Yale School of Medicine Writing Style Guide

• Avoid where possible, especially in the case of well-known abbreviations, e.g. operating room (not OR), emergency room (not ER)
• Do not use abbreviations or acronyms the lay reader would not recognize
• If an abbreviation is used more than once in a story, introduce it in parentheses at first use

• Whenever possible, avoid acronyms as a way to describe Yale organizations. On second references, it’s better to call our entities the hospital, the cancer center, etc.
• If a writer must use an acronym, use it only after a proper name has been fully spelled out with the acronym in parentheses on first reference, e.g. Northeast Medical Group (NEMG). Do capitalize for a proper name: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Always spell out Yale Medicine; do not use YM or any other acronym to describe the clinical practice. Do not capitalize the words from which an acronym is derived, e.g. intensive care unit, ICU; computed tomography, CT; magnetic resonance imaging, MRI; chief executive officer, CEO.

• Abbreviate Ave., Blvd. and St. only with a numbered address (267 Grant St.). Spell out all others (Drive, Road, Terrace, Lane, etc.)
• Capitalize when used with a number
• Lowercase and spell out when using more than one street name (Cedar and York streets)

Do not hyphenate when used as a noun or an adjective. Both “African American” and “Black” are acceptable for an American Black person of African American descent, but they are not necessarily interchangeable. When in doubt, check AP Style entries on “African American” and on “nationalities and race.” See “Black” for further guidance on writing about race.

Use AP style. Always use numerals, e.g. a 5-year-old boy; John Smith was 30; a man in his 20s; a 2-hour-old infant. Only hyphenate when the age is used as an adjective, e.g. a 5-year-old boy.

• Do not use as a substitute for the word “and”
• Use when it is the official part of a name, e.g. U.S. News & World Report, and/or in select digital instances in which character counts are limited (i.e., on Twitter or other social media platforms)
• Always use “&” instead of the word “and” when referring to Yale Medicine and YSM departments, sections and programs, i.e.: Yale Medicine Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation; Yale Medicine General Surgery, Trauma & Surgical Critical Care; Yale Medicine Speech & Swallow Program, Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology

Use commas around a word, phrase or clause used in apposition if it is not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Examples: John Doe and his wife, Mary, attended the reunion. But: John Doe and his daughter Julie attended the reunion; his wife, Mary, and Rebecca, his other daughter, weren’t able to attend. (In the second example, no commas are used in the first clause because Julie is not John’s only daughter.) Note that we make an exception to this rule in the Alumni Reunion Reports when there is no possessive (his, her, etc.) preceding wife, husband, children, etc.: John Doe and wife Mary.

Biomedicine

• The use of bullets is encouraged when they can be used to help make information more digestible.
• Punctuation in bullets should only be used when a bullet contains a complete sentence or multiple sentences.
• When a bulleted list is made up of single items, alphabetize them.

• Capitalize the word Campus in both Saint Raphael Campus and York Street Campus. Lowercase when using as plural, e.g., “Both campuses,” or “Saint Raphael and York Street campuses
• Capitalize proper names, e.g. “Lawrence + Memorial Hospital” or “Yale New Haven Health” or “Bridgeport Delivery Network,” but lowercase “hospital,” “system” or “delivery network” in subsequent references.

• Stages range from 0-IV, with 0 being localized (best) and IV being distant spread (worst).
• Capitalize Stage and use Roman numerals.

• Capitalize proper names, e.g. Yale Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, but lowercase system and school in subsequent references.
• Capitalize departments, programs, committees and centers; e.g. Department of Psychiatry, Yale Cancer Center, but not psychiatry department or cancer center.
• Do not capitalize job titles unless the title precedes the person’s name; e.g. Dean Nancy J. Brown, MD; Nancy J. Brown, dean.
• Do capitalize job titles if they are in list form in the middle of an email message or on a poster.
• Capitalize all acronyms, e.g. YM, YSM, YNHHS, and do not use periods.
• Capitalize the principal words in the names of books, movies, plays, radio or TV programs, etc.
• Lowercase university unless using the proper name: Yale University.
• Capitalize Endowed Chair when used with the endowed chair’s name, whether it precedes or follows the holder’s name; e.g. Donald Smith, The Kate and Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery or The Kate and Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery Donald Smith. (“The” with a capital “T” is sometimes part of the official name of the endowed chair title. When in doubt, writers should check this.)

