English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Version 4.0

Updated: 28 November 2016

Table of Contents

General Stylistic Considerations ..................................................................................................................... 3

Acronyms ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Bibliography and References ..................................................................................................................... 4

Bullets and numbered lists .......................................................................................................................... 4

Capitalization .............................................................................................................................................. 4

Commas ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Compound proper adjectives and nouns .................................................................................................... 4

Dashes (em) ................................................................................................................................................ 4

Dashes (en) ................................................................................................................................................. 5

Dates ........................................................................................................................................................... 5

Dollars and cents (and pesos) ..................................................................................................................... 5

English (Canadian) and American spellings .............................................................................................. 5

Etc. .............................................................................................................................................................. 5

Footnotes .................................................................................................................................................... 5

Footnotes versus end-of-sentence references ............................................................................................. 5

Foreign language words and proper names ................................................................................................ 6

Hyphens and hyphenated compounds ........................................................................................................ 6

Internet and e-mail addresses ..................................................................................................................... 6

Italics .......................................................................................................................................................... 7

Jargon ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

Latin abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Laws and Acts ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Metric ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

Names ......................................................................................................................................................... 7

Nouns as adjectives .................................................................................................................................... 7

Numbers ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

Percentages ................................................................................................................................................. 8

Plagiarism ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Punctuation (use of dashes) ........................................................................................................................ 8

Punctuation with Quotations ...................................................................................................................... 8

Referencing ................................................................................................................................................ 8

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Series and lists ............................................................................................................................................ 8

Telephone Numbers ................................................................................................................................... 9

Word choices ................................................................................................................................................. 10

American .................................................................................................................................................. 10

Among and between ................................................................................................................................. 10

Canada ...................................................................................................................................................... 10

CEC .......................................................................................................................................................... 10

cleanup versus clean up ............................................................................................................................ 10

Clearinghouse ........................................................................................................................................... 10

decision maker/decision making .............................................................................................................. 10

follow-up versus follow up ...................................................................................................................... 10

Homepage ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Internet ..................................................................................................................................................... 10

Mercosur ................................................................................................................................................... 10

Mexico ...................................................................................................................................................... 11

NAAEC .................................................................................................................................................... 11

NAFTA ..................................................................................................................................................... 11

NGO ......................................................................................................................................................... 11

nongovernmental organization ................................................................................................................. 11

round table ................................................................................................................................................ 11

That ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

toxics, toxins, etc ...................................................................................................................................... 12

United States............................................................................................................................................. 12

website, web page..................................................................................................................................... 12

Guidelines for Document Submission ........................................................................................................... 13

Page layout ............................................................................................................................................... 13

Bibliographic Entries ..................................................................................................................................... 14

The basic entry for journal articles and books or reports ......................................................................... 14

(1) Author(s) ......................................................................................................................................... 14

(2) Year ................................................................................................................................................ 14

(3) Title(s)............................................................................................................................................. 14

(4) Publication data field ...................................................................................................................... 15

Laws and Statutes ................................................................................................................................. 16

(5) Internet (Web) Addresses ............................................................................................................... 16

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

General Stylistic Considerations

Acronyms

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

If the report will employ many acronyms or abbreviations for organizations, treaties, laws, quantities and

measurements, etc., then you should include a List of Abbreviations and Acronyms at the beginning of the

report, following the Table of Contents and any listing of figures and tables.

The order for information in entries in such a list is as follows:

(1) Acronym or abbreviation; (2) full name in original language (in italics, if the language is other than

English); (3) English translation in parentheses. For example (and note alignment):

NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement

Semarnat Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Ministry of Environment and Natural

Resources

ha hectares

No List: Few acronyms or abbreviations utilized and they are identified only in the text of the report

1) English language name or term: On first reference, always write out the full name and include the

acronym in parentheses: North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);

2) Non-English name or term: When the name of the organization/law, etc., is in French or Spanish, use the

following format to identify acronyms upon their first occurrence in the running text: General Act on

Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection (Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y la

Protección del Ambiente—LGEEPA). [Note here that the translated English name comes first, set in roman

type, followed in parentheses by the actual organization name in Spanish or French, italicized, and

separated by an em-dash from the original language acronym in roman. Subsequent references throughout

the report would use just this acronym.]

