P I P E R J A F F R A Y W R I T I N G A N d S T Y L E G U I d E

A R E S O U R C E F O R W R I T E R S A N d P R O O F R E A d E R S

10th EditionOctober 2014

The preferred form is to avoid abbreviations and to lowercase: bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctorate. Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. Jennifer Olson has a bachelor’s degree in finance from Smith College. HOWEVER: Master of Business Administration degree, Juris doctorate.

Note: an A.B. degree is a bachelor’s degree with a classics focus; we refer to it simply as a bachelor’s degree.

Use such abbreviations as B.A., B.S., M.A., J.d., Ph.d. only when the need to identify many individuals by degree on first reference would make the preferred form cumbersome: Rick Johnson, Ph.D., Philip Swan, J.D., and Natalie Evans, M.A., will lead the discussion at the 9 a.m. session.

When type of degree is not provided in a biography, simply graduated from and name of academic institution is acceptable.

Lowercase areas of study except proper nouns: bachelor’s degree in chemistry, master’s degree in English literature.

Lowercase and italicize magna cum laude, summa cum laude, etc.

Remove year(s) of graduation.

(See Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, Master of Business Administration, Ph.D.)

Use the abbreviations Ave., Blvd. and St. only with a numbered address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Always spell out Drive, Road, Alley, and Terrace.

Always use numeric figures for an address number: 1 Capitol Mall.

Spell out and capitalize First through Ninth when used as street names; use numeric figures with two letters for 10th and above: 7 Fifth Ave., 100 21st St.

do not superscript st, nd, rd or th in addresses.

Use the two-letter Postal Service state abbreviations only with full addresses that include ZIP codes. When a state is mentioned in body copy, spell it out, e.g. Piper Jaffray has several offices in California. Piper Jaffray headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

(See state names. )

While AP style dictates adviser, we use the second dictionary spelling, advisor.

Ampersands are acceptable in sector and sub-sector names, e.g., clean technology & renewables, technology, media & telecommunications. Otherwise, avoid using ampersands in body copy. In company names, do not use an ampersand in place of “and” unless it’s part of the formal name: Procter & Gamble, Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway.

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academic titles

addresses

advisor vs. adviser

ampersand (&)

Spell out: $3 billion, or abbreviate as $3BN or $3B. Be consistent with chosen spelling.

Use bachelor’s degree as a reference to Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Business degrees. Note that bachelor’s is not capitalized. (See academic titles)

Always lowercase: He is a member of the board of directors. The Pillsbury board of trustees meets quarterly.

Plural: Smith serves on several boards of directors.

Abbreviate: CPA, or spell out and capitalize as Certified Public Accountant. Be consistent with chosen spelling.

Abbreviate: CFA®, or spell out and capitalize as Certified Financial Analyst®. Be consistent with chosen spelling. Note that it needs a registered trademark symbol except when used directly after a person’s name. John Smith is a CFA® charterholder, John Smith, CFA, is an analyst.

Note: a person holds a Chartered Financial Analyst® designation; they are not a Chartered Financial Analyst or a CFA.

do not capitalize or abbreviate. Capitalize when part of a formal name: the House Appropriations Committee.

Lowercase leadership committee, management committee, operating committee, audit committee, etc.

The word company is not capitalized unless it is included as part of a company’s formal name. The company will contribute 4%. The ABC Company will contribute 4%. Company is also commonly capitalized in legal documents to specify the company involved in the legal proceeding.

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Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science

board of directors/board of trustees

Certified Public Accountant

Chartered Financial Analyst

committee

company

billion

Follow capitalization and punctuation of company’s registered name; e.g. use a comma before Inc. or Ltd. if the company’s legal name is registered as such.

Consult official sources such as a company press release if in doubt about a formal name.

Note: We do not insert a comma before Ltd.: Piper Jaffray Ltd. not Piper Jaffray, Ltd.

Follow registered name listed with an official source such as a news release.

Abbreviate corporation as Corp. when a company or government agency uses the word at the end of its name: Gulf Oil Corp., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Spell out corporation when it occurs elsewhere in a name: Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Spell out and lowercase corporation whenever it stands alone: The corporation defends its decision to follow the policy.

(See company)

Not to be confused with the hyphen (see hyphen), a dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon and more relaxed than parentheses. Use a dash only when a more common mark of punctuation seems inadequate. (Source: “The Elements of Style.”)

Em dashes are long dashes (—) used to set off explanatory phrases or an abrupt change: The cornerstone of this service is a comprehensive quarterly report that analyzes your total municipal portfolio—including bonds not held by Piper Jaffray—in greater detail than most brokerage statements.

En dashes are short dashes (–) used to connect a range of things: the July–August issue of Fine Homebuilding, Aug. 15–17, 2006, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

En dashes are also used to designate university locations: University of Wisconsin–Madison.

do not use an en dash in place of the word “to” when preceded with “from” or “between”: from 1968 to 1972 and between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.; not from 1968–1972 and between 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Always use numeric figures, without st, nd, rd or th. (See months)

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dashes

dates

corporation

company names

Our consistent brand focus across the firm is to brand Piper Jaffray, not individual business lines, departments or employees within the firm. To that end, our approach is to treat such names and titles as descriptors, not formal, proper nouns, using lowercase in body copy text: the Piper Jaffray financial institutions group, Piper Jaffray clean technology & renewables investment banking, the Piper Jaffray equity capital markets team. Jean Smith, director of Piper Jaffray operations, will attend the next meeting.

