Usage Conventions

For guidance on how to treat specific words or phrases, see the Lab Style Guide A to Z. For more general questions about usage conventions we typically follow the Chicago Manual of Style (available online through Cornell library via the Chicago Manual of Style Online). Living Bird magazine uses AP style (also available online via Cornell library.)

This page is intended as a quick resource for general usage conventions that come up frequently when writing and editing for Lab websites and publications. If you have questions or suggestions, please email Hugh Powell (hdp8).

Some Basic Conventions

  • Use title case in titles, headlines, and subheadlines
  • Headlines and subheadlines should not end with a period
  • Use one space after a period
  • Use exclamation points sparingly
  • Use the serial (Oxford) comma
  • Capitalize bird common names (see Bird Names, below). Do not capitalize the common names of organisms other than birds

Bird Names

Bird names are capitalized and punctuated according to the eBird taxonomy. Since spelling, capitalization, and hyphenation can be tricky, it’s a good idea to check every bird scientific and common name using the autofill fields at eBird Explore or Birds of the World. These will always give you up-to-date usage.

When referring to multiple bird common names in a single sentence, capitalize the group name as well as the species name: Magnolia and Yellow Warblers, Dusky and Sooty Grouse. (We adopted this usage in 2017, following Chicago style.)

When using only part of a species common name, use lowercase (e.g., A small flock of warblers and scrub-jays foraged overhead. The bobwhite’s familiar call is a characteristic sound of grasslands.)

Genus Names

All genus names are capitalized and italicized (e.g., Empidonax, Setophaga). When genus names have crossed over into general usage, these are set like other English words without italics or capitals (“accipiter,”buteo”).

Banding Codes and Other Abbreviations

Do not use 4-letter or 6-letter codes for birds in public communications. (e.g., Write out Wood Thrush; do not use “WOTH” or “woothr”).

Bird Vocalizations

Use italics without quotes. Ex. The Phainopepla’s call is a soft wurp.

Title Case

Title case (sometimes called “headline case”) should be used for all headlines, subheadings, and email subject lines. You do not need to use title case for descriptive sentences that appear below a page title (sometimes known as the “dek”).

  • First and last words should always be capitalized regardless of part of speech
  • In general capitalize all words except conjunctions (and, but, etc.), articles (a, an, the), and prepositions less than five letters (to, for, as, with, etc.)
  • The most common mistakes in title case are failure to capitalize “short” words that are verbs or pronouns (is, are, be, him, her, etc. should always be capitalized in title case)
  • Note that in some hyphenated common names of birds, the word after the hyphen is not capitalized (e.g., Red-shouldered, Black-crowned, Golden-collared). It is Lab style to preserve this convention in title case. But for hyphenated words that are not bird names, both words should be capitalized (e.g., Peer-Reviewed Publications; A New Approach to Climate-Change Solutions)
  • Because title case errors are so pervasive, All About Birds adopted a CSS style to put initial caps on every word in article titles. This creates a consistent look (especially helpful as AAB collects article titles from across Lab projects), and is an acceptable alternative if implemented consistently across a site
  • See Chicago Manual of Style for a fuller discussion of title case/headline style

Numbers

Don’t start a sentence with a numeral; spell out the number or write around the problem.

Spell out one through nine; use numerals for 10 or more.

Use numerals with percentages, measurements, and decimals. When a sentence includes several numbers, some more than 10 and some less than 10, use numerals for all.

Examples: 1%; one million; 1.4 million; 74 million miles away; 6 inches; 2″ x 4″; one-half; 1,000; 4,999; 10,000; 7x binoculars; 4 kilograms.

For all numbers except dates, use a comma to indicate the thousands place (as well as millions, billions etc.): 4,236; 142,398, 8,772,000. In a number of countries outside the U.S. the convention is to use a period rather than a comma, but we should stick to U.S. usage unless writing to a very narrow audience.

Separate ranges of numbers with an en-dash (12–13; 1,456–1,578; the years 1956–78). Note: to make an en-dash, you can press option-hyphen (Macs) or alt-0150 (PCs). Tip: You can also copy and paste this en-dash: – or this em-dash: — .

Dates

16th century [n]; 16th-century [adj]; December 1984; December 1, 1984; winter 1984 BUT Winter 1984 (issue of Living Bird); 1970s and ’80s; 1945–65 (en-dash required here). NOTE: in print, set B.C. and A.D. in small caps.

Time

Use numerals with a.m. and p.m. In print, set A.M. and P.M. in small caps.
Spell out numbers with “o’clock.” (Eleven o’clock, BUT 11:00 a.m.)