General tips about acronyms and abbreviations

1) If the letters used in the acronym match only the first letter of each principal word, put the acronym in

capital letters. If the acronym is a creative mixture of letters (e.g., Semarnap, Profepa, Sanepar) only

capitalize the first letter.

2) Plurals of acronyms (and years) do not

take an apostrophe: PCBs, 1990s.

3) Use of the definite article with acronyms is tricky. CEC preference here is that acronyms beginning with

a hard consonant (N or J for instance) are not

preceded by “the.” Thus we do not write “the NATO,” “the

NAFTA,” “the NAFEC,” or “the JPAC.” However, acronyms beginning with soft consonants or vowels

are preceded by “the”: for instance, “the UN” or “the UNEP.” If in doubt, regard any acronym over two

letters to be a pronounceable word and let your instincts tell you whether it needs an article or not.

4) Acronyms are always set in roman, not italic type.

5) Acronyms instead of shortened organization names—Use acronyms to give brevity and precision when

referring to organizations. Use CEC, for example, instead of “the Commission,” or NAFTA instead of “the

Agreement,” or NAFEC [North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation] instead of “the Fund.”

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

See also CEC, below. But don’t bother with invoking an acronym if the organization, law, or whatever is

mentioned only once or twice in the report.

Bibliography and References

These are an extremely important part of formal scholarly writing, which is what we do here, or which our

consultants do for us, and these aspects of report preparation deserve much more attention than they

customarily receive. See entries below on Guidelines for Document Preparation, Bibliographic Entries,

Footnotes, and don’t miss the diatribe on Referencing.

Bullets and numbered lists

The most important thing is to be consistent throughout the text, but we suggest staying simple. Use simple

round bullets for basic lists, unless numbers are called for to rank items by preference. If your list has more

than one level, use a combination of numbers and letters (i.e., “1.” and “a.”). For punctuation, see Series

and Lists, below. If you have only one level of bullets in your report, we suggest using Word’s bullet

feature on the toolbar instead of employing a separate style with unique indention to accomplish the task.

Save the latter for a second level list within a list.

Capitalization

Please capitalize only proper nouns and first words of sentences. Avoid the temptation to capitalize for

emphasis. Personal titles should be capitalized when they refer directly to a specific person or persons and

precede the name: “CEC Executive Director XXX XXXXX.” When the title occurs independently or

follows the name, it is lowercased: “the executive directors from the three countries” or “Stephen Johnson,

administrator of the US EPA.” Also, see the entries on Compound Constructions and on capitalization in

titles in the Bibliographic Entries, below.

Commas

Generally, the CEC practice with serial commas is to follow journalistic style and not use a comma before

the last "and" or "or" in a series of words (i.e., “DDT, chlordane, PCBs and mercury continue to build up in

the North American environment”). Some exceptions may apply for more complicated series in order to

avoid confusion on how the elements are grouped. For instance: “The requisite information about pollution

prevention must be directed at a wide, complex, and heterogeneous audience that includes local and

national governments that legislate, plan, approve, and regulate environmental matters; banks and financial

institutions that fund efforts by individuals, companies, and governments; the general public; and

executives involved in upper management of various companies and enterprises.” See Series and Lists for

more about the hierarchy of commas and semicolons in lists.

Compound proper adjectives and nouns

When a compound modifier is included in a proper name (i.e., Committee for the Protection of the Marine

Environment from Land-based Activities, Small and Medium-size Enterprises), don’t capitalize the second

word.

Dashes (em)

Do not use one or two hyphens in place of a proper em dash in text. In Word, a very nice em dash is

available—Ctrl-Alt-minus sign—as you can see here. Also, there are no spaces on either side of em dashes

in English. If this practice is too fussy for you, then use the proper substitute for the em dash, the comma.