Also lowercase internal elements of an organization when they have names that are widely used generic terms: the board of directors of General Motors, the board of trustees of Columbia University, the history department of Harvard University.

HOWEVER: Capitalize the names of major subdivisions: the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors.

Lowercase. No hyphen.

Lowercase. The Piper Jaffray executive team will present at the conference.

Capitalize when spelled out and when abbreviated: Fed Chairman Bernanke will speak today.

One word, lowercase. Note: Though the current dictionary spelling is two words, health care, the financial industry generally uses “healthcare,” one word.

Use a hyphen when a compound modifier (two words that are used together as an adjective) precedes a noun: high-yield products, low-risk investment, fixed-income portfolio, full-time assistant. do not use a hyphen with the adverb very or with adverbs that end in -ly: very good time, wholly owned subsidiary. do not hyphenate compound verbs: we’ll need to check in to the hotel, log in to piperjaffray.com

Abbreviate incorporated as Inc. when registered as part of a formal name with Capital IQ or other official source.

Capitalize. Internet is a proper noun.

Abbreviate only with full names of persons and do not precede by a comma: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.

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Inc., incorporated

Internet

Jr. and Sr.

healthcare

hyphen

executive team

Federal Reserve/The Fed

department/group names

email

Lowercase. See executive team.

Capitalize the name and place in italics. Lowercase the word magazine, unless it is part of the publication’s formal title: Harper’s Magazine, Newsweek magazine.

Check the masthead of the magazine if in doubt.

Lowercase. See executive team.

A master’s degree or a master’s is AP style and the preferred use in any reference. (See academic titles)

do not abbreviate in body copy: Jason Jones earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

M&A is acceptable within financial industry publications; for a wider audience, spell out mergers and acquisitions.

Use them if included in a biography or other official documentation. They can be an integral part of a person’s name.

Particular care should be taken to include middle initials in situations where they help identify a specific individual with a common name.

Spell out as: $4 million, or abbreviate as $4MM or $4M. Be consistent with chosen spelling.

Capitalize the names of months in all uses. Spell out the names of all months in all uses.

When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas. January 1972 was a cold month.

When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas. February 14, 1987, was the target date.

In body copy, spell out one through nine and use numeric figures for 10 and higher.

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numbers

million

months

middle initials

mergers and acquisitions, M&A

Master of Business Administration

leadership team

magazine names

managementcommittee

Master of Arts, Master of Science

Use last names only on second reference: James Jones is chairman and CEO of Widget Inc. Jones graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Use first names in internal communications.

Italicize newspaper names, except when used in a headline.

Capitalize the in a newspaper name if it is part of its formal name: The New York Times.

Capitalize the full name of organizations and institutions: the American Medical Association, General Motors Corp., the Society of Professional Journalists.

Retain capitalization if Co., Corp. or a similar word is deleted from the full proper name: General Motors.

Use % symbol; do not spell out: The earnings were up 5%.

The preferred form is to write that a person holds a doctorate and name the individual’s area of specialty. (See academic titles)

Always two words; never use Piper alone in written communications.

Do not use Piper Jaffray’s; the possessive form of our name is not legally protected under U.S. patent and trademark law: the Piper Jaffray technology team, not Piper Jaffray’s technology team.

Our various geographic/legal entities are written as follows: Piper Jaffray Companies, Piper Jaffray & Co., Piper Jaffray Ltd., Piper Jaffray Asia.

Lowercase and spell out in body copy: clean technology & renewables.

If used in a simple series, no comma is needed after the final element, before the word “and”: his fixed-income portfolio may include municipal bonds, government bonds and zero-coupon bonds. Add a comma after the final element when needed for clarity.

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sector names

serial commas

Ph.D., Ph.D.s

Piper Jaffray

percent

names

organizations and institutions

newspaper names

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titles (artistic works)

telephone numbers

state names

Treasury

United Kingdom/U.K.

United States/U.S.

titles (professional)

Spell out the names of the 50 U.S. states when used in body copy, whether standing alone or in conjunction with a city, town, village or military base, e.g. Piper Jaffray has several offices in California. Piper Jaffray headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Use the two-letter ZIP code abbreviations in body copy only when the full address and ZIP code are used.

Contrary to AP style but following the style used by many in the financial industry, we use a space to separate the area code from the seven-digit U.S. number (instead of using parentheses): 612 303-4752. This also applies to overseas area codes, e.g., the London office is 20 3142-8700. Also, we do not use the 1 in front of toll-free numbers: 800 333-6000.

If extension numbers are given: ext. 38184. Use a comma to separate the main number from the extension: 512 303-4508, ext. 2.

books, movies, plays, poems, songs, television programs, lectures, speeches

Put quotation marks around the names of all such works, EXCEPT the Bible and books that are primarily reference materials (e.g., almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks).

Capitalize the main words, as well as prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.

Capitalize an article—the, a, an—or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.

(See magazine and newspaper entries)

Capitalize formal titles when used immediately before a name: Chairman and CEO Andrew Duff announced the sale today. Lowercase formal titles when used alone or in constructions that set them off from a name by commas: Andrew Duff, chairman and chief executive officer, announced the sale today. The vice president declined to run again.

Capitalize Treasury when referring to U.S. Treasury securities: Treasury notes, Treasury bonds.

Use periods after the “U” and “K” with no space between: U.K. offices, U.K. regulations.

Use periods after the “U” and “S” with no space between: U.S. Bank, U.S. government.

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website

year-end

Lowercase. One word.

Hyphenate when used as an adjective (compound modifier) or as a noun: The year-end report is posted online, we’ll complete the project before year-end.