• Include a description of what is happening in the photo. Example: A camera records Shanta Kapadia’s dissection while Charles Duncan (left) and William Stewart observe on a monitor. Video instruction is a key part of the flipped classroom.
• Identify everyone in each photo (first and last names).
• In general, write captions in present tense, although it can depend on the situation.
• Directionally, start identification at the left side of the photo. Use (l-r) whenever possible. Use such terms as top, bottom, left, right, above, below or clockwise from left when necessary.
• With two people, the person on the left is generally indicated, e.g. “Bill Jones (left) and Bob Smith,” unless clear, e.g. “Bill Jones and Mary Smith.”
• Use semicolons if the caption identifies more than two people with titles. Mary Smith, RN; and Jack Jones, MD.
• Do not use middle initials in photo captions, or academic or other titles except for degrees (MD, PhD, RN, etc.) However, these can be OK in more descriptive captions. Some of this information may be used in more descriptive captions.
• When writing a caption for a photo, the same caption will be adopted for people viewing the story/photo on smartphones and on tablets, so brevity will be a critical element. Remember that if the photo caption is two lines on PC, it might be four lines on a tablet and six lines on a smartphone.

• The head of an academic department holds the title of chair (not chairman, chairwoman or chairperson)
• Capitalize endowed-chair titles, regardless of whether the title precedes or follows the holder’s name: Spencer Tracy, The Kate and Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery. (An endowed chair is a professorship that has been funded through philanthropy. The current cost of endowing a professorship at Yale is $2.5 million; the proceeds of this fund are intended to cover the faculty members’ salary and expenses.)

• An individual is chair of a department at YSM and chief of the same department at YNHH. Lowercase these words. Use both if space permits; otherwise use the university title. (Note that the title of chief is also used at YSM for faculty who head up a section, such as Internal Medicine’s Section of Allergy and Immunology.)

• Phases run from preclinical to Phase 0-V
• Capitalize Phase and use Roman numerals

Do use a comma before a conjunction in a compound sentence, e.g. The doctor’s office was sparsely furnished, and it was located on the basement level

We will use the serial comma, or the comma that would appear at the end of a simple series, before the concluding conjunction. e.g. red, white, and blue.

• Do not use courtesy titles such as Mrs., Mr., Miss or Ms. Do use a courtesy titles on second reference for physicians, e.g. Silvio Inzucchi, MD (first reference); Dr. Inzucchi (second reference)
• Do not use the “Dr.” courtesy title for a person with a PhD unless that person also has an MD

• Do not use periods with MD, PhD, RN, APRN, MSN, ScD, etc.
• Yale Medicine magazine and Medicine@Yale use any and all credentials without periods including, MD, PhD, MPH, JD, MS, MA, HS, FW, MBA They do not use such credentials as FACS.
• Use up to two credentials per person and list clinical degree first. Sarah Jackson, MD, MPH
• Use a comma to set off both sides of credentials, e.g. John Smith, MD, is coming for dinner
• Separate a list of names, credentials and titles with semi-colons, e.g. Physicians in the Department of Neurosurgery include Phillip S. Dickey, MD, chief; Judy Gorelick, MD, attending physician; and Kenneth Vives, MD, associate physician Degrees: When writing about an appointment, AP style is to spell out, lowercase and use apostrophe for degrees, e.g. “master’s degree in public health” or “associate’s degree in nursing.” For Yale Medicine, BA, MS, MD, etc. are also acceptable

Though the full name is Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library is acceptable on first reference.

• Use em dashes – (the length of two hyphens) to denote an abrupt change in thought or to set off a series within a phrase. We do not use a space on either side to set off an em dash. (To create an em dash on the PC, hold down the ALT key and type 0151 on the numeric keypad. Only the numbers on the right hand keypad do this. On the Mac, press Shift-Option and the minus key.)
• Use en dashes (a little longer than the length of one hyphen) to separate date and page ranges. (To create an en dash on a PC, type “Ctrl” and the minus sign on the numeric keypad, or “Alt” and then enter in “0150.” For a Mac, hold down “Option” and “-”)

• When only the month is used, do not use a comma before the year, e.g. January 2007
• When a specific date is used, abbreviate only these months: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. All other months are spelled out, e.g. Feb. 11, 2013 or March 14, 2013
• Include the day of the week with the date for upcoming events and use cardinal, not ordinal numbers, e.g. Tuesday, March 14, not Tuesday, March 14th
• Do not abbreviate days of the week unless in tabular format; then use Sun., Mon., etc.
• Spell out in full in formal invitations or when appropriate
• Use en dashes to separate ranges, e.g. Jan.–Dec. or Mon.–Fri. To create an en dash on a PC, type “Ctrl” and the minus sign on the numeric keypad, or “Alt” and then enter in “0150.” For a Mac, hold down “Option” and “-”

• The academic title for Yale Medicine CEO Paul Taheri, MD, MBA
• Note for (not of).

