 Staples Mill Road
– 10215 Windbluff Drive
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18. Now you try!
• 945 West Franklin Street
• 945 W. Franklin St.
• … on First Street in Richmond.
• Correct.
• It’s at 10532 West Broad St.
• It’s at 10532 W. Broad St.
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19. Names and titles
• On first reference,
use a person’s full name
• On subsequent references, use the last name only
(for adults; for kids, use the first name)
• Generally, no courtesy titles (Mr., Mrs., Ms.) unless
there’s confusion
• Use courtesy titles in a direct quote
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20. Now you try!
• Mr. Tom Ferguson will speak.
• Tom Ferguson will speak.
• “Mrs. Allen will accompany me,” the candidate
said.
• Correct.
• The Smiths both ate the shrimp, but only Mr. Smith
got sick. “He was up all night,” Mrs. Smith said.
• Correct.
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21. Names and titles
• If used directly before a name,
abbreviate:
Formal titles accompany
– Gov. Mark Warner only the full name.
– Dr. Terry Oggel Example: Sen. Barbara
Boxer, not Sen. Boxer.
– Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine
– Rep. Robert Scott
– Sen. John Warner
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22. Names and titles
• Don’t abbreviate:
– Superintendent Albert Williams
– Commonwealth’s Attorney David Hicks
– Professor Paula Otto
– Attorney General Mark Earley
– President Eugene Trani
– Chairman Yasser Arafat
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23. Which titles to abbreviate?
• Professor
• No.
• District Attorney
• No.
• Governor
• Yes: Gov.
• President
• No.
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24. Names and titles
• the Rev.
– Always includes “the”
– the Rev. Billy Graham
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25. Names and titles
• For state and federal legislators,
put political party ID after name
– Use “R” or “D,” then a hyphen ...
– Then the state abbreviation
(for members of Congress)
or the city (for state legislators)
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26. Names and titles
• Examples of state and federal legislators, on first reference:
– U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., …
– U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., …
– State Sen. John Watkins, R-Chesterfield, ...
– Delegate Emily Couric, D-Charlottesville, ...
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27. Periods in abbreviations
• Use periods if the abbreviation
spells an unrelated word:
– c.o.d. - not cod (like the fish)
– U.S. - not US (like “Give US liberty!)
– U.N. - not UN (like UN-American)
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28. Speaking of U.S. and U.N.
• Write out United States and United Nations when
they are nouns
• Abbreviate them when they are adjectives
– In the United States ...
– … the U.S. Army
– … the U.N. peacekeepers
– at the United Nations today ...
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29. Periods in abbreviations
• Otherwise, no periods
– North Atlantic Treaty Organization > NATO
– American Medical Association > AMA
– Virginia Commonwealth University > VCU
– Federal Bureau of Investigation > FBI
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30. Organizations
• Spell out first reference:
– Public Relations Society of America
• Abbreviate subsequent references:
– PRSA
• Some organizations can be abbreviated on first reference:
– NAACP, AFL-CIO, FBI
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31. Organizations
• When an abbreviation is unfamiliar, use a
shortened name of the organization
– Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce >
the bureau
– Office of Instructional Technology >
the office
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32. Now you try!
• Central Intelligence Agency
• CIA (or the agency)
• National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws
• NORML (or the organization, the group)
• Drug Enforcement Agency
• DEA (or the agency)
• School of Mass Communications
• the school
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33. Symbols
• Always write out cents (not ¢)
and percent (not %)
• Always use numerals with cents
and percent
– 5 cents, 50 cents, 92 cents, 1 cent
– 1 percent, 20 percent, 100 percent
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34. Symbols
• Use $ if it accompanies a number:
– $3 … $10.99 … $2 billion
• Round sums, like clock hours, carry no zeros or punctuation:
– Average gasoline prices rose
from $1 to $1.65.
• Spell out casual uses of money:
– The homeless man asked for a dollar.
– I gave him my two cents.
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35. Now you try!
• The Washington Post costs $0.50.
• The Washington Post costs 50 cents.
• We paid several dollars for the book.
• Correct.
• That doesn’t make cents.
• That doesn’t make sense.
• The plane cost 1 million dollars.
• The plane cost $1 million.
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36. Symbols
• Use “&” only when it’s part of a group’s
name:
– Dow Jones & Co.
– Florida A&M
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37. Miscellaneous
• Abbreviate time zones:
– Eastern Standard Time > EST
• No periods in call letters
– WCVE, WRVA
• Always spell out Fort and Mount
– Mount Vernon, Fort Pickett,
Fort Worth, Mount Trashmore
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38. Miscellaneous
• Abbreviate “Saint” when it is part of a proper noun
(river, city, school, a holy person’s name)
– St. Paul, Va.; St. Lawrence River;
St. Catherine’s School
• Never abbreviate Christmas
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39. Miscellaneous
• Abbreviate Co. (company), Corp. (corporation), Ltd.
(limited) and Inc. (incorporated) when they appear at the
end of a company’s name:
– Reynolds Inc.
– Philip Morris Co.
– Circuit City Corp.
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40. Now you try!
• Weyerhaeuser Company
• Weyerhaeuser Co.
• Westvaco Corporation
• Westvaco Corp.
• W.R.I.C.
• WRIC
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