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Dates

Dates may be formatted differently depending on where they are used. In all cases, years should be expressed with 4 digits unless part of a proper title.

Narrative/Note Text Formatting

Dates in narrative text follow a month, day, then year format. When citing year ranges, do not use dashes and include all digits. Examples follow:

  • October 12 (not October 12th)
  • October 12, 1952  (when used in narrative the year should be followed by a comma)
  • September 1990 (no comma)
  • 1980s (no apostrophe)
  • 1872 to 1888 (not 1872 to 88)
  • from 1940 to 1960
  • between 1980 and 1990
  • The 21st century; 21st-century technology

Component List Formatting

In normalized fields, all dates should be entered in the ISO 8601 Standard, as follows:

  • general-to-specific approach — the year first, followed by month, then day
  • each element is separated by a hyphen ("-")
  • Numbers less than 10 are preceded by a leading zero
  • YYYY or YYYY-MM  or YYYY-MM-DD 

If date is approximate, or includes months and days, a date expression should also be entered. Dates are still formatted as year - month  - day, however the month should be written out. Do not repeat years or months in expressions of date ranges. Semesters may also be referenced in the date expression.

  • 2014 July 12-14
  • 2007 August 12 - October 31
  • 2009 April 5 - 2010 May 1
  • 2015 Fall

Note any significant gaps in date ranges.

  • 1903, 1950-1955

For approximate dates, add qualifiers.

  • circa 1952-1978
  • circa 1975 August
  • 1892 or 1893
  • before 1920
  • after 1920

If a date is not able to be determined, use "undated."

Numbers

Use a comma in numbers of four digits or more: 2,670. 

Spell out numbers that begin sentences. 

Spell out numbers from one to nine. For all other numbers, use digits.

Capitalization

(These are Chicago Style Manual rules, used by Tech Talk and MIT Press)

  • Ad hoc, de facto, e.g., i.e.
  • In narrative text: use lowercase for words such as president, chancellor, unless being used as a title (exceptions are the Corporation, which is referring to the MIT Corporation, the Association when referring to the Association of MIT Alumni and Alumnae, and the Institute) otherwise: Professor Vest, President Vest, the president; the provost; the dean; Department of Chemistry, the department of chemistry; Center for International Studies, the center.
  • Series and subseries titles: capitalize each word
  • Folder title: capitalize only the first word of the folder unless it is the official name of a body or entity, or the title of a book or journal article.
    • If it IS the name of a body or entity, or a book or journal title: capitalize the first letter of all words except a, an, the, and prepositions as well as the first letter of the title and subtitle no matter what the word is.
  • In notes where referring to boxes – do not capitalize Box

Abbreviations

  • Omit periods in abbreviations of academic degrees: BS, MS, PhD, ScD (use bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctoral degree or doctorate to spell out degree)
  • Omit periods in country and state abbreviations: US, UK, UN, MA, MA
  • Omit periods in MIT and in all acronyms of three or more letters, use MIT as an abbreviation in bibliographies and footnotes, but not in collection level title with rare exceptions (MIT Libraries, MIT Press).
  • Spell out Massachusetts Institute of Technology in citation of collection.
  • In narrative fields: Use acronym after the first appearance of the full name, spell out full name then put acronym in parentheses after it
  • At series/folder/item level: If known, spell out full name and then put the acronym in parentheses
  • Names: Spell out names when known, unless persons are known by their initials
    • Example: Greta Suiter instead of G. Suiter
    • Example: J.K. Rowling

Stylistic Conventions and Tricky Forms

  • Cochair, coauthor (MIT preference)
  • The Corporation (referring to the MIT Corporation)
  • Vice president - (no hyphen) - MIT’s preference
  • To designate degree from MIT:  name (comma) MIT (no comma) full year: Jane Smith, MIT 1980
  • Fund raising (two words)
  • Half-time, full-time (hyphen)
  • Bylaws - no hyphen
  • Whitaker College (one “t”)
  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (not Institute)
  • School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (not Science)
  • Institute for Defense Analyses (not Analysis)
  • National Institutes of Health (not Institute)
  • Focuses (not foci) and indexes (not indices, except in mathematical usage),
  • Symposia (not symposiums); millennia (not millenniums); memoranda; and appendices
  • Web, website
  • Spell out the word “regarding”, not “re”