Event Times for Print

  • 7:00–10:30 a.m. Use when event is all before noon or after noon. Type in the colon and minutes after both numbers. Do not put a space between numbers and dash. Put a space after second number, then type lowercase a.m. (no spaces)
  • 10:00 a.m.–noon Use when event starts or stops at noon. In print, set in small caps.
  • 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Use when event crosses noon. Lowercase a.m. and p.m. (or small caps in print)

Currency

Use numerals (including 1–9) after a dollar sign. Spell out the number (including ten or more) with words for currency. Examples: $5; $450; five dollars; twenty dollars.

Percentages

Use percentage symbol; do not spell out (e.g., 16%, not 16 percent). (This was a change with the 2019 AP Style Guide.)

Phone numbers

(800) 843-2473
(800) 843-BIRD
Do not use both together. So don’t use this: (800) 843-BIRD (2473)

Units

As a scientific institution our work uses SI units and the metric system. However much of our readership in the United States is more familiar with imperial units. When writing for a general audience, you may need to use either imperial units exclusively or provide one unit system followed by the other in parentheses: 6 feet (1.8 m). In academic writing, using metric units alone is the standard.

Abbreviations: use only when preceded by a numeral. mm, cm, m, km, ha; in, ft, mi. Do not abbreviate units of time.

Punctuation

Commas

  • Use a comma: between elements in a series of three or more; before the conjunction joining the last two elements in a series (the “Oxford” comma); between independent clauses unless the clauses are unusually short; to set off individual elements in dates, addresses, place names.
  • Example: Biologists at the hawkwatch counted 25 sharpies, 13 broadwings, and an Osprey.
  • Do not use a comma between subject and verb, or between two verbs referring to the same subject.
  • Examples: “I went birdwatching and enjoyed myself,” but “I went birdwatching, and he stayed home.”
  • Do not use a comma between season and year or month and year.
  • Example: Autumn 1993, September 1993 (but May 1, 1993). In text: the winter of 1984, the Winter 1984 issue of 87

Hyphens

  • When to hyphenate? Most phrasal nouns (or nouns made up of more than one word) are not hyphenated. Examples: “point count,” “old growth,” “citizen science.” When used as compound adjectives, these generally are hyphenated when they appear before the word they modify. Example: “point-count study,” “old-growth forest,” “citizen-science participant.” If the compound adjective comes after the noun, do not hyphenate.
  • Do not hyphenate adverbs. They can’t modify nouns, so there is no confusion or misreading for the hyphen to resolve. Examples: blindingly red cardinal, globally significant wetlands, actively managed forest, frequently burned landscape.
  • Hyphenation of prefixes and suffixes: in most cases, prefixes such as “co-” and “non-“, and suffixes such as “-like” do not need hyphens. Examples: “coauthor,” “covariate,” “nonbreeding,” “nonprofit,” “nonstop,” “catlike,” “finchlike,” “sparrowlike.” Make an exception when misreading is likely, such as with repeated consonants or long root words (e.g., “owl-like,” “co-organizer”)
  • Hyphenate color terms where both elements are of equal importance. Where one color modifies the other, do not hyphenate. Examples: blue-green algae; reddish brown fur.

Dashes

  • The hyphen (-), en-dash (–), and em-dash (—) are three different symbols with different uses. Use a hyphen to indicate an association between words. Use an en-dash to indicate a span of time, distance, etc. (examples: 1–9, 1:00–2:00 P.M., 3–5 feet). Use an em-dash as a punctuation dash, to indicate a break between thoughts. (Example: The Cuban Tody is pink, baby blue, and metallic green—a beautiful combination.)
  • Also use an em-dash before an author byline at the end of an article (example: —Gustave Axelson).

Apostrophes and Possessives

To indicate a possessive, use apostrophe-s (‘s) even with words that end in s, as in “Lewis’s Woodpecker.”

In informal writing including online articles and social media, it is fine to use contractions such as “didn’t,” “couldn’t,” etc.

Colons

Do not capitalize the word following a colon unless it is the first word in a series of questions. If the colon is used within a sentence, even if what follows is a complete sentence, the first word following the colon is lowercase unless it’s a proper noun.

Quotation Marks

Following U.S. style conventions, commas and periods go inside quotation marks. Semicolons and colons go outside quotation marks. For question marks and exclamation marks, it depends on whether the quote itself is the question (or exclamation) or if the larger sentence is.