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Dashes (en)

The en dash (longer than a hyphen and half the length of an em dash) is used in place of the hyphen to

connect continuing numbers—dates, time, or page numbers in references. It is produced by the

keystroke—Ctrl-minus sign. Examples: 1989–95, 18–25 April 1996, Slipshod 1995, 55–9. Hyphens are

used to separate groups within a unit, for instance, a within a telephone number or an identification

number.

Dates

CEC style follows Canadian practice and University of Chicago style in preferring a day-month-year

format: 27 June 1996, which has the advantage of not necessitating interior commas (as in customary US

style: June 27, 1996). When just month and year are given, no comma is necessary: June 1996. (And don’t

let MS Word’s mistaken default to this convince you that you should use one either.) When expressing

only years, make sure you use the apostrophe correctly (i.e., “During the 1980s...” or “In the ’80s”). Note

that in the latter construction use a normal apostrophe and not a backwards apostrophe, which is used only

to open an expression or quoted phrase set within regular quotation marks. This is important since Word’s

Smart Quotes feature automatically sets the apostrophe backwards in this case—‘80s.

Dollars and cents (and pesos)

Currency must be identified. For the United States use: US$7.5 million; for Canada: C$7.5 million; for

Mexico: P$7.5 million. For subsequent values use a dollar sign for all three currencies if it is clear from the

text that values continue to be expressed in the previously identified currency.

English (Canadian) and American spellings

This is a never-ending debate. To avoid it, the CEC has decided to use American spellings in all cases (i.e.,

“harbor” not “harbour,” “neighbor” not “neighbour,” “defense” not “defence”) since the vast majority of

our English-language readership is likely to be from the United States. Use Canadian spellings only when

they form part of a proper name. Refer to Websters for spelling choices. The exceptions to this are

“Organisation” when it is part of a name that specifically spells itself this way (e.g., the Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development) and “tonne” when referring to metric tons.

Etc.

Do not use in formal scientific style.

Footnotes

Authors writing for the CEC must be careful to utilize Word’s automatic formating for handling footnotes.

The CEC style for them is left-justified (at the left-hand margin of the text block), 10-point Times New

Roman type for the footnote text and 8-point Times New Roman type superscripted 3 points for the

footnote reference numerals. The actual superscript footnote reference within the text should normally

come at the end of the sentence to which the footnote is applicable and outside the period, or perhaps at the

end of the clause if the sentence is a very long one or contains more than one such reference. But see

Footnotes versus end-of-sentence references.

Footnotes versus end-of-sentence references

References to documents listed in the bibliography are best handled through end-of-sentence references:

(Whipsmith 1988, 34; Larisch 1987, 2: 150; Ohmstead 1990, 28). In this compound example, we give only

authors’ last names and the date of publication, followed by a comma and then the page number (no “p.” or

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

“pp.” necessary). In the second example, the information came from volume 2, page 150. We recommend

this system to minimize footnotes containing short citations, especially as footnotes are sometimes not

preserved when Web versions of documents are downloaded. Save the use of footnotes for longer

explicatory or elaborative passages. Punctuation marks at the end of sentences follow the parenthetical

note: “Especially high concentrations of PCBs were reported at the site (Zipursky et al. 1993, 45).”

Footnote references follow all punctuation marks.

Foreign language words and proper names

The general rule is that all words and titles in a foreign language should be italicized, unless the word is

commonly used in English. Acronyms, however, will be treated as though they were English and not

italicized. Given that the priority of appearance in an English-language document goes to English, foreign

names (of agencies and organizations) will appear first in English translation, followed in parentheses by

the original language acronym and name. After this first appearance, which suffices to “set” the acronym, it

alone will be used. All such names and acronyms will also be presented in a list of acronyms at the front of

the document. Questions about what constitutes a proper acronym can be resolved by consulting the CEC

Lexicon in any of the three working languages: English, French or Spanish.

Spanish—Following the above principles, a word like “barrio” would appear in normal type.

Spanish language acronyms, however, would be treated as English (no italics). Also, place

and city names do not appear in italics (e.g., Ciudad Juárez).

French—The same principles apply.

