Lafayette College, Office of Public Information
Revised April 2003

Contents

Introduction

Grammar and Specific Lafayette Usage Guide

• A1. Academic Degrees
• A2. Capitalization
• A3. Institutional Identity
• A4. Possessives
• A5. Numbers and Numerals
• A6. Plurals
• A7. Prefixes
• A8. Relative Pronouns
• A9. Restrictive/Non-restrictive Clauses
• A10. Subject/Verb Agreement
• A11. Times and Dates
• A12. Titles
• A13. Split Infinitives

Punctuation

• B1. Apostrophes
• B2. Colons
• B3. Commas
• B4. Dashes
• B5. Hyphens
• B6. Quotation Marks
• B7. Semicolons
• B8. Titles (books, films, music, etc.)

General Usage Questions

• C1. Black/White
• C2. Asian/Oriental
• C3. Native American/American Indian
• C4. Hispanic/Latino
• C5. Gay/Lesbian
• C6. Sexist Use of Language
• C7. Individuals' First or Last Names in Text
• C8. Abbreviations
• C9. Computer Terms
• C10. Merit Scholarship References
• C11. Correct Spellings/Usages: Compound Words
• C12. Correct Spelling/Usage: Compound Nouns with Differing Verb Forms
• C13. Commonly Misspelled Words
• C14. Commonly Confused Words
• C15. Endowed Professorships & Chairs
• C16. College Buildings

Class Notes

• D1. Abbreviations
• D2. Telephone Numbers
• D3. Commas
• D4. Internet/Web Terms
• D5. Boldface/Lightface for Names
• D6. Dates