Editorial Style Guide: H
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Use sentence case instead of title case for headings in print or on the web.
Get more information about capitalization.
Capitalize this term. It is considered to be English and is therefore not italicized as a foreign word.
This term refers to people who come from (or whose ancestors come from) Spanish-speaking countries. The term is not necessarily interchangeable with Latina/Latino.
See also Latina, Latino, Latine, Latinx.
Many modifier-noun pairs such as high school are unhyphenated when used to modify another noun, especially if the pair is a familiar one.
high school students, not high-school students
overseas study opportunities, not overseas-study opportunities
dual degree programs, not dual-degree programs
general education requirement, not general-education requirement
This is true even when the first word in the pair is also a noun (such as the word grade in the expression grade point).
grade point average, not grade-point average
If the pair is very familiar, often it is closed up.
lowercase letters, not lower case letters or lower-case letters
On the other hand, the hyphen should still be inserted when it’s needed to prevent confusion.
all-grade education, a heavy-ion physicist
A noun-modifier pair such as computer assisted is usually hyphenated when it comes before the noun, but not after it.
She directs the computer-assisted reference services.
but: Almost all of our services are computer assisted.
This is also generally true for modifying phrases containing prepositions.
She lives in off-campus housing.
but: Her home is off campus.
The same rule applies to terms ending in -time or< -level.
He is a part-time web designer.
but: He works here part time.Those are graduate-level courses.
but: All of those courses are graduate level.
It’s also true for modifying pairs involving two modifiers.
He is a much-appreciated worker.
but: His diligence is much appreciated.
Do not hyphenate, however, when the first modifier ends in -ly. In this case, leave a space after the -ly word, wherever it occurs.
The highly organized administrative assistant was deeply respected.
Similarly, modifying phrases containing units of measure tend to be hyphenated before but not after the noun.
a three-hour tour, a 150,000-square-foot building, a five-year-old child (but: Sophie is five years old), a mid-twelfth-century relic
Exceptions to this rule occur when the modifying phrase involves money symbols, percentages, or credit hours, none of which have hyphens in any position.
a 9 percent increase in costs, a $2.5 million gift, a 4 credit hour course
The prefix co- is hyphenated in words referring to someone’s occupation or status (e.g., co-author, co-host) in both noun and verb forms. Otherwise, it is usually closed up (e.g., cocurricular, corequisite).
Use a “suspended” hyphen when a base word such as< year in the example below, or a suffix or prefix such as self, is doing double duty.
second- and third-year law students, self-initiated and -implemented projects
Use this construction even when the complete words, standing alone, would be closed up.
macro- and microeconomics
Do not “take a shortcut” when the first expression is ordinarily open.
applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, not applied and sociolinguistics
The suffix -wide is hyphenated only after a lengthy base word.
university-wide
but: campuswide, statewide
Many words beginning with common prefixes are closed up. Hyphens are not used in such familiar expressions as these:
extracurricular, interlibrary, midyear, minicomputer, multicultural, nondegree, postdoctoral, preenrollment, reevaluate, semicolon, socioeconomic
There are three types of exceptions, though:
Hyphenate if closing up the word would make it confusing, ambiguous, or difficult to read.
co-op (versus coop), anti-intellectual (versus antiintellectual)
Hyphenate if the second element in the word begins with a capital letter.
anti-American
Hyphenate if the second element in a word that would usually not be hyphenated (e.g., nondegree) is part of a hyphenated phrase.
non-degree-granting program
For guidance on hyphenating specific words, see individual entries in the preferred spelling/capitalization word list in this style guide or see Webster’s Eleventh. Also, The Chicago Manual of Style has a very useful compounds section at the end of its seventh chapter.
See also dashes.