Punctuation

Commas

  • In personal names - comma before and after Jr., but no commas with II or III
  • Use a serial/Oxford comma (apples, oranges, and grapes)
  • In narration put commas around the year in form: “March 12, 1947,”

Other

  • If you use hyphens in a folder list, put a space before and after them (except in year spans: 1898-1899)
  • —(em dash) no space either side
  • Period and comma go inside quotation marks; colon and semi-colon outside

Article and Book Titles

Use title case for published materials – capitalize book, journal, and article titles. Bibliographic information in footnotes, bibliographies, and component lists should follow Chicago Manual of Style, Notes and Bibliography formatting. Bibliography notes follow the CMoS bibliography formatting, while folder lists and endnotes use CMoS notes formatting. In folder lists, the date portion is omitted from the title field and entered into the date module. Consult the Chicago Manual of Style for information about formatting other resources.

If a report is unpublished, put the title in quotation marks and use title case.

 Book and journal titles are italicized using EAD markup. (Underline these titles on the physical folder.) Journal article titles should be enclosed in quotation marks.

 

    Component List Formatting

    When describing bibliographic materials at the file or item level, use CMoS Note Style. Names are cited in standard format. Dates are omitted from the title field.

    Journal Article

    Author’s first and last name, “Title of Article,” Journal Title 73, no. 1

    Susan Satterfield, “Livy and the Pax Deum,” Classical Philology 111, no. 2

    Shao-Hsun Keng, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem, “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality,” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1

    Peter LaSalle, “Conundrum: A Story about Reading,” New England Review 38, no. 1


    Book

    Author’s first and last name, Title of Book (Place of publication: name of publisher).

    Zadie Smith, Swing Time (New York: Penguin Press)

    Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (New York: Simon & Schuster)

    Endnotes Formatting

    When citing sources in note fields, use CMoS Note Style. Names are cited in standard format. To use endnotes, number the notes and put them at the end of the narrative text. Number each endnote citation and use the following syntax for referencing the endnotes within the narrative text: (1)

    Journal Article

    Author’s first and last name, “Title of Article,” Journal Title 73, no. 1 (1980): pages. url.

    1. Susan Satterfield, “Livy and the Pax Deum,” Classical Philology 111, no. 2 (April 2016): 170.

    2. Shao-Hsun Keng, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem, “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality,” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 9–10, https://doi.org/10.1086/690235.

    3. Peter LaSalle, “Conundrum: A Story about Reading,” New England Review 38, no. 1 (2017): 95, Project MUSE.


    Book

    Author’s first and last name, Title of Book (Place of publication: name of publisher, publication date), pages. If there is only a place of publication and a date: Place, date.

    4. Zadie Smith, Swing Time (New York: Penguin Press, 2016), 315-318.

    5. Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 12.

    Bibliography Note Formatting

    When citing materials in Bibliography Notes, use CMos Bibliography formatting. Bibliography notes are generally formatted in alphabetical order by author's last name.

    Journal Article

    Author’s last name, first name. “Title of Article.” Journal Title 73, no. 1 (1980): pages. url.

    Keng, Shao-Hsun, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem. “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality.” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1086/690235.

    LaSalle, Peter. “Conundrum: A Story about Reading.” New England Review 38, no. 1 (2017): 95–109. Project MUSE.

    Satterfield, Susan. “Livy and the Pax Deum.” Classical Philology 111, no. 2 (April 2016): 165–76.


    Book

    Author’s last name, first name Title of Book. Place of publication: name of publisher, publication date. If there is only a place of publication and a date: Place, date.

    Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.

    Smith, Zadie. Swing Time. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.

    EAD Title Markup

    Titles are encoded using title tags in EAD markup. For more information on the EAD title tag, see: http://www.loc.gov/ead/tglib/elements/title.html and http://www.loc.gov/ead/EAD3taglib/EAD3.html#elem-title

    EAD Markup Encoding Example

    <title render="stylename">Book Title</title>

    In note fields, one can automatically add this markup by highlighting the title and selecting "title" from the "Wrap With" menu.

    Other fields, such as the Component title, require manual entry.

     

     

     

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