College Name, Campus Buildings, Phone Numbers

College Name

  • Always use Piedmont Community College on first reference and PCC or “the College” on subsequent reference in your written and oral communications, except in some formal documents when it is best to use the College’s full name, Piedmont Community College, on all references. Do not use Piedmont or Piedmont College.
  • When using PCC in headlines, be sure the document is easily recognized as Piedmont Community College, since other North Carolina community colleges may also abbreviate their names as PCC (ex. Pitt Community College).
  • PCC’s campus locations should be referred to as:
    • Person County Campus (Not Person Campus or Roxboro Campus)
    • Caswell County Campus (Not Caswell Campus or Yanceyville Campus)
    • Business Development and Entrepreneurship Center (BDEC on subsequent references)
    • Center for Educational and Agricultural Development (CEAD on subsequent references)
    • South Campus

Campus Buildings

  • When listing campus buildings, list the building and then the building’s letter.
    • Building A (Not “A” Building)
    • Learning Commons, Building H
    • Barnette Auditorium (Building D)
  • When listing locations that have actual names it is preferred to use those names on first reference.
    • Barnette Auditorium
    • Timberlake Art Gallery
    • Dr. H. James Owen Administration Building
    • Gordon P. Allen Learning Commons
  • When listing buildings and room numbers, list the building first and then the room number. The word “room” should be capitalized.
    • Building E, Room 150
    • Learning Commons, Building H, Room 123
  • When listing room numbers that do not require a specific explanation of buildings (typically with internal communication), list th
    • D120
    • K202

Phone Numbers

Telephone and fax numbers should be written with the area code and the hyphenated seven-digit number. When supplying an extension number, abbreviate the extension to Ext. Extensions should only be used for phone numbers with no direct line such as the Financial Aid number.

Direct numbers are preferred over extensions.

  • 336-599-1181
  • 336-322-2191, Ext. 4004

Dates and Times

Abbreviation of Months

  • Always spell out months if space permits.

Months without Specific Dates

  • Always spell out the month when it’s used without a specific date.
    • We went on vacation in September.

Abbreviating Day of the Week

Spell out days of the week.

  • Abbreviations may be used when space is limited.
    • M, T, W, TH, F, S, SU
    • Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat., Sun.

Listing Days with Numerals

For days of the month, only use numerals, not ordinals (21st, 2nd, 3rd)

  • May 2 (not May 2nd)
  • September 3 (not September 3rd)

Times

  • Use lowercase letters, with periods but without spaces, for the abbreviations a.m. and p.m.
  • Avoid repeating a.m./p.m. if it is clear.
    • Correct: 9-10 a.m.
      • Incorrect: 9 a.m.-10 a.m.
  • Drop the :00.
    • Correct: 9-10 a.m.
      • Incorrect: 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
  • Avoid redundancy with noon and midnight.
    • Correct: noon or 12 p.m.
      • Incorrect: 12 p.m. noon
    • Correct: midnight or 12 a.m.
      • Incorrect: 12 a.m. midnight

Numbers and Numerals

Spelling out Numbers

  • Spell out numbers one through nine. Use numerals for 10 and over.
    • Jack and Mary had three sons and two daughters.
    • The company has 10 cars.
  • Spell out numbers at the beginning of a sentence except a number that identifies a calendar year.
    • Twenty instructors attended the conference.
    • 1492 was the year Columbus discovered America.
  • Spell out fractions, using hyphens between the words.

Numerals

  • Use numerals in percentages and spell out percent.
    • 4 percent
    • 0.6 percent
  • Use numerals for ranges.
    • 1-15 students
  • Use numerals for ages.
    • a 2-year-old girl
    • the 9-year-old building
  • Use numeral to express dimensions and distances.
    • 4 miles
    • 240 volts
    • 7 cubic feet
    • 35 pounds
    • 8-point type

Consistency

  • Numbers in a category should be treated in the same manner. If you must use figures for one of the numbers in a given category, also use figures for the others in that category.
    • There are 25 students in the Gunsmithing program, 7 in the Digital Effects and Animation program and 22 in General Education.
  • If the text contains multiple categories of numbers, you may use figures for one set of numbers and spell out those in the other set in order to keep the sets distinct.
    • Nine students scored 100, thirteen scored between 90 and 99, twenty-six scored between 80 and 89 and the remaining fifty-six scored below 80.

Years

  • Use an s without an apostrophe to indicate spans of decades or centuries.
  • the 1890s
  • the 1900s

Punctuation

Commas

  • Use commas between items in a series, but not before the ‘and.’ Known as the Oxford comma, adding a comma before the ‘and’ is widely acceptable in academic writing, but is not preferred when following AP style.
    • The email was sent to students, faculty and staff.

Quotation Marks

  • Punctuation (periods, commas, etc.) always goes inside quotation marks.
    • “The fall semester begins in August,” she said.

Bullet Points

  • Ensure all bullet points are grammatically parallel. For example, if one bullet point starts with a verb, all should start with a verb.
  • Capitalize the first word of each bullet point.
  • End each bullet point with a period if it is a complete sentence. If the bullet points are fragments, you do not need to add periods at the end.
  • Introduce the list with a complete sentence followed by a colon.
    • Please bring the following items to the meeting:
      • Copy of the agenda
      • Name tag
      • Laptop
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