House Style Sheet

December 2011

To answer your writing and editing questions, consult these resources in this order:

This style sheet
Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (Numbers in parentheses link to CMOS Online.)
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. (herein M-W)

Spelling and Vocabulary
A–F G–L M–R S–Z

Abbreviations, Acronyms, Initialisms

If a term or an organization’s name will be used more than once, spell it out the first time, followed by its abbreviation in parentheses. Afterward, use the abbreviation (10.3, 10.23, 10.24) in text and heads.

I work at the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF). The CHCF office is in Oakland.

But treat an executive summary or a sidebar as an independent document for purposes of abbreviations.

Rewrite to avoid making an acronym possessive, but if a phrase is introduced in the plural, write its acronym in the plural: Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs).

See also Academic Degrees, Company Names, Names.

Academic Degrees

Omit internal punctuation (10.20) with academic degrees (MD, MS, PhD, RN) and generally do not use other credentials (CMT, FACP, etc.) unless important to topic of report.

Ages

Hyphenate an age as a noun or adjective (7.85, 5.220).

    an eight-year-old boy
    85-year-olds
    six- to 12-year-old kids

But:

    people age 65 (not aged)
    65 years of age or older
    five years old
    age 65+ or >65 [okay in graphics]

Authorship

On title page, list only names, degrees (Madelyn Walters, MS, MPH), and organization.

In the "About the Author" section, list names, appropriate degrees, title, and organization:

Al Malamute, PhD, MD, director of surgery, Stanford University Hospital

Any brief, factual description (up to 50 words) should not be promotional in tone.

Bias-Free Language

To avoid gender bias, use these strategies (5.225):

If possible, rewrite to avoid him and her, or recast in the plural: a doctor must wash his hands often becomes doctors must wash their hands often.
Use nonsexist words instead of "man" words: people not mankind, chair not chairman.

When referring to someone with a disease, emphasize the person, not the disease (5.230): a patient with diabetes (preferred) or a diabetic patient. Never employ as a noun: diabetics, schizophrenics, or the like.

Capitalization

Capitalize generic terms as part of proper names, but lowercase them in references (8.50, 8.65, 8.67): California HealthCare Foundation, the foundation; the Department of Disease Eradication, the department; Stanford University, the university.

Use these guidelines for headings and the titles of books, journals, articles, etc. (8.157).

Always capitalize the first and last words of a title and subtitle.
Capitalize all other major words, including nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, except as noted below.
Lowercase articles: a, an, the.
Lowercase prepositions of four or fewer letters: for, in, of, on, with but Above, Between, Through, Within.
Lowercase the conjunctions and, but, for, nor, and or.
Lowercase to as a preposition and as an infinitive (to Examine); lowercase as.
For hyphenated words (8.159), capitalize both elements: Pre-Existing Condition.

Citations and References

Use endnotes, not footnotes (except when necessary in sidebars). Apply arabic numbering (1, 2, 3). Microsoft Word's Reference feature will number them automatically.

All endnote numbers should be superscripted and follow the sentence's final punctuation.

The numbered examples below are of primary notes and subsequent references to the same notes. Consult Chapter 14 of CMOS for detailed coverage and extensive examples, and the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide and 14.18 for brief examples.

Blog entry (14.243–5)

Robert Poser, "Doctors Find New Treatment for Cataracts," The Medicine Today Blog, September 10, 2011, http://www.medicinetoday.com/2011/09/doctors-find-new-treatment-for-cataracts/.
Poser, "Doctors Find New Treatment."

Book (14.68–169)

One author

Dan Forth, How Doctors Treat: A Survey (New York: Knopf, 1967), 48-52.
Forth, How Doctors Treat, 87.

Two or three authors

Ann Garth, Lee Woods, and Fred Smith, Nurse Reference (Stamford, CT: NPC, 2009), 241-302.
Garth and Woods, Nurse Reference, 122.

Four or more authors

Faye Dunn et al., Therapist Field Guide (Waco, TX: Freud & Sons, 2000), 64-68.
Dunn et al., Therapist Field Guide, 65.

