Writing and Style Guide

Marketing materials and communications represent University of Detroit Mercy to potential and current students, alumni, employees and the community.

As a nationally recognized institution, it is important that we maintain a high degree of professionalism in communications, no matter who disseminates them. Our materials should be clear, professional, branded, informative and speak in the voice of the University.

In order to maintain effective, consistent and on-brand communications, University of Detroit Mercy Marketing & Communications (MarCom) has created this style guide to use for all internal and external communications.

These editorial guidelines have been in place at the University for decades and are based on The Associated Press Stylebook, with additional rules specific to Detroit Mercy. It is expected that all people creating written or graphic communications will follow these style rules.

Occasionally, styles are updated or changed to fit evolving usage, so bookmark this page for easy reference.

If there are questions about style or usage not included in this guide, please contact Marketing & Communications at marcom@udmercy.edu.

Here are quick links to the most commonly asked style questions.

• Usage
  • Referring to University of Detroit Mercy (Updated for 2023)
  • Acronyms | Alumni -us  -a | Class Year | Headlines | Numbers
• Capitalization
  • Building, location and special room names
  • Campus |  Course Names | Degree |  Person's Titles | Programs, Departments, Discipline Names | Schools, Colleges, Professional Schools | Subjects | Titles of things (books, movies, presentations)
• Punctuation
  • Class Year | Co-op  | Degree  | Phone Numbers | Schools, Colleges, Professional Schools | Titles of things 
• Titles, Persons, Religious Affiliations
• Tricky Words 
• Days, Dates and Time