Use the word physician or doctor as a noun instead of MD, e.g. “The doctor was compassionate.” (not “The MD was compassionate.”)

• Use the generic name unless there is a reason to use the brand name.
• Use lowercase for nonproprietary (generic) drug names: disulfiram. Capitalize proprietary (brand) names: Antabuse. Use the following websites to check drug names: www.rxmed.com, www.rxlist.com.

Do not capitalize when spelled out. When abbreviated, capitalize FY. For example:

• She planned to give all of her lottery winnings to the university in fiscal year 2006
• The university’s FY16 budget will reflect her generous donation

• Spell out amounts less than one, e.g. one-half, two-thirds
• Wherever practical, use figures for precise amounts larger than one and convert to decimals. e.g. 2.5 pounds
• When spelling out amounts larger than one, hyphenate only the fraction, e.g. two and one-half pounds
• Also acceptable: two and a half (no hyphen)

Please use the NIH and HUGO Gene Nomenclature sites for guidelines, which would be to capitalize and italicize gene names. Please make sure that it is a gene and not a protein. See protein names.

For general information: https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/

To search for a gene, protein, etc.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene

Hugo Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) guidelines for human gene nomenclature: https://www.genenames.org/about/guidelines#Appendix1

• Online YM stories should be title case (all main words initial caps.) In publications and in publications online, only the first letter of a headline should be capitalized unless a proper name or title is included (sentence case). Make all headlines flush left. Exception: First word after colon is always uppercase in headlines.
• Attribute carefully. Attribution is as important in headlines as in stories.

Always use as two words, e.g. Her position as a health care worker is rewarding. e.g. Yale New Haven Hospital provides the finest health care. The exception is if “Healthcare” is part of a proper name.

Yale Medicine magazine and Medicine@Yale use health care as two words in all cases.

• In most cases, Yale Medicine, the clinical practice, uses clinical titles rather than faculty titles in stories (although it uses some academic titles in concepts.)
• On first reference, include a person’s academic degree(s) after his or her name: John Jones, MD, not Dr. John Jones. On second reference: Dr. Jones.
• Following Names: Lowercase titles when they follow names: Robert Alpern, dean of the Yale School of Medicine. An exception is made for endowed-chair titles (see chairs, endowed chairs). Titles of faculty members of the Department of Internal Medicine omit the word internal: John Smith, professor of medicine. Also, note style for titles of faculty associated with the Cancer Center, Child Study Center: John Smith, of the cancer center; David Doe, a faculty member in the Child Study Center. Delete at Yale when this is obvious from the context: Deputy Dean Carolyn W. Slayman, PhD, Sterling Professor of Genetics and professor of cellular and molecular physiology at Yale (delete “at Yale” here).
• Preceding Names: Capitalize titles when they precede names: Medical Director John Leventhal, Yale President Richard C. Levin, Dean Robert J. Alpern, MD.
• Subspecialties: Many faculty titles include the individual’s subspecialty (section name) in parentheses: Gerald Shulman, MD, PhD, professor of medicine (endocrinology). To avoid awkward constructions, one may write instead: Gerald Shulman, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine and endocrinology or endocrinologist Gerald Shulman, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine.
• Two or more titles: Use the minimum number of titles for a faculty member, per context. When a faculty member is in multiple departments, use “of” before each one to avoid confusion. Examples: John T. Stitt, PhD, professor of epidemiology, and of cellular and molecular physiology. A. Fictitious Physician, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and of epidemiology and public health.