Journal article (14.175–198)

Printed

Jordan Futon, "Health Care in Rural Japan," Asian Health 24, no. 3 (March 2011): 324.
Futon, "Health Care," 325-327.

Online

Glinda Lee and Dorothy Gale, "Health Care Costs Plummet in Oz," Journal of Health Finances 15, no. 42 (2004): 54, accessed March 3, 2009, doi:10.5438:/8795426.
Lee and Gale, "Health Care Costs," 56.

Paper presented at a conference (14.226)

Rachel Adams, "The Ideal Aspirin Dosage for Blood Thinning" (paper presented at the annual meeting for the Society of Pharmacists, Fayetteville, Louisiana, April 21-24, 2001).
Adams, "Ideal Aspirin Dosage."

Report, Brochure, Pamphlet (14.249)

Printed

Weight Loss: Should I Have Laparoscopic Surgery? (Boston: Health Dialog, 2009).
Weight Loss, Health Dialog.
Chuck Babbage, Electronic Health Records (London: Analytical Press, 2000).
Babbage, Electronic Health Records.

Online

University of Pittsburgh Hospitals, All About Knee Replacement Surgery, accessed March 18, 2011, http://www.uph.org/knee-replacement-surgery.html.
Univ. of Pittsburgh Hospitals, Knee Replacement Surgery.

Company Names

Use the full name, including ampersands and abbreviations, but you may omit Inc., & Co., LLC, and the like (10.23): Merck not Merck & Co, Inc.

Composition Titles

Use these guidelines for the titles of books, articles, etc.

Large works

Italicize the names of books, journals, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, movies, TV shows, and blogs (8.161, 8.187): Gray's Anatomy, Journal of Oncology.

Smaller works

Use quotation marks for articles, speeches, blog posts, and the like (8.161, 8.175, 8.187): "Miracle Cure Found in Amazon."

Websites, surveys, and databases

Capitalize, but do not italicize or surround with quotation marks (8.186):

This year, PubMed is expected to serve up a billion page views.

Initial the: An initial the in the title of a newspaper or periodical is lowercased (unless it begins a sentence) and not italicized (8.168): the New York Times.

Subtitles: Use a colon to separate a subtitle from a title (8.162): The Avocado Diet: Lose Weight and Help California's Economy.

See also Capitalization.

Dates

Capitalize and spell out months in running text. In tables, notes, and the like, use three-letter abbreviations with periods (10.40): (November, Nov.).
If no date is specified, do not use a comma after the month (6.45): March 2001.
If a date is specified, use commas after both the date and the year (6.45): On April 2, 2001, we left.
Use ordinal numerals (9.32): June 30 not June 30th.
Centuries: Spell out and hyphenate (9.33): the twenty-first century.
Use apostrophes only to indicate missing numbers (9.34): the 1800s, the '70s, the 1970s not the 70's and not the 1970's.

Fractions

Spell out and hyphenate simple fractions as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (9.14).

    four-fifths of the doctors
    one-half complete
    a two-thirds majority
    one and three-quarters

Government

Capitalize the full names of legislative and administrative bodies, departments, bureaus, and offices (8.61).

    US Congress
    the House, the Senate
    the California State Assembly
    the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Adjectives derived from them and paraphrased references to them are usually not (8.61).

    assembly meeting
    state senate
    legislature agenda
    the legislature
    city council member
    congressional but Congress

Lowercase certain generic governmental terms (8.64): administration, city hall, federal.

Lowercase state when used generically: the state of California.

Hyphenation

Consult the spelling list herein, then CMOS 7.77–7.85, and then M-W.

Illustrations (Tables and Figures)

All illustrations require a title and a source notation at the bottom that includes the year.

Illustrations should be numbered continuously. Tables are numbered separately from other figures such as graphs and illustrations. Appendices are lettered. (Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Table 3, Figure 2. Appendices A, B, C.) A table or figure within an appendix includes the appendix's letter (Table A1, Figure B1).

Notes for illustrations belong below the illustration and not in the endnotes. Illustration notes use these symbols in this order: *, †, ‡, §, #. If more are needed, use double marks in the same order: **, ††, ‡‡, §§, ##.

