This stylebook addresses the style questions that seem to crop up most often in our publications. Please use it and the SIM Word List as your first reference.

Use Words Into Type and The Chicago Manual of Style 14th Edition as supplemental guides to grammar, punctuation, and usage. Those books should be available in your department. Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary is the primary reference source. For words not listed in Webster's Eleventh, refer to Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged). See the Spelling section of this style guide for more information about these dictionaries.

Sections in this style guide are arranged alphabetically, and each subject section contains rules and examples.

If you have questions about SIMStylebook.com, please e-mail SIM copy chief Doug Kouma.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations, SR1.1
       Capitalization, SR1.2
       Company Names, SR1.3
       Dates and Times, SR1.4
      Degrees and Certifications, SR1.5
       Periods, SR1.6
       Plurals, SR1.7
       Spaces, SR1.8

Addresses, SR2.1
       State abbreviations, SR2.2
       Street Abbreviations, SR2.3
       Stand-alone cities, SR2.4

Book reviews, SR3.1

Buying guides, SR4.1

Capitalization, SR5.1
       Acronyms, SR5.2
       After colons, SR5.3
       Directions and regions, SR5.4
       Heads and titles, SR5.5
       Names, SR5.6
       Web sites, SR5.7
       Zones, SR5.8

Captions, SR6.1
       Directionals, SR6.2

Colors and hyphens, SR7.1
       Products and project instructions, SR7.2

Computer Commands, SR8.1
       Microsoft Word, SR8.2

Contractions, SR9.1

Covers, SR10.1
       For designers, SR10.2

Credits, Names (attribution) SR11.1
       Photographers, SR11.2
       Illustrators, SR11.3
       Field editors, SR11.4
       Writers, SR11.5
       Copy Editors, SR11.6
       Order of credits, SR11.7
       Credits style, SR11.8
       Uniform story credit guidelines, SR11.9

Dashes, SR12.1

Foreign words, SR13.1
       Accent marks, SR13.2

Hyphens, SR14.1
       Line-break rules, SR14.2
       Prefixes, SR14.3
       Suffixes, SR 14.4

Lists, SR15.1

Measurements, SR16.1

Nonsexist writing, SR17.1

Numbers, SR18.1
       Figures to represent numbers, SR18.2
       Words to represent numbers, SR18.3 
       Telephone numbers, SR18.4

Overused words and phrases, SR19.1

Page basics, columns SR20.1
       End boxes, SR20.2
       Jump lines, SR20.3
       Line breaks, SR20.4
       Running titles, SR20.5

Plurals, SR21.1

Positive expressions, SR22.1

Possessives, SR23.1
       Descriptive words, SR 23.2

Problem words, SR24.1

Quotes and Quotation marks, SR25.1

Redundancies, SR26.1

Spelling, SR27.1

Styles, SR28.1

Symbols, SR29.1

Titles, SR30.1

Trademarks, SR31.1
       List of common trademarks, SR31.2
      SIM trademarks, SR31.3

Web Sites, SR32.1