Style Guide

The following style guide is an attempt to standardize usage for written materials produced by members of the office of Communications and Marketing and its partners at the colleges, departments and offices at the University of North Alabama. The lion’s share of that writing is posted to the university’s website, where the reading audience ranges from school children to alumni to international students considering the University. So the writing that explains and promotes the university's mission needs to be familiar and readily understood.

For most written work, writers and editors should use the Associated Press Stylebook as a primary guide for written work. The Associated Press uses Webster’s New World College Dictionary, published by Wiley, as its primary dictionary. For questions not addressed by the Associated Press Stylebook, consult the Chicago Manual of Style.

Although this guide contains some exceptions to the Associated Press Stylebook, the style guidelines here are not meant to supplant the Associated Press Stylebook but rather to augment it with guides specific to the University of North Alabama and academe.

This guide is not intended for students or professors to use when writing academic papers, and it does not try to include field-specific guidelines. On the contrary, the intent of this guide is to provide ways to avoid the technical jargon that isn't necessary within most academic disciplines.

Thank you for your cooperation,

UNA Office of Communications and Marketing