Internet, Web

Leave URLs intact. In production, they may be condensed.

Proper nouns spelled with an initial lowercase letter followed by a capital needn't be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or a heading (8.153).

iPads are growing more popular in hospitals.
eHealth sells thousands of items.

Job Titles

Capitalize a job title when it precedes a name: Vice President Barnes, Dean Gomez.

Lowercase a job title after a name or when used alone (8.18, 8.21, 8.26).

    Jed Beam, president; the president
    Jesus Gomez, dean of students; the dean
    Governor Brown; the governor
    Kim Chou, director of funding; the director

Lists

Use parallel construction for list items, whether in running text or as bulleted or vertical lists—all nouns or all verbs (6.121).

internists, general practitioners, and physician assistants
greet the patient, consult the chart, wash your hands, and examine the patient

Use the serial comma before the conjunction in a list of three or more items (6.18). If any item has internal punctuation, separate the items with semicolons (6.19).

We ordered cotton balls, gloves, and x-ray film.
We ordered cotton balls; small, medium, and large gloves; and x-ray film.

A list is best introduced by a complete grammatical sentence, followed by a colon (6.124).

Use closing punctuation only if the items are complete sentences (6.124).

In a numbered list, follow each numeral with a period and a capital letter (6.124).

    Order these supplies weekly:
        Nitrile gloves
        Tongue depressors
        Rubbing alcohol

    Every morning, perform these steps:
        1. Boot your computer.
        2. Log in.
        3. Check your email.

Money

Use the currency symbol and numerals (9.25): $21.09, $3 million.

Names

Use periods and a space between initials (A. B. Cooper) but omit periods and spaces in names replaced by initials (10.12): JFK.

In subsequent references, use the last name: Jan Jackson then Jackson; Mortimer Brown, MD, then Brown [not Dr. Brown].

See also Company Names.

Numbers

Spell out one through nine; use numerals for larger numbers (9.3). For very large numbers, use numerals and words (9.8): 3 million, 4.6 billion.

At the beginning of a sentence, either spell out a number or reword the sentence (9.5): Eighty-six respondents answered every questionor Every question was answered by 86 respondents.

Use commas for numbers of four digits or more except page numbers, addresses, and years (9.55): 1,541 therapists agree but 23502 Cleaver Avenue.

Noun/verb agreement

With percentages: Use a singular verb if the noun is collective (40% of the electorate is Latino); use a plural verb if the noun is an ordinary plural (15% of participants are women).>
With fractional phrases: Singular subjects take singular verbs (one in four counties is rural; more than one in five participants is unmarried; two-thirds of the public say so).

See also Ages, Dates, Fractions, Money, Percentages, Rankings, Time.

Page Numbers, Chapters, and the Like

Spell out and uppercase references to parts of a document, tables, figures, charts, appendices, and the like: Chapter 9, Section 2.38, Table 2, Figure 4, Appendix B.

Percentages

Use numerals, except at the beginning of a sentence, and don't hyphenate even in adjectival form. Use the percent symbol (%) throughout except at the beginning of a sentence (9.18).

    3% chance
    and 35.6% responded
    Twenty-six percent of patients agreed.
    The proportion of patients agreeing was 26%.

Places

In running text, spell out the names of states and of the country (10.28): California, United States (or US). In bibliographies, addresses, tables, etc., use two-letter postal abbreviations (10.28): CA, DC, and the US.

Words such as state, county, city, and so forth are capitalized when they are used as an accepted part of a proper name: Alameda County, Southern California, but southern Idaho.

Punctuation and Spacing

Colons

Capitalize a word that follows a colon only if it starts a complete thought (6.61).

Include these items: aspirin, gauze, and tape.
Here's the reason: Many nurses wear soft-soled shoes.

Dashes

For number ranges, use a hyphen: 2004-2007, pp. 4-9.

Form an em dash in Word with Ctrl-Alt-Numpad minus. One space before and after. No need to use an en dash.

