Content guidelines and faculty editor resources

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ampersand (&)

• Use ‘and’ not ‘&’

campuses names

• These can be treated in various ways, eg: Monash University Sunway, Malaysia campus or Monash University's Gippsland campus. On second reference, 'the Gippsland campus' is acceptable, but not Monash Gippsland. Do not capitalise 'campus'.

comprise/composed

'Comprise' does not take a preposition. It means 'include' or 'encompass', eg:

• The seminars may comprise undergraduate and graduate students.
• The seminar is composed of students.

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external (mode of study)

• In coursework programs, use 'off-campus' to describe courses or units offered in the off-campus learning mode. Use 'external' to describe the offering mode for research degrees such as PhDs and professional doctorates. See also 'off-campus'.

faculties

• Monash has 10 faculties: Art and Design; Arts; Business and Economics; Education; Engineering; Information Technology; Law; Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Science.

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internal (mode of study)

• Use 'on-campus' to describe the offering mode in both research degrees and coursework programs. See also 'external' and 'off-campus'.

Monash University

• Must be used in full on first reference. Use 'Monash' or 'the University' on second reference.

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off-campus (mode of study)

• Use 'off-campus' (lower-case) to describe the external mode of offering in coursework programs. See also 'on-campus' and 'external'.

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semester

• Use 'first semester' and 'second semester' rather than '1st semester' or '2nd semester', or Semester 1 or Semester 2.

commas in numbers

• Use a comma in any number with more than four figures. Thus '1000' rather than '1,000' and '10,000' not '10000'.

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numbers as words (two) or values (2)

• Always spell out numbers at the start of a sentence.
• When abbreviating, use no. (singular), and nos (plural - no full stop).
• In text, spell out numbers from one to nine, eg: The woman had five nine-year-old children to look after each day. One of the children had two siblings, aged 14 and 15.
• In tables use values not words.

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ordinals (first, second etc)

• Use words for ordinal numbers up to and including nine, and figures thereafter, eg the first floor of the Menzies building, but the 20th floor of the Rialto.

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percentages

• In general copy, use a mixture of words and figures, with a space following the figure, eg: '9 per cent'. In tables, use figures and the percentage symbol, with no space between figure and symbol, eg: '9%'.

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• adviser - Not 'advisor'.

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• cooperate, coordinate.

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enquire/inquire

• enquire, enquiry - to ask, eg a telephone enquiry, or an enquiry from an international student
• inquire, inquiry - a formal investigation, eg to set up an inquiry.

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• focused, focusing - One 's' only.

• Use 'ise' in words such as 'organise' and 'recognise' in Monash publications, including in course and unit names.

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• program, not programme

colon

• Used to introduce a series or list. If a colon introduces a complete sentence, more than one sentence, a formal statement, quotation, or speech in a dialogue, capitalise the first word of the sentence. If the colon introduces one or more sentence fragments, don't capitalise the first letter.
• Handbook convention - where a colon is used to separate a sub-clause, in eg a unit name, the sub-clause begins with a capital.

commas

• In numbers (see section 2. Numbers)

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email /web addresses

• Use a full stop at the end of an email address when it appears at the end of a sentence.

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full stop

• Used with abbreviations ('tel.' for 'telephone' or 'no.' for 'number') but not with contractions ('hons' for 'honours'). Don't use with Mr, Dr, Mrs, or with terms such as Pty Ltd.

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initials

• Use spaces between initials and no full stops, eg: C L Butchers.

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Latin abbreviations

• Do not use full stops after the following: eg ie etc v (against)

quotation marks

• Use single quotes for emphasis not double

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semi-colon

• Do not use at the end of bullet point item in lists in the Handbook.

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spacing

• Only one space after full stops, bullet points, and before and after parentheses and brackets

building/room names

• Lowercase 'building' and 'room' except when proper nouns.

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campus

• Lowercase when used in a generic sense or when describing a Monash location, eg on a university campus, or at the University's Gippsland campus.

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cultural movements and styles

• Capitalise names of  if they are derived from proper nouns; otherwise they should be lowercase, eg: Doric, Gothic, Pre-Raphaelite, but baroque, classical, cubism, dadaism, postmodernism.

degree

• When referring generically to bachelors/masters degree don't use an apostrophe, and use lower-case 'b/m', eg a bachelors degree in the Faculty of Arts.

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department

• Capitalise when used in full, but not when shortened eg 'Geography department'.

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faculty

• capitalise when the faculty's name is used in full, but not when contracted or used on second reference, eg: the Faculty of Science; the Science faculty; the faculty.

