Language Guide
Prepared by Marketing & Communications
This style guide is a reference for the York University community, to assist in journalistic and promotional writings and for communications to the general public. It pertains to York University’s English language publications only. Our guidelines for capitalization, abbreviation, punctuation, use of titles, non-sexist language and other issues of style come from a few sources. A modified Canadian Press (CP) style is used. The CP Stylebook, along with CP Caps and Spelling, is the general guide. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary is the authority for spelling. Another guideline was Talking Gender: A Guide to Nonsexist Communication by Ruth King et al., and the CCAE English Language Style Guide.
The "Spelling" section of this document aims to address questions of spelling that come up frequently in the Department of Marketing & Communications, and lists some of CP’s exceptions to the Oxford spellings. As well, this style guide deals with items of particular stylistic concern for editors of York publications. Cross references are also listed to assist editors in finding relevant information.
Approved by the University Executive Committee for use in official
University publications, November 1999.