Style Guide for Authors and Editors
(page 1 of 6)
This brief guide is a quick reference intended to
answer questions about manuscript preparation asked by authors and
editors. Click
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I.
General Information
Authorship
Clearance Procedures for CDC Authors
Copyright
Instructions to Authors
II.
Specific Style Issues
Affiliations
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Capitalization
accession
number
other
capitalization preferences
titles
trade
names
Geographic
Designations
Numbers
blood
factors
confidence
intervals, CI
equations
figures
versus words
fractions
numbered
lists
percentages
ranges
ratios
SI
units
virus
designations
Preferred
Usage
affect,
effect
Alaskan
native, Alaska native
American
Indians, Native Americans
among,
between
and,
or
age
designations
based
on, on the basis of
biopsy
black,
African American
brevity
burden
CDC
case,
patient
commercial
sex workers, prostitutes
compare
to, with
compose,
comprise
controls
dehumanizing
terms
develop
diagnose
die
of
different
from
dosage,
dose
due
to, owing to
e.g
and i.e
eliminate,
eradicate
epidemic,
endemic
etc.
etiology,
cause
expire,
die
feel,
believe
fever,
temperature
few,
less (fewer, less; fewest, least)
former
Soviet Union
gram
homosexual,
bisexual, gay
-ic
versus -ical
immunize,
vaccinate
in,
among
incidence,
prevalence
individual,
person
inject,
inoculate
injection,
intravenous drug user(s)
insure,
ensure, assure
in
vitro
male,
female
molecular
weight
morbidity,
morbidity rate
mortality,
mortality rate (AMA)
negative,
normal
offspring
-ology
parameter
parasitemia
patient
person,
persons, people
present,
present with
preventative,
preventive
react,
test
redundant phrases
resolve
risk
of, for, from
sacrifice
serum,
sera
sex
partners
significant
subject
time
designations
titer
tracking
U.S.
citizens
varying,
various
youth
in high-risk situations
Punctuation
colon
commas
em
dashes
en
dashes
footnote
symbols, numbers, letters
hyphens
italics
parenthesis
and brackets
periods
possessives
prefixes
restrictive
and nonrestrictive clauses
semicolons
suffixes
versus
virgules
References
abstracts
articles
in press
article
not in English
dissertations,
theses
Internet
citations
journal
names
organization
as author
secondary
sources
when
CDC is the author
Scientific
Nomenclature
bacteria
viruses
Spelling
change
British spelling to American
commonly
misspelled words
Statistical Terms
common
tests
mathematical
symbols (+, ‡, , =, <, >, , , ~.)
other
common statistical terms
probability
symbols
Tables and Figures
abbreviations
captions
and legends
footnotes
orientation
units
of measure in tables
Units of Measure
Verbs
subject-verb
agreement
III.
Other Resources
Comprehensive
Style Guides & Other Resources
Internet
Resources
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