Latin—Expressions like ad hoc and ad hominem are italicized. Abbreviations like i.e., e.g., and

ibid. are not.

Specific examples include:

Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos

Naturales—Semarnat)

National Institute of Ecology (Instituto Nacional de Ecología—INE)

Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Procuraduría Federal de Protección al

Ambiente—Profepa)

National Water Commission (Comisión Nacional del Agua—CNA)

Mexican Official Standards (Normas Oficiales Mexicanas—NOMs)

Hyphens and hyphenated compounds

Hyphens are used for making compound adjectives or nouns, period: “medium-size companies,” “cost-

effective,” etc. Otherwise, see Dashes (em and en), above. Individual words in a hyphenated compound

are usually capitalized in titles (but see item 7.128 in the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition, for a few

exceptions).

Internet and e-mail addresses

We use carets and a shortened URL when “www” is included in the URL: <www.cec.org>, but include the

“http://” when there is no “www” term: <http://enviro.gll.pdf>.

We have also dropped the recommendation for using angle brackets with e-mail addresses, which will now

appear simply as (for instance) [email protected].

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Italics

Set in italics any word or phrase in a foreign language—including Latin, French, and Spanish—that is not

assimilated into common English. (See entries on Acronyms (not italicized), Foreign language words,

Latin abbreviations, and the section on Bibliographic Style.) This includes names of organizations in

other languages: Instituto Nacional de Ecología.

Jargon

The maxim is that good expository writing, no matter what subject it concerns and who is doing it, avoids

jargon. Words like “leverage” and “framework” rarely have an unambiguous meaning and should be

avoided, if possible. Even words like “strategy,” “policy,” “regulation,” and “legislation” should be used

carefully—and not interchangeably. Try not to use “stakeholder” carelessly as a catch-all term unless it is

really clear to whom it might refer. Even then, more suitable and specifically appropriate terms like

“participants,” “those concerned,” or “those affected” might be better choices.

Latin abbreviations

The abbreviations “i.e.” and “e.g.” are frequently misused. Id est (i.e.) translates as “that is” and exempli

gratia (e.g.), as “example given.” Their use requires a comma following: (i.e., voluntary compliance). Use

roman type for these abbreviations but Latin expressions like ad hoc and ad hominem are italicized.

Laws and Acts

CEC preference is not to italicize named US or Canadian statutes when they occur in running text (the

Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Act). This is because these names may or may not be the official

titles of the statutes, but they are not the official reference citation for them. However, when the names

occur in a bibliographic citation as the title of the publication, they are set in italics like any book title.

We also use the term “Act” to translate “Ley” in Mexican statutes: Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico y

la Protección al Ambiente (General Act on Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection—

LGEEPA)

Metric

Always express measurements using the metric system. A note should be included in the introduction to

the publication explaining that all units are metric to avoid reader confusion (this is especially important

for tons, which should be written “metric tons” or “tonnes”). Authors of documents are responsible for

converting any data originating in English measures such as miles, pounds, or tons to metric units.

Names

People’s names must be spelled as in their original language, including accents or other special characters:

María Cristina de Castro.

Nouns as adjectives

Avoid using nouns as adjectives: “government agencies” instead of “governmental agencies,”

“environment policies” instead of “environmental policies,” “industry associations” instead of “industrial

associations.”

Numbers

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Write out numbers between zero and nine; 10 and above should be in numerals. Past 999,999, write out

numbers as in 1.5 million or 1.25 billion. However, percentages and physical quantities such as distances,

lengths, areas, volumes, and masses are always expressed in numerals, whether whole numbers or

fractions. Use decimal notation to avoid time-consuming writing of fractions: 33 percent, 2.5 tons, 20.75

hectares, 0.33 meters. Never begin a sentence with a numeral, though. The same principle obtains for

ordinals as set forth, above, for cardinals: second, … ninth,…10

,… 21

, etc.

