WRJ Style Sheet
Our style sheet is based on The Chicago Manual of Style.
This list will continue to be updated but if you have a question, please e-mail me at hdunbar@urj.org and I’ll look it up for you.

Capitalization:
  • "sisterhood" is not capitalized unless it begins a sentence. 
  • A "bat/bar mitzvah" is something you become, not something you have. Neither is capitalized (in the same way that "bride" isn’t capitalized). 
  • Titles are not capitalized unless attached to a name. 
    * The rabbis went to lunch. 
    * Lunch was presided over by Rabbi Yoffie. 
    * Eric Yoffie, president of the Union spoke at lunch.
  • U.S. for the country 
  • A.M. for time (these are small caps! Type them in lower case, go to "tools", "font", then click "small caps") 
  • Shabbat is always capitalized. 
  • "Reform Judaism" is capitalized both as a phrase and as individual words. 
  • Names of departments are capitalized when referring to them specifically. 
   * The Marketing and Communications Department is putting together a WRJ style guide. 
        - But "marketing department" alone is not capitalized. 
   * WRJ Board of Directors, the board of directors, the board
  • Also, please note that "Meeting" is not capitalized in a sentence (likewise, neither is assembly!) 

Comma usage:
  • We use serial commas. For example: 
   * This book is dedicated to my parents, Mother Theresa, and the Pope.
Without this comma, the sentence says that the two ARE your parents. With the comma, you are dedicating the book to all three.

Lists: 
  • Vertical lists are best introduced by a grammatically complete sentence (i.e., a sentence that is still a sentence all by itself, without the help of the list), followed by a colon. 
  • No periods are required at the end of entries unless at least one entry is a complete sentence, in which case a period is necessary at the end of each entry. 
  • Items in a list should be syntactically similar. 
  • If items are numbered or bulleted, a period follows each number, and each entry begins with a capital letter—whether or not the entry forms a complete sentence. 
  • A group of unnumbered items each of which consists of an incomplete sentence should begin lowercase and requires no terminal punctuation. 
  • If a list completes the sentence that introduces it, items begin with lowercase letters, commas or semicolons are used to separate each item, and the last item ends with a period; such lists are often better run into the text rather than presented vertically. 
Numbers:
  • All numbers up to 100 are spelled out. 
  • Numbers OVER 100 are shown in digits. 
However:
  • When a sentence shows both types of numbers in the same context, use digits for all of them if any of them require digits. For example: 
   * There are 130 women on the Development and Special Projects Committee, 45 women on the Membership Committee, and 8 women on the Marketing Committee.
  • Decades are referred to as: 
   * I’ve just thrown out my suits from the ‘80s .

Personal Names: 
  • Use the full name in the first reference and the last name in future references. 
   * Roseanne Selfon is the president of WRJ. Selfon is also a member of the board of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Publications
  • Titles of books, newspapers, plays, television shows, and magazines are italicized 
  • Titles of articles, short-stories, songs, and essays are set in quotes 
   * "Detroit Tigers Win World Series!"
  • Lilith Salons is capitalized. The word "salon" isn’t when used in a sentence. Italicize Lilith when referring to the magazine but not when referring to the salon. 
   * Lilith has been published for the past twenty years. 
   * We are all excited about the WRH/Lilith Salons that will take place in our sisterhood.

Spelling:
  • alumna (singular feminine) 
  • alumnae (plural feminine) 
  • e-mail 
  • website 
  • listserv 
   * When referring to multiple listservs it is usually easier to use the word "lists". A proper plural doesn’t really exist (but use "listservs" if you must). 

Apostrophes:
  • Speakers Bureau – This is attributive rather than possessive, so no apostrophe is necessary. 
  • The WRJ Board of Trustees’ meeting (and any other such meeting of a group) should use the apostrophe to denote the plural possessive unless you’re referring to the name of a document that doesn’t use it. 

Transliterations of Hebrew words:
  • Staff, please defer to the URJ transliteration guide found on the website. (www.urj.org/staff/guidelines), then choose "transliteration". If any lay leader would like me to e-mail this document to them, please let me know at hdunbar@urj.org. 
  • "Parashah" is used when referring to a general reading. "Parashat" is used before the name of the reading, for instance, "Parashat Chayei Sarah". 
  • Per the Union’s transliteration guide, "mazal tov" is spelled with an "a" not and "e" ("mazel"). 
Underlines
  • Most people view underlines these days as representing a web link. So please don’t use them for emphasis. 
Union for Reform Judaism
The entire name should be used for the first reference. "Union" should be used for further references. "URJ" is not meant to be used.

YES Fund
The YES Fund should be referred to, in the first reference, as in
   * YES Fund (Youth, Education, and Special Projects).