Style Guide

CAPITALIZATION

California Congress of Parents, Teachers and Students, Inc.

California State PTA (do not use CSPTA)

National Congress of Parents and Teachers

National PTA (do not use NPTA)

Parent Teacher Association (PTA)

Parent-Teacher-Student Association (PTSA)

PTA, PTSA (no periods)

Nouns or Adjectives Forming Part of Proper Name of an Organization

Sun Elementary PTA

Hillside Council PTA

Twenty-Fifth District PTA

University of California

Note: Do not capitalize association, council, district PTA, university when used alone.

Terms Specific to California State PTA and National PTA.

Advisory Board

Board of Directors

Board of Managers

California State PTA Convention

CALL (to board or convention)

Continuing Service Award, CSA

Golden Oak Service Award

Honorary Service Award, HSA

Mission Statement of the California State PTA

Purposes of the PTA (not mission of or Objects of...in a sentence)

PTA Leadership Training

The PTA Mission (National PTA)

Special Projects, Programs or Workshops of the California State PTA or National PTA

Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) Manual

Reflections Program

"SMARTS: Bring Back the Arts!"

Titles

For titles in text, capitalize the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions (therefore, however).

Articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and, or, for, but), and prepositions of four letters or less (with, to, on, upon, into) are lowercase, unless they are the first or last words of a title or subtitle. The infinitive "to," unless it is the first word of a title, should be in lowercase.

Use typeset italic or boldface for titles of books, periodicals, movies, videos, plays, operas, reports, pamphlets, and kits.

California State PTA Toolkit

The Communicator

National PTA Annual Resources for PTAs

Parents Empowering Parents Manual

Involvement Makes A Difference (brochure)

Any title or designation immediately preceding, but not following a name.

President Jones

Mrs. Jane Jones, president

James McCay, Ed.D., principal

Note:All titles are capitalized in addresses, in printed programs, and at the close of letters.

Terms connected with state or national government.

Governor

Senator

Legislature

Attorney General

Capitalize Schools of a University, but not Courses or Departments

School of Journalism

department of biology

Capitalize names of any race or nationality except black and white. Hyphenate references to dual heritage except Latin American and Native American.

DO NOT CAPITALIZE

Parent teacher association, unit, council, district PTA, board of education unless used as part of a name of a specific group;

Names of school studies except languages;

Titles after the word "the" or after a name;

Organizational terms such as bylaws, chairman, committee, director, parent education, preschool, policy, scholarship, grant, vice president, workshop; or

Seasons of the year, directions (north, southeast), state, nation, federal, flag.

NUMERALS

Write Out or Spell Numbers

At the beginning of a sentence, except for calendar years;

One through nine, above 10 use numerals;

First through ninth, after 10th use numerals; and

Round numbers, two hundred children.

Use Numerals for

Large numbers such as million and billion, $12 million;

Percentages, spell out word percent, 15 percent;

Ages, age 3 to 6, 26-year-old (hyphenate);

Grade levels, grades 3 and 4, 3rd grade (hyphenate 3rd-grader); and

Pages, page 2.

PUNCTUATION

Use the Apostrophe with

Singular possessives (the PTA's state office);

Plural possessive nouns not ending in "s" (children's books);

Plural possessive nouns ending in "s" (Unit PTAs' collaboration); but

Not with plural nouns, figures (PTAs advocated important arts education legislation in the 2000s.)

Quotation Marks Are

Always set outside the comma and the period;

Always inside the colon and the semicolon; and

Outside or inside the exclamation point depending on whether the marks belong to the quoted matter.

Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations.

A quoted passage of four lines or more may be used without quotation marks if indented from the body of material.

Use quotation marks for titles of songs, articles, periodicals, and lectures.

"California Here I Come"

"The Collective Bargaining Process"

Use quotation marks for themes, such as for conventions, workshops, or administrations.

Colons, Semi-colons, and Commas

stand alone as a sentence. Do not use a colon after a verb. Capitalize the first word after a colon if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. For a vertical list, capitalize the first word of each item, use commas or semi-colons with a final period if the phrases are lengthy.

Use semicolons to separate elements of a series when the individual elements contain information that is set off by commas, or to join two clauses when a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for) is not present.

Use a comma before the conjunction when the series of items or phrases are complicated or lengthy.

The flag is red, white and blue.

Use a Comma with the Following

Names of states and nations used with cities.

Los Angeles, California

Dates that use month, day, and year.

October 30, 2002 (A comma is not required when date is omitted: June 2002.)

WRITING STYLE

Use the Following Styles

Active tenses, not passive;

Verbs, not adverbs;

4:00 p.m., noon, and midnight;

Chairman, not chair or chairperson;

People, not persons;

Education reform, not educational reform;

Parent involvement, not parental involvement;

Either Dr. Jane Jones or Jane Jones, Ed.D., not Dr. Jane Jones, Ed. D.; and

United States as a noun, U.S. as an adjective.

Rewrite to avoid using etc., and/or, he/she, s/he.

Include the year of passage with the names of all laws except those passed in the current legislative session.

A disability is a functional limitation or handicapping condition that interferes with a person's ability to do such things as walk, hear or talk. A handicap is a situation or barrier imposed by society, the environment or oneself.

SPELLING LIST OF OFTEN-USED PTA WORDS

after-school programs
at-risk
back-to-school
bylaws
caregiver
citywide
curricula (plural)
curriculum (singular)
day care (noun)
day-care (adjective)
dropout
e-mail
extracurricular
fund raiser(verb)
fund-raising activities
fundraiser (noun)
handout (noun)
hand out (verb)
health-care clinics
HIV/AIDS
kindergartner
latchkey
nationwide
noncommercial
nonpartisan
nonprofit
nonsectarian
online
outreach
playground
preschool
preteen
reproducible
school-based
schoolteacher
seat belt
self-esteem
statewide
teenage/teenager
T-shirt
vice president
videocassette
videotape
Washington, D.C.
website
well-being
worksheet
year-round

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Strunk, William Jr. and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 2000).

The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)

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