Editorial Style Guide

Academic Units

When the full and correct name of a university college or school is given, capitalize: Beacom School of Business, but use lowercase if the proper name is not used: business school.

Here are the proper names of the university's schools and colleges:

• College of Arts and Sceinces
• Beacom School of Business
• School of Education
• College of Fine Arts
• School of Health Sciences
• Graduate School
• Knudson School of Law
• Sanford School of Medicine

Capitalize “department” if it precedes the department title: Department of Biology. Do not capitalize when it follows the title: The biology department.

Abbreviations

Use the ampersand (&) only if used by a company or department in its official name: Department of Media & Journalism. Use “and” if the department title is lowercased: The media and journalism department.

Spell out University of South Dakota on first usage. Either “USD” or “the university” is acceptable on succeeding references.

Do not abbreviate the names of cities, states or countries other than the U.S. or U.S.A. (on second usage). Use the postal abbreviations for state only when providing a full address: Vermillion, South Dakota, is home of the Coyotes. One university rival is found in Lincoln, Nebraska, another in Duluth, Minnesota.

Spell out centers and institutes on first reference: Disaster Mental Health Institute, Missouri River Institute, Institute of American Indian Studies, National Music Museum, University Art Galleries. Initials are permissible on subsequent references.

Do not capitalize the words or abbreviations: a.m., p.m., noon, federal, state, baccalaureate, government, master’s degree, dean’s list.

Academic Year

An academic year is composed of consecutive fall, spring and summer semesters. Fall 2025, Spring 2026 and Summer 2026 comprised the 2025-2026 school year.
Academic Calendars are not abbreviated and use an en dash: 2025-2026 academic calendar, 2013-2014 school year.

Alma Mater

Alma mater is always lowercase, unless as part of a larger proper noun: After four years, she returned to her alma mater.

Alumni

Use alumnus, when referring to a male graduate; alumna, when referring to a female graduate; alumni, when referring to two or more male or mixed graduates; alumnae, when referring to two or more female graduates.

Buildings and Facilities

Capitalize “building” or “hall” when used with a structure’s formal name. Use lowercase when used alone: residence hall, new building. Below are the formal names of the buildings on USD’s Vermillion campus as they should be written.

Academic Buildings

Residence Halls

Other Campus Buildings and Spaces

The USD – Sioux Falls location has three main buildings: The Administration/Classroom Building (FADM), the Science & Technology Building (FSC1) and the USD Graduate Education and Applied Research (GEAR) Center.

Charlie Coyote

Charlie Coyote is the face of USD. We also call him Charlie.

Classes

Capitalize specific course titles: Biotechnology 101 or Physical Therapy Instruction.

Capitalize the word “class” when referring to a specific graduating class: The Class of 2020.

Punctuate past graduation years with an apostrophe turned away from the number: Karen Smith ’19.

Coyotes

“Coyote” and “Coyotes” are capitalized in every use and can be used to describe USD’s official athletic programs, students and the campus community at large. USD is home of the Coyotes. President Gestring gave a welcome to the entire Coyote community.

“Coyotes” is used to denote both women’s and men’s sports teams. On first reference, describe the team: South Dakota women’s basketball team. On second reference: the Coyotes.

“Coyotes” may be shortened to “Yotes” with no apostrophe. I am a third-generation Yote. Go Yotes!

Campus

Use lowercase in all instances unless part of an official name: Vermillion campus, Sioux Falls campus. Use “campuswide” instead of “campus-wide.”

Dakota Days

Use “Dakota Days” to describe USD’s homecoming celebration. “D-Days” is also acceptable.

Dean's List

Do not capitalize “dean’s list” in any uses.

Degrees and Degree Abbreviations

For someone holding a doctorate, follow their name by their doctorate degree within commas on first reference. Amy Schweinle, Ph.D., is the dean of the School of Education. See Dr./Doctor.

Capitalize formal degree titles, but do not capitalize majors unless they are languages: Ph.D. in philosophy, Bachelor of Arts in communication studies, Master of Arts in English. Do not capitalize informal references to degrees: bachelor’s degree, master’s, associate degree, doctorate.

If using the formal degree titles (Bachelor of Arts) rather than an informal reference (bachelor’s), do not add the word “degree”; the degree itself communicates this.

When referring to general bachelor’s or master’s degrees, make them lowercase and possessive: He earned his master’s degree in fine arts the same year.

USD’s style includes periods for degrees unless there are three or more capital letters, in which case periods are omitted. The degrees “Bachelor of Science,” “Bachelor of Music,” “Master of Science,” “Master of Arts,” “Doctor of Philosophy,” “Doctor of Education,” etc., may be abbreviated: B.S., B.M., M.S., M.A., Ph.D. and Ed.D. Examples of degree abbreviations that do not include periods: MBA, OTD, MSW.

Dr./Doctor

“Dr.” may be used as an honorific for someone with a Doctor of Medicine. Do not use Dr. to describe someone with a different kind of doctorate; instead, place their degree after their name: John Dudley, Ph.D., is the dean of the college. Exceptions may be made for internal communications, such as a department’s internal newsletter, when the context of a discipline is clear.

Use “doctoral student” to describe a person working toward a doctoral degree.

Emeritus

Use “emeriti” when referring to two or more retired professors or board members holding emeritus rank; “emeritus” when referring to a male; and “emerita” when referring to a female. Use “emerit” if preferred by the person quoted.

