Dates
At Middlebury, we express dates: month/day/year
March 16, 1998
The meeting is on March 7 (not: March 7th, 7 March).
We will see you on the 13th of July.
October 7–17, 1998; October 7–November 5, 1998
Tickets on sale, Wednesday, June 5, at the concert hall.
Note: See “Hyphens and Dashes” for more on en-dash use: An en dash is longer than a hyphen and is used between inclusive numbers, to show a range.
In a sentence, separate the day and year with commas:
The president was born on August 9, 1950, in a New York checker cab.
No comma when the month and year appear without a day:
The weather pattern changed in October 1998 for the better.
Cultural Periods
Some are lowercased; some are capitalized. Chicago Manual of Style or dictionary is a useful reference for these.
romantic period, nuclear age, classical period, Victorian era, colonial period Roaring Twenties; Ice Age; Middle Ages, Renaissance
Centuries and Decades
Spell out centuries, using same numeral rules (spell anything lower than 10).
fourth-century art
life in the 21st century
Several options for identifying decades may be used:
1980s, 1960s, ’60s, ’80s, eighties, sixties
Note:
no apostrophe between the year and s
Eras
Abbreviations for eras are set in small caps, with no periods. When small caps aren’t available, use full caps without periods:
AD (or AD) anno Domini (“in the year of the Lord”)
CE “of the common era” equivalent to ad
BC “before Christ”
BCE “before common era” equivalent to bc
BP “before the present”
AD precedes the year, the others follow it.
150 BC
AD 150
Commas are not used in dates with fewer than five digits.
3200 BC
10,500 BC
What are small caps? They are capital letters about three-quarters smaller than regular caps. Choose them from the font menu in Microsoft Word or from Word’s formatting palette.
Time of Day
All of the following are acceptable, depending upon the nature of the project. Consistency is key; don’t vary the format within the same document:
Use numerals with a.m. and p.m., and words with the word o’clock.
5 a.m.; five o’clock
They may be made with small caps, with periods, or lowercased, with periods:
A.M. and P.M.
a.m. and p.m.
Use numerals when the exact moment is important:
The train departs at 2:08 p.m.
Other uses:
9:00 p.m., 9 p.m.
12:00 noon, noon, 12:00 p.m.; 12:00 midnight, midnight
Showing ranges:
9:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m. or: 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
from 9 a.m. to 12 noon (do not use a dash to show range when also using “from”)