Spelling
WSU Editorial Style Guide
Consult Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary or www.merriam-webster.com for spelling, hyphenation, and word breaks.
American spellings should be used (rather than British spellings).
- advisor, not adviser
- alumna/alumnae; alumnus/alumni
- The terms “alum” or “alums” may be appropriate for some contexts, for instance, when used in more informal communications.
- catalog, not catalogue
- classwork, not class work
- course work, not coursework
- emerita/emeritae; emeritus/emeriti
- curriculum vitae (singular) and curricula vitae (plural)
- ex-officio, with a hyphen
- full-time, half-time, and part-time are hyphenated whether they precede or follow the noun
- fund raising when used as a noun; fund-raising when used as an adjective
- health care is always two words
- in-depth, in-service when used as an adjective before the noun
- multicampus, multidisciplinary, multifaceted
- noncredit, not non-credit
- nondegree, not non-degree
- nonprofit, not non-profit
- percent, not per cent
- University-wide, system-wide, and campus-wide, but citywide, nationwide, statewide, worldwide
- well-being
- World Wide Web, website, web page, home page, Internet, webmaster, database, data file, debug, hard copy, input, log on, online
- 3-D