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eCommunication Standards

Images Library

University of Minnesota Cyberstyle

These guidelines are based on recommendations in the Dec 95/Jan 96 Copy Editor from a meeting of copy chiefs of computer magazines and in the April/May 2000 Copy Editor from a review of William A. Sabin ’s The Gregg Reference Manual, 9th edition.

• Common Words
  
• Line breaks for Web and E-mail Addresses
  
• Guidelines for Titles

1. Use the following style for these words.
   
   

   	bandwidth
   	CD-ROM (not CD-ROM disk)
   	dialog box
   	domain
   	e-mail
   	home page
   	the Internet, but internet, (the) Net (when referring to the Internet, to avoid confusion with network)
   	online (always solid)
   	World Wide Web, (the) Web
   	Web site

   
   
2. Follow the style of these words, using intercaps.
   
   

   	iMac
   	InterNIC
   	PageMaker
   	QuarkXPress

   
   
3. Follow these guidelines for line breaks and style for Web and
   e-mail addresses.
   
   If an address won’t fit on one line, break it before the punctuation mark and put the punctuation on the next line. Break the address before a period. Break after the double slash (//) but before a dot, single slash, hyphen, underscore, or other punctuation mark. Never insert a hyphen within a URL to break a line. Do not break a line after a hyphen (-) or after any other punctuation mark.
   
   

   	For budget information, e-mail the department at l-budget @tc.umn.edu.
   	The Web site address for the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, is http:// www.umn.edu/twincities.
   	For information on the Images Library, see the Web site at http://images .umn.edu/.

   
   You may want to set off the e-mail or Web address with italics or parentheses so readers don’t think punctuation that follows is part of the address.
   
   You still need a period at the end of a sentence even if it ends with an e-mail or Web address.
   
   
4. Follow these guidelines for titles of online publications. Be consistent.
   
   Some experts recommend using italics if the work contains original material, not republished material from a printed work.
   
   Set the title in roman type if it exists only online.
   
   
   • CD-ROM titles
   Some experts set them all in italics. Some set all in roman, regardless of whether it’s a book.