• Hyphens are used to link words that function as a single adjective before a noun. You can use multiple hyphens: over-the-counter medicine. But beware of using more than two hyphens in a modifier. Use common sense to make sure text is not cumbersome. Example: Use HIV-positive to HIV-positive transplants, NOT: HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive.
• When a hyphenated word begins a sentence, the first word is always capitalized; subsequent elements are not capitalized.
• Hyphenate: well-being, high-quality, world-class, high-risk, low-risk, low-income, cost-effective, man-made, not-for-profit, pre-eminent (or any word in which the ending vowel of the prefix is the same as the beginning vowel of the next word).
• Don’t hyphenate: online, preadmission, psychosocial, multidisciplinary, readmission, underserved, uninsured and underinsured, wheelchair, nonprofit.
• In a title or headline, when two words are connected by a hyphen, if both words would be capitalized without the hyphen, they still should be capitalized. For example, Three-Year Results From the Evolut Low-Risk TAVR Trial Show Promise is correct while Three-year Results From the Evolut Low-risk TAVR Trial Show Promise in not correct.
  

• Lowercase internet, lowercase intranet
• Do not use “the Net”

• Do not precede with a comma
• Use a period after the abbreviation
• With II or III, do not precede with a comma

• Abbreviation for limited liability company
• Do not use periods

No periods in Yale Medicine and Medicine@Yale and Yale Medicine magazine copy.

Use a courtesy titles on second reference for physicians, e.g. Silvio Inzucchi, MD (first reference); Dr. Inzucchi (second reference)

• Do not use the “Dr.” courtesy title for a person with a PhD unless that person also has an MD.

• Levels 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b and 3a, 3b and 3c – Level 3c is the highest (American Academy of Pediatrics designation)
• Capitalize Level and use Arabic numerals

• Avoid starting a sentence with a number if possible. If you must, and the sentence starts with a number greater than nine, spell out. Except if it is starting with a year.
• Spell out numbers up to 10 and use numerals when the number is greater than 9. When referring to age, percentages, for millions and billions, and when using numbered lists always use numerals: 1-year-old boy; one dog, but 10 cats; 2 percent; 100 percent; 3 million; 12 billion; I thought I had nine items in the basket, but I really had 13.
• Phone numbers are always written with hyphens
• Hyphenate ages when they are used with adjectives

• Capitalize the O and the G.
• Use a forward slash and not a hyphen.

• Orthopædics (with æ) in all cases, except when in a proper name as "Orthopedics"

• For plural nouns not ending in s, add ’s (children’s)
• For plural nouns ending in s, add only an apostrophe (classes’)
• For singular proper names ending in s, add only an apostrophe (Rogers’)

• Put all punctuation inside quotation marks
• Use single quotation marks for a quote within a quote
• Use single quotation marks in headlines/titles
• Use quotation marks for nicknames
• Use smart quotes “…” instead of straight quotes "…"

• Spell out the word Saint.
• When designing, have the phrase be subordinate to Yale New Haven Hospital (e.g. do not place the phrase on the same line as YNHH).

• Use only one space between sentences.
• Use only one space after commas, colons and semi-colons.

• Use with in (not on): A noted specialist in asthma and lung diseases.

Spell out state names when used without a city name. When using a state name with a city name, check AP Style for the proper abbreviation. Do not use postal codes, e.g: Conn., not CT. Use commas before and after the state name.

Avoid using state names in headlines whenever possible.

Use New York state when necessary to distinguish from New York City.

surgeon-in-chief

system-wide

• Use hyphens to separate the area code from the phone number, and the exchange from the number, e.g. 203-688-2488.
• For both external and internal audiences, use the 10-digit number: area code and phone number, e.g. 203-688-2488.
• When listing an external number that contains an extension, use “ext.” (not “x.” or “Ext.”)
• For toll-free numbers, use the term “toll-free” followed by the 10-digit number, e.g. toll-free 888-700-6543. Hyphenate the word “toll-free.” You do not need to include the digit “1” before a toll-free number. Do not break up a phone number on two lines.

Yale Medicine, the clinical practice, uses present tense in all cases.

*** Exception for Yale Medicine magazine: The style for the magazine has been to use past tense in the front (news) and back (arts and humanities) sections, and past or present in feature articles. M@Y uses present tense everywhere except in descriptions of specific past events, and when a quote needs to be identified as having been spoken at a particular time.

Do not capitalize “the” in the middle of a sentence, e.g. the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Yale Medicine Cancer Center

Do not use “the” in front of Bridgeport Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, Yale New Haven Hospital, Yale Cancer Center, Yale School of Medicine or any other Yale New Haven reference. Exceptions to this rule follow:

• The George Washington University School of Medicine
  This school’s full name includes The (note the capital T). Some other schools do too: The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. If unsure, check the school’s website.
• The New England Journal of Medicine
  This is the journal’s full name. See journal titles.
• The New York Times
  This is the newspaper’s full name. Use italics unless surrounding text is italic (then use roman type). See titles of works.