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headings and subheadings

• Use sentence case in the headings and sub-headings in a publication, except for the title of the publication, which should be maximally capitalised.

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Indigenous

• Use an initial capital letter.

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majors, minors and sequences of study

• These are not capitalised, eg: A major sequence in history comprises ....; In the faculty honours courses are available in women's studies and Japanese linguistics.

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office names

• Capitalise when part of an official name but lowercase when used generically, eg: the Monash University Solicitor's Office, but the arts administration office

official titles and positions

• Use maximal capitalisation only for a person's official title when given in full (whether or not accompanied by his or her name), eg: the Director of the Centre for Computer Interaction, Professor Maria Jones, but the head of the School of Asian Languages and Studies. However, with titles of the University's executive, use maximal capitalisation at all times, eg: Vice-Chancellor, Pro Vice-Chancellor.
• head, not Head
• reader, not Reader

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scholarships and awards

• Names of scholarships and awards ar maximally capitalised.

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titles (of publications etc)

• Articles in journals, chapters in books, musical compositions - in single quotes, minimal capitalisation, eg: 'The anti-nuclear movement in Japan'.
• Book titles, exhibitions, newspapers, journals and periodicals, plays and films - no quotes, in italics and maximal capitalisation, eg: The Secret History.
• Paintings, drawings, sculpture, song titles, television programs - in single quotes, maximal capitalisation, eg: 'Blue Poles'.

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unit names and codes

• Unit names are written in sentence case, ie capitalise the first letter in the first word and only proper nouns in the unit name. DO NOT USE A LEAD CAPITAL FOR EACH WORD.
• When listing units use the following format including the unit code, eg: KOS3010 Korean civilisation. NOTE: This is the preferred format.
• When run with text, put the unit name in parenthesis, eg Students take KOS3010 (Korean civilisation) in their third year.
• When the code is not given, put the unit name in single quotes, eg: Lisa Roberts gained excellent results in 'Korean civilisation' in the final year of her bachelors degree.

In course/areas of study/faculty information sections of the Handbook, references to units should always include the unit code as these are hotlinked to the unit entry

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compounding and hyphenation

• The Macquarie Dictionary is the preferred authority on whether a term in noun or verb form is run together, hyphenated or made into two words.

A few general rules:

• Hyphenate compound adjectives (including measurements) used before a noun, eg a three-year course, a first-year student, a mile-long list.
• Hyphenate compounds including words such as 'all', 'self' and 'half', eg a real self-starter, half-hearted efforts, all-knowing and all-seeing.

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• full-time (and part-time) – hyphenate

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hyphen, dash - en rules

• Generally, hyphens join and dashes separate.
• Hyphens are used to join compound nouns and adjectives, eg anti-apartheid, two-year-old.
• At Monash, the dash in a sentence is typeset as an en rule ( – ). En rules in sentences always have spaces before and after them, whether they are used as a pair to bracket an independent clause, or at the end of a sentence to introduce a sentence fragment, eg She smiled sweetly then – to my horror – pulled out the evidence. Imagine my horror when she reached in her bag – and pulled out the evidence.
• En rules are also used between ranges of numbers or dates. Use en rules with no spaces around them when joining entities that are the same, eg: 6–9 pm, 5–8 April. But use spaced en rules when joining complex entities, eg: 6 am – 9 pm, 5 April – 8 March.

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• mature-age students

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• off-campus/on-campus (see also full-time, part-time) - always hyphenate

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time of day

• Use as few figures as possible when describing time spans, don't use full points after 'am' and 'pm', and put a space before 'am/pm', eg 9–11 am, not 9 am – 11 am, 9 am – 3 pm, not 9.00 am – 3.00 pm.
• The en rule replaces the word 'to'. In text, it is preferable and more elegant to use either from/to or between/and in place of the en rule, eg: The function will be held from 9 am to 3 pm on Wednesday.

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• university-wide, But statewide, nationwide.

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• Abbreviations to be avoided wherever possible.

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• Academic awards can be cited in full or shortened, but don't use a mixture of the two.

bullet points

• The introductory line preceding a list of bullet points should end in a colon
• The final bullet point in a list should have a full stop except for unit listings.
• Semi-colons are not used at the end of each bullet point in the Handbook.
• The first word in each point is not capitalised unless each point is a complete sentence.
• Where each point is capitalised, the introductory sentence must also contain a complete sentence.

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Telephone numbers

• use tel. as the contraction not ph.
• site all telephone numbers in the ISD format; +61 3 9905 2085