Percentages

Write out the word “percent” when it occurs in the text of a document. However, if the document is of a

scientific or very technical nature with lots of percentages, use the symbol “%” throughout. In all

documents, use the symbol “%” in tables or other charts that use a lot of numbers.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of conveying someone else’s original expression or creative ideas as one’s own and

can be a violation of copyright law. Neither intentional nor unintentional plagiarism is acceptable to the

CEC. The consultant must follow good scholarly methodology in preparing reports and deliverables under

the contract, including systematic referencing in footnotes or in-sentence references, for any secondary

sources, quotations, data, etc., that do not originate with the author. Sources for tables and figures

reproduced from other literature must be given in a “Source” attribution immediately below the table or

figure. Failure to properly reference the source of such borrowed material constitutes plagiarism and will

be considered a breach of contract. For further information, see Guidelines for CEC Documents and

Information Products, <www.cec.org/Storage.asp?StorageID=11565&SiteLanguageID=1>

. In addition, for

every written deliverable submitted, the Consultant must use iThenticate software, or an equivalent

software approved by the Commission (Plagscan or Unplag—the latter has a particularly easy-to-use

interface), to validate the written product in question and must forward the plagiarism review results to the

CEC at the time of document submission.

Punctuation (use of dashes)

see Dashes, above.

Punctuation with Quotations

In accepted American literary style as used by the CEC, commas and periods go inside quotation marks,

question marks, colons, semicolons, exclamation points (not that we need them here!), and dashes go

outside. Remember when using footnotes that the reference numbers go outside all punctuation marks at

the end of the sentence.

Referencing

Remember that giving proper citations for facts, sources, tables and figures derived from another source is

a vitally important part of good scholarship. These should be referenced either via a footnote or by a name

and date reference (author year) to a work cited in full in the bibliography.

Series and lists

The CEC, like the University of Chicago Press, has changed its view of punctuation in vertical lists to

requiring terminal punctuation only where the elements of the list are complete sentences or complete a

sentence that is begun by the lead-in. To consider the first case, 1) if the series elements are complete

sentences (and if one is, then they must all

be), they are begun by a capital letter and followed by a period,

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

just like a normal sentence. This is true whether they are numbered or bulleted. The lead-in should also be

a complete sentence but it is usually followed by a colon. 2) In the second case, if the lead-in is not a

complete sentence but rather is completed by the series items, then they are followed by semi-colons and

the penultimate item is followed by “and.” If the items are short phrases, not complete sentences, then they

begin in lower case and have no terminal punctuation. However, terminal punctuation can be avoided by

beginning option (2) with a complete sentence, as in example (3) below.

1) Individual elements are all complete sentences (and the list is introduced by a complete sentence):

Canadian compliance guidelines include several important provisions:

1. Voluntary compliance plans and agreements are expressly incorporated in an overall

compliance policy.

2. Written criteria for their use are specified in writing, focusing on the environmental impact of

the non-compliance and on the attitude and history of the offender.

3. Regulators must document in writing their rationale for offering voluntary compliance

measures, especially where there are grounds to use mandatory measures.

4. Failure to carry out the voluntary measures is monitored and taken seriously.

2) Series with long or short items that form a complete sentence begun by the lead-in:

Vegetation parameters used in the model PnET-CN include:

• Instantaneous Amax as a function of foliar N (A

max

A, A

max

B);

• Daily averaged A

max

;

• Basal leaf respiration; and

• Half saturation light level, measured in µmol CO

per m

per second.

3) Series with short items (but again introduced by a complete sentence):

Regulators are required to consider several factors when selecting a response:

• the nature of the violation

• the offender’s history of compliance

• the expected effectiveness of the measure in achieving compliance

• consistency with other situations

Telephone Numbers

In order to avoid confusion over how a person can dial a telephone number, regardless of what country he

or she resides in, please follow the basic model of ([country code]-[city code]) 111-2222. Separate groups

of numbers with a space. For example:

800 555 1212 52 555 659 5021 44 55 123 1232

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Word choices

American

Don’t use as an adjective. Instead, use US, as in “the US government,” the “US Environmental Protection

Agency,” US initiatives. On the other hand, don’t use US as a proper noun, use “the United States.”

