Names:

  • The first time you reference someone in your paper use his or her full name (e.g. John A. Macdonald, Nellie McClung).
  • For all other references in your paper, use the last name only (e.g. Macdonald, McClung).
  • Do not use formal titles like Mr., Mrs., Dr. or Rev. 
  • In rare cases, like celebrities with only one name (e.g. Madonna) and royalty (e.g. George Gordon, Lord Byron), follow the example of the original source of your information.
  • You should refer to fictional characters as they would be addressed in the story (e.g. Dr. Jekyll, Edward rather than Cullen).

Numbers

  • Spell out numbers that can be written as one or two words (e.g. one, sixteen, seventy-five, one hundred, six thousand, ten billion).
  • Use numerals for numbers that would require more than two words when spelled out (e.g. 2.5, 5789, 175 000).
  • Use numerals before units of measurement (e.g. 5 kilometres), with abbreviations (e.g. 6:30 a.m.), with symbols (19%, $1.25), in addresses (421 Pinetree Road), in dates (March 5, 1980), in decimal fractions (4.13) and in divisions (e.g. page 3).
  • For large numbers, you may use a combination of numerals and words (e.g. 6 billion).
  • Be consistent with how you write out your dates. Either 9 September 1952 or September 9, 1952, but not both.
  • Always use numerals for a range of numbers (e.g. pages 40-48).
  • Use Roman numerals for people in a series, especially royalty (e.g. Henry VI, Henry VII, Henry VIII).
  • Use Roman numerals for events in a series (e.g. World War I, World War II)

Titles

  • When using the title of a print source in your essay, use the title from the title page and not from another part of the book.
  • Even if the title on the website or on the cover of the book is not properly capitalized, you must capitalize all the words in the title except these types of words:
                   1. Articles that do not come at the beginning of the title (a, an, the as in The War of the Worlds)
                   2. Prepositions that do not come at the beginning of the title (e.g. of, to, between as in The Picture of Dorian 
                       Gray)
                   3. Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, so, or, yet as in Pride and Prejudice)
  • Separate titles and subtitles with a colon unless the title ends in a question mark or an exclamation point.
  • Italicize the titles of books, plays, newspapers, magazines, websites, online databases, films, TV and radio programs and visual works of art. 
  • Use quotation marks for the titles of articles, essays, stories, poems, chapters in books, pages in websites, individual episodes of TV and radio programs and unpublished works (e.g. lectures)
  • If you refer to the same title often in your essay, state the title in full the first time you cite it and then refer to it in a shortened form (e.g. Saving Private Ryan becomes Ryan in later references).