Bulleted lists

(From Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition, 6.127)
A vertical list is best introduced by a complete grammatical sentence, followed by a colon. Items carry no punctuation (including the last item in their examples) unless they consist of complete sentences. If the items are numbered, a period follows the numeral and each item begins with a capital letter.

Foreign Words and Place-Names

Geographical names: use the accepted English version. For example: Mexico, not México; Galapagos, not Galápagos. As place-names become more localized, there may not be an English version—for these, we use the local spelling with any diacritical marks.

Capitalization: capitalize directional adjectives and nouns referring to specific, identifiable regions (East Africa, Upstate New York, Southeast Asia, the West), but not more general directional terms (eastern South America). For questions about how to treat specific regions, check a dictionary. Many dictionaries contain a specific “Geographical Names” section for this purpose.

Words with non-English origin: check a dictionary to see whether the word has come into general usage. If it is in the dictionary, treat normally, without italics (e.g., Broad-winged Hawks migrate en masse through Central America). If it is not in the dictionary, set in italics (e.g., The birds were showing unmistakable signs of zugunruhe) and use that language’s diacritical marks as appropriate.

Hawaiian words: With respect to diacritical marks, words in the Hawaiian language fall into a gray area. Some authors prefer to use these marks even when the words cross into English, such as for common names (e.g., ‘Akikiki, ‘Ōma‘o) and names of individual birds (e.g., the Laysan Albatrosses Nāmaka and Makaliʻi), in recognition of the resurgence of native culture and wider attempts to bring the Hawaiian language back to life. However this conflicts with the general usage guideline to minimize diacriticals when writing in English, since for most English readers they don’t add meaning and can make text difficult to read. (The Chicago Manual of Style advises foreign words should be checked carefully for special characters but diacriticals should be minimized in text; sections 10.14 and 10.92, 15th ed.). Decisions may need to be made on a case by case basis.

Note that the ‘okina (‘) is shaped like an opening single quote; apostrophes curve the opposite way and should not be used. A straight single quote is acceptable. The other Hawaiian diacritical is the kahakō (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). Additional note: anglicized variations on Hawaii, such as “Hawaiian” and “Hawaii’s” should not take the diacritical even if it’s used for “Hawai’i.”

Anthropomorphy

We take pains not to anthropomorphize animals in Lab writing. Here are some tips:

  • Use “that” in place of “who” when writing about animals: “Circling high above was a Peregrine Falcon that (not who) was looking for its next meal.”
  • Use “it” in place of “he” or “she” unless you are writing about an individual bird and can establish its sex.
  • Avoid referring to family connections in overly familiar terms. Example: do not refer to “mommy” or “daddy” birds.
  • Resist referring to or suggesting the emotional states of birds or other animals. (e.g., avoid: “Terrified for its life, the lonely duck made one last desperate attempt to escape the vicious Peregrine.”)
  • Review your writing and consider your audience: in some informal writing it can be valuable to inject some emotion or have fun with a sentence. For example it may be okay to say “Blue Jays love peanuts”; “In this clip, Big Red enjoys a snack”; or “Golden-crowned Sparrows sing a mournful song.” But weigh the need for this against more neutral language that allows us as humans to feel the emotion rather than projecting it on birds: “Blue Jays often eat peanuts”; “Big Red pauses for a quick meal”; “Golden-crowned Sparrows sing a mournful-sounding song.”

Commonly Confused Words

Some distinctions for commonly confused words. The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage, Garner’s Modern American Usage, and Dictionary of Modern American Usage have many more examples.

Altitude/elevation

“Altitude” and “elevation” are often interchangeable. Elevation refers to the height of a structure or landform above sea level. Altitude is typically used when referring to the height of birds (and other organisms) in flight.

Birder/birdwatcher

Although these two words are very similar in meaning, the term “birder” often has the connotation of a person who takes the hobby more seriously, considers themselves more advanced, or is more interested in listing. Anecdotal evidence from survey comments indicates that some members of our audience self-identify as “birdwatchers” but not as “birders” or vice versa. Be aware that if you habitually use only “birder” in copy you may sound as if you are speaking only to a subset of birdwatchers.

More recently, “birder” has gained currency out of recognition that not everyone is able to see birds, but can still be birders even if they can’t be “birdwatchers.”

Bill/Beak

Taken literally, “bill” and “beak” are synonyms and can be used interchangeably. In practice, many birders are accustomed to using “bill” for almost all types of birds. Exceptions include birds with thick or heavy bills such as finches.

Comprise/Compose

Use “comprise” to mean “include.” Use “compose” to mean “create” or “make up the whole.” Example: The list comprises 24 species. The list is composed of 24 species.

