Why Conform?
The Carnegie Mellon community praises independence, initiative, the entrepreneurial spirit. Almost every one of the dozens of offices and departments on campus generates its own memos, letters, brochures, posters, invitations, fliers, booklets, catalogs, magazines and newsletters. And each writer or editor has his or her own priorities and objectives.

But every Carnegie Mellon publication has one thing in common, no matter from where it originates: It can only perform more effectively if it reflects consistency and clarity in its messages.

Quite frequently, these publications have one more thing in common—the reader. Many of our audiences overlap. One reader may receive an Architecture newsletter, an invitation from Development, the Carnegie Mellon Magazine, a brochure about the Master of Public Management Program and a letter from the dean of student affairs—all in one week. Imagine the confusion if every publication treats the English language a little bit differently. It makes our reader wonder if we're really all talking about the same place — Carnegie Mellon University.

So, it's for the sake of our readers that we advocate using a clear, consistent, contemporary style of writing in every non-academic document or publication that comes out of Carnegie Mellon.

Guidelines, Not Rules
The English language defies any would-be "rule-maker" to pronounce one, best way to write. This guide will not answer all your questions. It won't really help you win an argument over which way to spell "database" or whether to hyphenate "daycare." But it will give you a foundation upon which to base your own writing decisions.

And it will help you improve the clarity and consistency of documents and publications coming out of your office or department.

We've assembled these guidelines using the Associated Press Stylebook as a primary "authority" because so much of our writing is intended for external readers—prospective students and their parents, donors, business leaders, news reporters and editors, and the public at large.

We've also referred to standards set forth in Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," "The New York Times' Manual of Style and Usage," "The Chicago Manual of Style" and "Wired Style" from the editors of Wired magazine.

And, because we often write for readers who are already familiar with the university—students, colleagues, alumni—we've included some Carnegie Mellon terminology and often-used facts.

Do not apply these guidelines to technical or academic writing. Other sources can help you with this specialized kind of writing.

Do use this style guide to help you when you're writing anything (and everything) intended for the campus audience or for the general public.

We appreciate your cooperation in using these guidelines. University-wide consistency in writing style builds the credibility of our publications and greatly enhances our audiences' understanding of Carnegie Mellon.

Whatever style you follow, remember that consistency and clarity are the keys to more effective communications. Make sure your preferred writing standards are carried through on all of your publications.

Style guides are the product of optimists (or obsessives) who really want to believe in order and principles. If you have some rules, suggestions or pet peeves of your own about writing standards, share them with us at pubs@andrew.cmu.edu

University Identity

Name/Wordmark

The Carnegie Mellon wordmark is the official logo of the university. It has been created specifically for use as our wordmark and cannot be simply typed in. To use the wordmark, get a wordmark file and insert the file as art into the document. For more details, contact Communications Design at 8-6963.

The "Carnegie" and "Mellon" in the wordmark should remain together on the same line.

The registration mark ® needs to follow the wordmark on any product other than a printed publication or Web page.