Is it De Jong or de Jong or deJong?
How should one refer to BYU’s sponsoring institution (the LDS Church, the Mormon Church, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints)?
Really, no periods after the initials in Stephen L Richards and Kevin J Worthen?
It’s natural for questions like these to arise when writing about BYU — for publication or just for an e-mail.
BYU’s Publications & Graphics now has an updated online style guide to help provide some answers.
“Without attempting to create a comprehensive style manual,” says Peter Gardner, managing editor at Publications & Graphics, “we hope the BYU Style Guide will be a handy reference tool for the BYU community.”
Along with entries about BYU-related terms, the style guide also provides usage suggestions for Church terms as well as recommendations on certain disputed points in grammar — such as the use of commas in lists and introductory phrases.
The updated Web site sports a new look as well as a dynamic search function to quickly locate the entries in question. Or users can print out a PDF if they prefer to have a hard copy on hand.
The new site is located at styleguide.byu.edu. The style guide for the Church is available at newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/style-guide.
(Answers: de Jong; full name on first reference, the Church of Jesus Christ or simply the Church on subsequent references; and, that’s right, no periods.)
For more information, contact Peter Gardner at (801) 361-5451, peter_gardner@byu.edu.