Farther/Further

Use “farther” to express distance; use “further” to express additional time, degree, or quantity.

Like/Such As

When giving an example, it is formally correct to use the phrase “such as,” not “like.” Ex: Large birds, such as ravens, are easy to spot. In casual writing such as social media it may be acceptable to use “like” for brevity.

That/Which

Restrictive relative clauses are often introduced by that and are never set off by commas. Nonrestrictive relative clauses are usually introduced by which and are set off from the rest of the sentence with a comma. See Chicago Manual of Style for more information

Using Macaulay Library Assets

On Cornell Lab of Ornithology properties:

Species Name © Contributor’s Name / Macaulay Library

OR Species Name by Contributor’s Name / Macaulay Library

On Cornell Lab social media:

When posting ML photos to Lab social accounts, use a Macaulay image template whenever possible

Outside of Cornell Lab of Ornithology properties:

Species Name © Contributor’s Name; Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

OR Species Name by Contributor’s Name; Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

The Macaulay Library supports the Lab’s work by providing digital assets to advance the Lab’s mission. Assets in the Macaulay Library can only be used for purposes that further the research and educational mission of the Cornell Lab. Assets may not be used by third parties for commercial use except when written permission is received from the owner of the media. It is critical that we honor our commitments to both the owner of the media and the Macaulay Family Foundation by crediting the media.

Nearly all of the material in the archive is held under the Cornell Lab media licensing agreement that contributors to eBird and the Macaulay Library agree to when they submit media to the archive. When we use photos, videos, or sound recordings online or in social media posts we are required to give credit to the owner of the media as well as to Macaulay Library.

It’s also possible to embed ML assets directly onto websites using the built-in embed feature.
Anyone, at the Lab or externally, can use this feature to add media in a way where the proper attribution and branding is built in.

For further guidance on crediting of assets in the Macaulay Library, please don’t hesitate to contact the ML team. Vanessa Powell (vcp9@cornell.edu) is happy to answer your questions.

Artificial Intelligence Guidance

Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, and related tools are widely available for use in a variety of contexts at Cornell. Please visit IT at Cornell for information about guiding principles, AI services available at Cornell, and additional resources including the Cornell University Task Force Report.

Usage Guidelines and Recommendations

The guidelines and recommendations below were created by the AI in communications working group at Cornell.

Writing and editing

AI may be used to produce drafts of written text (including but not limited to press releases, internal and external messaging, web content, social media posts, news features, or research stories, brochure/leave-behind content, photo descriptions, and FAQ), but must follow best practices, including:

  • All text generated by AI must be reviewed, edited, and verified by a human (preferably, one or more Cornell Lab communicators) for tone, factual errors, misinformation, style mistakes, biases, and inappropriate content.
  • Content substantially generated or significantly influenced by AI tools should be clearly labeled, including the tool’s name and date. Content with minor AI contribution need not be marked. This provides a balance between transparency and practicality. 
  • If using AI to copyedit, correct for style, or undertake other workflow tasks where text is input into AI to modify, data privacy and confidentiality policies must be followed in accordance with University Policy 4.12, Data Stewardship and Custodianship.

Design, Photo, Video, and Audio

AI may not be used to fabricate imagery, audio, or video that could be mistaken as authentic, original content. It is never acceptable to use technology to fabricate real or fake individuals or objects and include them in image, video, or audio representations with the intent to recreate or misrepresent reality.

Using AI to create fabrications that look and sound real if they are not meant to represent reality, such as renderings, animations, or clearly identified fabrications may be acceptable, but in any/all cases, the Cornell communicator must note the source of the fabrication.

AI may be used to modify, touch up, enhance, or edit assets if the technology does not change the intent of the original asset or add additional layers of editorial significance to the original.

Web and Software

  • Web and software teams should be mindful of the proprietary code, secrets, and other data they are sharing with coding assistants in accordance with University Policy 4.12, Data Stewardship and Custodianship.
  • Web teams should stay educated on how third-party AI might scrape Cornell websites and transmit (mis) information about Cornell to their users.
  • Web teams should stay current on how users’ expectations of AI-interfaces (chatbots, search, etc.) might change over time and adjust accordingly.

Social Media

  • See above guidance for written, graphic, photo/video/audio content. 
  • Communicators should be vigilant for original sourcing of social media content being reposted, liked, or followed, ensuring transparency about generative AI wherever possible.

Media Relations

  • See above guidance for written, graphic, photo/video/audio content.
  • As a rule, AI will not be used to craft media responses, which require careful human creation.