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The Crown style guide

Titles and display type

All of the type elements that will appear in the magazine or on the website should be at the top of the Google document for the piece.

  • Hed (title). Use title capitalization for the main title (see below).
    • If title is too long (over 100 characters), include a subheading
  • Dek (subtitle). Use sentence capitalization for subheadings. Add a period or other punctuation at the end of the dek if it’s a complete sentence. (10 words max)
  • Author byline. Name (first and last), major(s), year. Majors should be lowercase (except proper nouns like English or Spanish), per the SU style guide.

Before final review, make sure the article has a hed, dek, and byline. 

Example Heading:

Hydrofoil

The history of a Cold War weapon turned personal recreation gadget 

Yida “Rick” Li, architecture, 2026

 

Framing of Immigration

The discussion of immigration and its influence on the American identity 

Nathan Tarobi, political science, citizenship and civic engagement, 2026

 

  • Placing Children’s Book Authors as Green Nation Builders in the Arab World
  • Carbon Sequestration, Conservation, and Capitalism: An Analysis of West Virginia's Senate Bill 162
  • Unfair to Compare - Why Assumed Distance Shouldn’t Always Authorize Discourse
    • Hed: Unfair to Compare
    • Dek: Why Assumed Distance Shouldn’t Always Authorize Discourse
    • Byline: tktk
  • The Future of Diversity in Post-Brexit Britain
  • THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRLS PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE Was it baseball? Was it ever supposed to be baseball? -> 
    • Hed: Breaking Barriers
    • Dek: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the Battle for Gender Equality
    • Byline: tktk

Document formatting

File Format:

  • Save all text in Google document format 

Image, Illustration, Graphic Format:

  • Image files sent separately from text (such as JPG or PNG) in the highest resolution available

Font and spacing:

  • Times New Roman, 12-point font
  • One-inch margins on all sides of page
  • Double-space entire document, including references and block quotations

Paragraphs

  • Indent new paragraphs. Remove any extra line spaces between paragraphs in running text.
  • Indicate section breaks with an extra space between the paragraphs. 

Word list

Mom/Mother = only capitalized when using in place of name

Excerpted from the SU house style guide:

Lowercase terms designating academic year: first-year student (avoid freshman), sophomore, junior, senior.

Do not capitalize academic majors or minors unless they include a proper noun. 

  • He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in psychology. 
  • She is an English literature major. 

Do not capitalize Syracuse University majors, minors, programs of study, departments, or offices unless referring to an official title: 

  • Cara is a drama major. 
  • Aaron would like more information about the social work program. 
  • The Department of Drama is part of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. 
  • The Office of Admissions is located in Crouse-Hinds Hall. 
  • Maybe you should talk to someone in the admissions office.

In keeping with these SU rules:

  • Dana is an honors student from California.
  • Karen Hall is an advisor with the Crown University Honors Program.

Formatting for Abstracts, Executive Summaries, Footnotes and Bibliographies:

 

Abstracts/Executive Summaries (projects with QR code included)

  • Provide a concise summary of the research, following the document formatting guidelines. Abstracts should summarize the research project by briefly introducing the topic, stating the research question or objective, outline the methodology, summarize the results, and conclude with the implications of the research. 
  • It should be clear, informative and understandable to nonspecialists. 
  • Include under the author byline 
  • 300 words for abstract 
  • 500 words (1 pg) for executive summary 

In-Text Citations

  • Use footnotes for additional explanations or citations. Format footnotes according to Chicago Manual of Style guidelines. 

Bibliographies

  • Include a separate page titled “Bibliography” at the end of the document
  • This should be a comprehensive list of all sources cited in the research using Chicago style consistently throughout the bibliography. 
    • If not already in Chicago style, ask the researcher to convert to Chicago style
  • Notes and Bibliography: Sample Citations

Table Titles and Figure/Photo Captions

  • Provide concise titles for tables and captions for figures or photos. Place table titles above the tables and figure/photo captions below. 
  • Example (Table title)
    • Table 1: Summary of Research Findings
  • Example (figure caption)
    • Figure 1: Experimental Setup
  • Source notes: include notes below any tables, figures or photos to provide sources or additional explanations if needed. 
    • If using images or figures from other sources, obtain proper permissions and accurate citations in the source notes

General style rules

Chicago Manual of Style

Part II: Style and Usage

6 Punctuation

Commas

  • When a comma is used to set off a nonessential clause and the phrase or sentence continues past this element, a second comma must be used. AKA the nonessential clause must be enclosed by commas. 
  • Commas follow the closing of parentheses and brackets
  • Serial Commas, AKA Oxford Comma:
    • When listing a series, a comma precedes the conjunction that connects the final item in the series. 
    • When a sentence continues past the series, add commas where appropriate.  
    • The point is to prevent ambiguity, but if there is still ambiguity, you may need to reword. 
      • EX: I took my dog, Jenna, and my wife to the park. 

vs.

 I took Jenna, my wife, and my dog to the park. 

Is Jenna a dog or their child?