Figures

When using numbers in sentences, zero to nine should be written out. Numbers 10 and above can be written numerically with the exception of the beginning of a sentence: Thirty-nine students made the dean’s list. There were 14 classes offered. She holds two leadership positions.

Spell out the word million: $30 million comprehensive campaign. Do not go beyond two decimal points: 7.51 million people.

Spans of years are written with a hyphen as follows: 1861-65, 1898-1902.

Hours of the day: 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.; not 7:00 p.m. 12 p.m. is always written as noon.

Do not use “first annual” the first time a program is being presented. Annual is only appropriate the second year and beyond of a program.

First-Year

Hythenate “first-year” and “first-generation” students.

Greek Life

Sorority or fraternity is lowercase. “Greek life” is capitalized as written.

The names of sororities and fraternities are always capitalized and written in their entirety on first reference; subsequent references remain capitalized but may use their known nickname or acronym: Sigma Alpha Epsilon is hosting a carwash. SAE has grown this year.

Healthcare

Use “healthcare” as one word in all contexts.

Homecoming

“Homecoming” is one word and capitalized when used as a noun. See Dakota Days.

Honors Program

USD has an Honors Program. “Honors Program” and “Honors” are always capitalized. Words that may follow the word “Honors” but are not part of a proper noun are lowercase: Honors thesis, orientation, seminar and curriculum.

Italics

Italics are never used in news releases.

Links

For readability, use title case capitalization following the usd.edu domain for URLs on the USD website: usd.edu/Student-Life

Sioux Falls always uses mixed caps in web address print: usd.edu/SiouxFalls

Majors

Do not capitalize the names of majors or academic programs except for proper names and languages: Spanish, German, English, communication studies, physics major, Bachelor of Science in biology.

Months

When a month stands alone in a sentence or is paired only with a year, spell out the name of the month: The fall semester will begin in August. USD faculty hosted that trip in September 2025.

Abbreviate the month name when accompanied by a day number. Some months (March, April, May, June, July) are not abbreviated. The fall semester began on Aug. 24, 2026. The report is due on May 1.

Names

In general, use a full (first and last) name on first use and only last names on second use. When discussing two people with the same last name, use both the first and last name on subsequent references. Use the name a person prefers (“Alex” for “Alexander”).

Office

Capitalize “office” when it is part of a formal name: Office of Accessibility. Lowercase in other uses, such as the marketing office.

Percentages

Use numerals with the percent symbol (%) and no space when paired with a number in most cases. Spell out “zero percent” or any percentages that begin a sentence: Ninety-two percent of the class is made up of English majors.

Ph.D.

To the average person, the title “doctor” or “Dr.” typically indicates that the person holds a medical degree. Therefore, use the term with those holding a medical degree and use “Ph.D.” to indicate a terminal academic degree.

When referring to the Ph.D. in general, use doctorate for the noun and doctoral for the adjective. Use Ph.D. only with titles.

Punctuations

Bachelor’s and master’s degrees should always be written with an apostrophe before the “s.” Never write masters’ degrees. An associate degree is never possessive, and use doctorate or doctoral degree, not doctor’s degree. See Degrees and Degree Abbreviations.

Do not use a comma before the word “and” in a series, unless the sentence structure is so complex that a comma clarifies its meaning: Red, white and blue popsicles are my favorites. The list of evidence includes a knife with fingerprints on it, cigarette butts and ashes, and a matchbook.

Use single quotation marks in headlines.

In quotes, periods and commas should be set inside quotation marks. Dashes, semicolons, colons, question marks and exclamation marks go within the quotation marks only when they apply to the quoted matter and not the entire sentence.

All titles of books, movies, articles, songs, speeches, chapters or divisions of a publication should be noted in quotation marks, not italics. For specific information on documents containing multiple works, contact the Office of Marketing & University Relations.

Semesters

Semesters should be lowercase in most uses: fall semester, spring term. Semesters should be capitalized only if directly before a year: Spring 2026.

Student Athletes

Hyphenate the words “student-athletes.”

South Dakota Board of Regents

USD is one of eight educational institutions governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents. Abbreviate as “SDBOR” on subsequent reference.

Titles

Capitalize all titles specifically in front of the name; do not capitalize these these titles when they follow the name: President Sheila K. Gestring or Sheila Gestring, president of the University of South Dakota; Dean Neil Fulton, J.D., or Neil Fulton, J.D., dean of the Knudson School of Law.

After referring to individuals by using their full (first and last) names and titles, refer to them by last name only.

Do not precede a name with a courtesy title for an academic degree and follow it with an abbreviation for the degree in the same reference: Wrong: Dr. Jacob Kerby, Ph.D. Right: Jacob Kerby, Ph.D.

When referring to general bachelor’s or master’s degrees, make them lowercase and possessive. The discipline in which a degree was earned also remains lowercase: She earned her Bachelor of Science in biology in 2018. Her brother earned his master’s degree in fine arts the same year.

University

Do not capitalize “university” unless used in the formal name of a university.

Always introduce the University of South Dakota using the university’s full name on first reference. “University of South Dakota” may be abbreviated as “USD” on subsequent reference.

University of South Dakota – Sioux Falls

Use University of South Dakota – Sioux Falls on first reference when referring to USD’s satellite campus on North Career Avenue in Sioux Falls. Subsequent references may be shortened to USD – Sioux Falls.

The punctuation for University of South Dakota – Sioux Falls includes an en dash with a space on either side. Do not use a hyphen or an em dash, and do not omit the spaces around the punctuation.