ITS Style Guide: People and Places

People and Places

Groups and Personnel

For individuals whose names end in 's', be sure to punctuate the possessive correctly. For example, "Ms. Jones' classes," and "Mr. Adams' opinion." Not "Ms. Jones's classes" or "Mr. Adam's opinion."
Students, faculty, and staff (always in that order); similarly, refer to instruction, research, and administration (always in that order).

Note: For technical publications and on the ITS Web site, we almost always apply our adopted punctuation style of using a comma after every item in a list. We use this punctuation style because omitting the comma in technical documents can introduce ambiguity, something we wish to avoid. In order to be consistent, we apply the rule to all phrases, regardless of their simplicity. In promotional pieces and other types of publications, however, you may notice that we omit the last comma in the series, which is the journalistic style.

The Office of the Vice President for Information Technology.
Information Technology Services (ITS); afterwards, use ITS.
ITS staff.

Note: Never put an apostrophe after ITS. Write ITS staff, not ITS' staff or ITS's staff. There are usually ways that you can avoid making ITS possessive.

Facilities

The University of Texas at Austin (notice the "T" in "the" is capitalized; afterwards, the university or UT Austin (not UT-Austin or U.T. Austin). Note that university by itself is not capitalized. Do not use "UT Austin" or "UT-Austin" when communicating with outside or mixed audiences. (For more information see the university's Writer's Style Guide.)
the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology.
the ITS accounting office.
the Student Microcomputer Facility (SMF); afterwards, use SMF.
the Flawn Academic Center (FAC); afterwards, use FAC.
the North Office Building; afterwards, use NOA.
the Network Operations Center (NOC); afterwards, use NOC.
the Thompson Conference Center (TCC); afterwards, use TCC.

Note: For computer classes held at the Thompson Conference Center, do not refer to the Microcomputer Teaching Facility or "MTF Classes." Refer instead to Computer Training at the Thompson Conference Center, TCC classes or Computer Workshops.

the Campus Computer Store.
the Computation Center Building; afterwards, use COM.

Buildings, Corporations and Addresses

When listing university buildings and addresses in documentation and communications, use the official names and abbreviations printed in the current Official Directory. Be sure to use the appropriate term: Building, Center, Hall, etc. Capitalize the first letter of each word when using the full form: Computation Center, Will C. Hogg Building, Peter Flawn Academic Center, Perry-Castañeda Library, Thompson Conference Center, Robert Lee Moore Hall. In an address, use the building abbreviation followed by the room number: COM 8, FAC 212, GSB 2.130. Unless Room is part of official name, don't capitalize it.

For a full campus mail address, include the campus mail code. For example, ITS G9805.

When listing addresses of non-university persons or places, give full addresses, including zip codes. Write company names in the form used by the company: University Co-Op Bookstore, Microsoft Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, etc. After giving the full name, you can use acronyms or abbreviations (Co-Op, Microsoft, etc.). In general, follow the styling used by the company (eBay, not Ebay, etc.).