  • Excerpt “In a series whose elements are all joined by conjunctions, no commas are needed unless the elements are long and delimiters would be helpful.
    • Would you prefer Mendelssohn or Schumann or Liszt?
  • When & is used instead of and, the serial comma is omitted. This usually only happens in company names. 
  • A comma precedes etc. but only follows etc. when required by the text. (This is different from before, so We bought eggs, bacon, asparagus, etc. at the store. is correct.)
  • When connecting independent clauses (complete sentences), a comma must precede the connecting conjunction (FANBOY, for, and, nor, but, or, yet). 
    • Can be omitted if the clauses are very short and closely connected e.g. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”
  • tbc

Hyphens and Dashes

hyphen -

en dash –

em dash —

Using HYPHENS (-)

  • Used in certain compound words, names, and word division.
  • An abbreviated compound, e.g. US-Canadian Alliance, is treated as a word, so a hyphen is used, not an en dash. 
  • Used to separate numbers that are not inclusive, e.g. phone numbers, SSNs, ISBNs
  • Used to separate out letters spelled out individually i.e. C-A-T, including when transliterating fingerspelling in ASL
  • A single hyphenated word/prefix should be joined to a hyphenated compound with another hyphen, not an en dash (e.g. “non-English-speaking countries”).

Using EN DASHES (–)

  • Connects numbers, often dates, and means up to and including, or simply through. EXCEPTION: the following grammatical expressions, due to parallel construction, but connect the dates with “to” and “and”, respectively, and can never be replaced with an en dash. 
    • From [year] to [year]
    • Between [year] and [year]
  • In other contexts it directly means “to” (e.g. “the London-Paris train”, “101-49 vote”).
  • Used to indicate an ongoing number range (e.g. dates of a serial publication or birthdate. of a living person (2000–)). No space in following punctuation is needed.
  • Used in place of a hyphen to connect compound adjective WHEN one of the elements is an open compound (e.g. “post–World War 2”, “country influenced–music”) or both elements are hyphenated (e.g. “quasi-public–quasi-judicial body”). 
    • This is somewhat awkward and should be used sparingly. When rewording is an option, reword. 
  • Used to link specific campus locations of universities that have multiple (e.g. University of Wisconsin–Madison), but as there is great variation, look up how the universities self-identify

Using EM DASHES (—)

  • Used to set off an amplifying or explanatory element, and is thus an alternate to parentheses, commas, or colons, particularly when there is an abrupt change in thought. 
  • An em dash should not be used near or within another em dash. Basically, one (or one pair) of em dashes per sentence. Use parentheses or commas instead. 
  • Occasionally used to set off an introductory noun that defines a pronoun in the main clause (e.g. “Consensus—that was the will-o’-the-wisp he doggedly pursued”).
  • Used when there is a sudden break or interruption in thought, sentence structure, or dialogue. If the break occurs in the sentence surrounding the quoted material, the em dash must go outside of the quotation marks. 
  • May be used before phrases such as “that is”, “namely”, “for example”, etc. 
  • A question mark or exclamation point may precede an em dash (e.g. “—heaven forbid!—”), but never a comma, colon, or semicolon. A period may precede an em dash only if it is part of an abbreviation. 
  • If an em dash is taking the place of a comma which would also separate a dependent clause from the independent clause, then the em dash also acts to separate the clauses and a secondary comma in unnecessary.
  • If an em dash is used at the end of a quote, the comma at the end can be omitted (e.g. “‘We shall never—’ Sylvia began.”).

7 Spelling, Distinctive Treatment of Words, and Compounds

Possessives

General Rules

  • (most) singular nouns + ’s
  • (regular) plural nouns ending in s + ’
  • Proper nouns (singular and plural), abbreviations, and numbers, even those that end in s, x, or z + ‘s e.g. Kansas’s, Euripides’s

Exceptions to the General Rules

  • singular nouns that end in a plural s + ’ e.g. politics’, linguistics’
  • Name of a place or org ends in a plural s + ‘   e.g. United States’

Particularities

  • When closely linked nouns are possessing the same thing only take the possessive on the last element e.g. my aunt and uncle’s house
  • When closely linked nouns are possessing different things/discrete things, they individually take the possessive e.g. my aunt’s and uncle’s profiles

8 Names, Terms, and Titles of Works

Titles of Works

  • Titles of poems go in “Quotation Marks”
  • Titles of books and periodicals/studies/articles go in Italics
  • Song titles in “Quotation Marks”
  • Sentence style capitalization for titles: First letter of title, first letter of subtitle, and proper nouns. Used in library catalogs
  • Headline style of capitalization for titles
    • Capitalize first and last words in titles and subtitles (exception see g), and all other major words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some conjunctions (exception see d))
    • Lowercase articles (a, an, the)
    • Lowercase prepositions
      • Exception: not when used adverbially/adjectivally e.g. The On Button
    • Lowercase common coordinating conjunctions, and, but, for, or, nor
    • Lowercase to (preposition and infinitive usage) and as
    • Lowercase normally lowercase parts of names e.g. Leonardo da Vinci
    • Lowercase the species part of a species names, no matter it’s placement in the title or subtitle

Numerals

  • Never start a sentence with a numeral
  • Always spell out a number at the beginning of a sentence, or rewrite to place the number later in the sentence.
  • Spell out numbers up through ten unless used in a technical context.

Capitalizing Family Titles

  • Capitalize family titles only when they are in place of someone’s name. Do not capitalize when the title follows a possessive pronoun (her, his, my, our, your). Examples:
    • I asked Mom if I could go.
    • I asked my mother if I could go.
    • My dad gave me a ride back to campus.
    • At Thanksgiving, Grandma hosted the whole family.