• Use figures except for noon and midnight. Do not use 12 noon or 12 midnight –the word alone is sufficient.
• Use a.m. and p.m. instead of o’clock. Lowercase a.m. and p.m. For example, 10:30 a.m. or 2 p.m. Do not use 5:00 p.m.; use 5 p.m.; however, use 5:30 p.m.
• Use a hyphen (not an en-dash), with a space before and after, to separate beginning and ending times, e.g. 3 - 7:30 p.m. However, it’s OK to eliminate the space if it helps the layout, or if there are narrow columns or lists of times and dates.
• Only when the beginning and ending times straddle morning and afternoon is it necessary to put a.m. or p.m. after the beginning time, e.g. 10:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.

• Do not capitalize university, hospital, academic or administrative titles unless they precede the person’s name.
• When used after the name, the title is lowercase except for proper nouns, e.g. Mary Hu, associate dean for communications.
• Capitalize a named professorship both before and after a name, e.g. Humana Foundation Professor of Geriatric Medicine Leo Cooney, MD; Leo Cooney, MD, Humana Foundation Professor of Geriatric Medicine.
• When used before the name, the title is capitalized and not set off by commas.
• Use the following titles and spell out on first usage when appropriate: business associate, BA; environmental associate, EA; patient care associate, PCA; patient service manager, PSM; off-shift executive, OSE.
• When not used with an individual name, lowercase the title; e.g. the professor, the doctor.

• Use italics for titles of books, pamphlets, periodicals and newspapers, movies, television shows, poems, plays, paintings and long musical compositions.
• Use quotation marks for titles of articles, book chapters, reports/white pages, and song titles.

• Yale New Haven Hospital has a Level I trauma center (American College of Surgeons designation: I-V; I being the highest).
• Capitalize Level; use Roman numerals.

• Do not underline or break.
• In general it is not necessary to use “www” before a website addresses.
• When referring to Yale New Haven Health, the major exception is that www. should be used with www.ynhh.org, www.bridgeporthospital.org and www.greenhosp.org (internal servers require the “www” at Yale New Haven Health).
• Use simple addresses, e.g. www.ynhh.org rather than lengthy extensions, e.g. ynhh.org/ynhch/ch_comm.html#health.

weeklong

well-being

WiFi

Use Yale Cancer Center when writing about education, research, and when referring to clinical care.

Do not use “the” before Yale Cancer Center.

• Yale Medicine is the name of the Yale School of Medicine’s clinical practice. Yale Medicine can be used when referring to departments and services, i.e. Yale Medicine Neurology, Yale Medicine Otolaryngology, Yale Medicine Speech & Swallow Program.
• Yale Medicine Magazine, the Yale School of Medicine alumni magazine’s title, is normally set in italics. Set in roman type when the surrounding type is italic.

On first reference, always spell out the full name of the organization. Avoid acronyms whenever possible. On second references, it’s better to call these entities the hospital, the cancer center, etc.

Yale New Haven Health and Yale New Haven Hospital no longer use hyphens in any Yale New Haven references, including system, hospital, children’s hospital, etc.). For subsequent references of “hospital,” keep lowercase.

NOTE: Yale New Haven Health is the new name for the Yale New Haven Health System, which includes Bridgeport, Greenwich and Yale New Haven hospitals.

• Bridgeport Hospital
• Greenwich Hospital
• Northeast Medical Group
• Saint Raphael Campus. See Saint Raphael Campus reference.
• Yale Cancer Center
• Yale Medicine Cancer Care
• Yale Center for Clinical Investigation
• Yale Medicine
• Yale New Haven Health
• Yale Physicians Building
• Yale School of Medicine
• Yale School of Nursing
• Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital
• Yale New Haven Hospital
• Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital

YNHH stands for Yale New Haven Hospital. Do not use YNHH for Yale New Haven Health

• This is the complete name of the school. Yale School of Medicine is acceptable on first reference, and in many cases, where the context is clear, the School of Medicine is preferable, even on first reference.
• Do not capitalize medical school or school when these phrases stand alone.
• Do not use “the” before Yale School of Medicine.

Yale System of Medical Education

yearlong