Stylin'

We had our first meeting today with staff from University Relations and others in public information roles on campus to start talking about style issues. We are realizing that it is important to settle on style guides and rules for the entire communications spectrum, since much of our work on the Web and work in print bleeds across lines.

We started today with some discussion about general style guides. We're going to make AP Style our general rulebook, while the Chicago Manual of Style the authority when it comes to magazine-style writing (such as in ISU Magazine).

We reviewed the core vocabulary for the Web, too:

• "Web site" and "Web," not "website" or "web"
• "e-mail" and "online," not "email" or "on-line"
• "home page," not "homepage"

Some of these are obvious, but we've all seen the variations in use. We just wanted to get on the same page.

Similarly, we talked about common terms we use frequently at ISU:

• always "health care" and never"health-care" or "healthcare"
• always "health professions" and never "health-professions"
  

We also shared some insight into the Web. We talked about links and e-mail addresses and URLs. We don't want to print the full text of a URL (link relevant text instead) and we prefer "E-mail Graham" to simply be a mailto link. We also clarified that Web address is not the preferred terminology — we want it to be URL.

With the easy stuff out of the way, we started to delve into the matters specific to higher education and ISU. What will the styles be for first and subsequent references to facilities on campus? Is it Pond Student Union Building? PSUB? Student Union? What about the Bennion Student Union Building in Idaho Falls? BSUB? We're ironing these out and expect to include them in a new, ISU-specific online style guide.

We also started the discussion about academic degrees. This seems to be the first area we've found where print and Web preferences differ. Print wants to include periods in the abbreviations (i.e., Ph.D.), while we want to omit them (ala PhD).

The discussion is ongoing, and we'll be posting more as we meet. Of course, we also intend to post a link to the style guide as it starts to take shape.