Ellipsis points

Ellipsis points represent text omitted from a quoted passage. Use three spaced periods within sentences (13.48) and four spaced periods between sentences (13.51).

I will apply . . . all measures that are required. . . . I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science.

Parentheses and brackets

When making a parenthetical statement within another one, use brackets for the innermost set (6.99).

(For details, see Tyson [2003] and Anderson [2005].)

Periods

Use i.e. and e.g. only in parentheses, add periods, and follow with a comma (10.43): (i.e., this way).

Quotation marks

Place commas and periods inside quotation marks (6.9), colons and semicolons outside (6.10).

Place question marks and exclamation marks inside only if they are part of the quotation (6.10).

    "That's what I thought," she said.
    "Respect": my all-time favorite song.
    "What did the doctor say?" he asked.
    Did he say, "The doctor went home"?

Spacing

Use one space between sentences and after colons (2.9). Avoid using more than one space in a row. Use tabs to align columns (2.11).

Race and Color

Use these preferences unless dictated otherwise by the source material (8.37).

    African American (no hyphen even as an adj.)
    Black
    Latino (not Hispanic)
    Native American
    White

Rankings

Use cardinal numbers (9.6): they came in 57th in the state.

Time

Use AM or PM with a leading space (10.42): 8:00 AM, 2:45 PM.

Voice

Use the third person, and avoid I, we, and us: the institute found not we found.

Spelling and Vocabulary

If a term is not in this list, consult M-W. If an entry has more than one spelling, use the first one.

A–F

acknowledgments
acute care (adj.)
African American (no hyphen even as adj.)
appendices (not appendixes)
applications (or apps)
California Exchange
California Health Benefit Exchange
California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF, the foundation)
    Better Chronic Disease Care
    Health Reform and Public Programs Initiative
    Innovations for the Underserved
    Market and Policy Monitor
California-wide
chronic care (n. and adj.) In general, do not hyphenate phrases that modify "care."
co-insurance
comorbidity
copay
copayment
cost containment (n.), cost-containment (adj.)
cost sharing (n.), cost-sharing (adj.)
countywide
data (plural: data are) (5.220)
decisionmaker
decisionmaking
email (7.85)
e-prescribing
Exchange (when referring to CA's Exchange)
fall (season)
federal (lowercase)
for-profit

G–L

grantmaker
health care, health care plan (no hyphen even as adj.)
health plan
in-home (adj.)
infrastructure
inpatient
Internet (7.76)
intranet
iPhone
large-employer (adj.)
Latino (not Hispanic)
long term care (n. or adj.)

M–R

marketplace
"meaingful use" (use quotations marks)
Medicaid
Medi-Cal (always refer to Medicaid in California as Medi-Cal)
Medicare
mHealth (mobile health)
multicultural
multidisciplinary
multihospital
nationwide
nonpartisan
nonprofit (not not-for-profit)
ob/gyn (not OB/gyn or OB/GYN)
online
payers (not payors)
pay for performance (no hyphens even as adj.) or P4P
persons—avoid using. Use individuals, people, or populations as appropriate.
policyholder
policymaker
pre-admission (generally hyphenate prefix pre-)
pre-existing (always hyphenate prefix pre- when followed by e)
post-hospital visit (generally hyphenate prefix post-)
preventive (not preventative)
primary care, primary care physician (no hyphen even as adj.)
readmission (generally do not hyphenate prefix re-)
re-engineering (always hyphenate prefix re- when followed by e)
rehospitalize

S–Z

safety net, safety-net patient
skilled nursing facility (no hyphen)
small-employer (adj.)
smartphone
spring (season)
stakeholders
state exchanges, exchanges in general
statewide
summer
systemwide
telehealth
trade-offs
UC campuses: UCLA, UCSF, UC Berkeley (other campuses spelled out for first mention, with commas before and after city: The University of California, San Diego, has a nice campus; in lists, use consistent format for all)
underserved
up-to-date
US
versus (spell out in running text, vs. can be used in tables, heads, etc.)
voicemail
web, the (7.76)
web page (7.76)
website (7.76)
winter
workflow
workplace (noun or adj.)
x-ray (noun or adj.)