Among and between

Use “among” when two or more people or things are involved unless there is a reason that each should be

considered as separate entities (i.e., "Panel members were selected from among a group of scientific

experts." “Between” is the proper word when referring to relationships of two, three, or more things

considered one pair at a time.

Canada

This is a proper noun, not an adjective. Use “Canadian” as the adjectival form.

CEC

Commission for Environmental Cooperation. That’s us. When spelled out in full, the name can appear as

the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America.

cleanup versus clean up

The former is a noun (“the cleanup was...”), the latter a transitive verb (“the owners were sued to force

them to clean up the site”).

Clearinghouse

One word

decision maker/decision making

two words

follow-up versus follow up

The former is a noun, the latter a transitive verb.

Homepage

one word, lower case

Internet

upper case

Mercosur

Southern Common Market (Mercosur—Mercado Común del Sur)

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Mexico

This is a proper noun not an adjective. Use “Mexican” as the adjectival form, as in “10 US and 10 Mexican

sites were designated,” or “a US/Mexican project.”

NAAEC

North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. Don’t write, “…for Environmental

Cooperation.”

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Use “the” before the acronym only when the latter is

used as an adjective (i.e., “the NAFTA partners” but “NAFTA was signed...”). Don’t write, “the NAFTA

agreement,” which is redundant, or, worse, “the NAFTA.”

NGO

nongovernmental organization. General term used for environmental and other "grassroots" groups

nongovernmental organization

no hyphen, see NGO

round table

two words

That

“That” is one of the most frequently encountered and useful words in the English language.

Depending upon its position and use, it can be an adjective, an adverb, a conjunction, or a relative pronoun.

Obviously, this welter of grammatical possibilities transcends brief explanation—the interested reader is

referred to the relevant and authoritative articles in Fowler’s Modern English Usage for full treatment of

the subject. For our purposes, we might limit ourselves to two topics: 1) “that” as a conjunction introducing

substantival clauses and 2) the “that versus which” bugbear.

1) Over-zealous writers (and editors) often insist on putting “that” everywhere a clause begins but in the

case of substantival clauses where “that” is a conjunction connecting the clause to the verb, an equally

correct and less verbose (read: more elegant) style is produced by omitting “that.” Examples of this are:

“we know that the measurements are correct” versus “we know the measurements are correct.”

2) “Which” versus “that”—Used as pronouns introducing relative clauses, these words are among the most

frequently encountered, yet least understood words in the language. Perhaps the best way to clarify their

use is to say that “that” should be used to introduce a relative clause that defines, identifies, or limits

the

antecedent of the clause and “which” should be used to introduce non-defining relative clauses. Some

examples are:

Defining relative clauses

Acting pursuant to its authority under the US Constitution to regulate interstate commerce and those

activities that may have impacts on interstate commerce, the national Congress has enacted...(defines/limits

the antecedent “activities”)

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Even further, Riverbend expresses the hope that it will develop with the regulators what it (in the MOA) calls

“business relationships” that are conducive to trust and progressive process development. (Two

antecedents/two defining clauses)

Of course, things are not always this simple, as in the case of which/that repetition, when variety is usual:

The CEC is helping its member countries reach or exceed international environmental protection goals—

goals which ensure that environmental and trade policies support sustainable development.

Non-defining relative clauses

Enforcement responses, which are most effective in changing contumacious attitudes in an adversarial

atmosphere, are now recognized as having limited value...

The government also carries out research and development itself through groups such as...the Canada Centre for

Mineral and Energy Technology, which also arranges partnerships and joint ventures...

Writers who persist in using “which” for both types of clauses can at least feel smug in knowing the

difference between the two: if the clause is set off by commas, it is non-defining.

toxics, toxins, etc

Be careful about the usage of these and related words; they have very specific meanings. A hazardous

substance and a toxic substance, for example, are two separate categories. In environmental parlance, toxic

hazardous substances emitted to the environment, especially anthropogenically, are known as “toxics,” not

“toxins.” The latter are things like snake venom, biologically produced. The US toxic substances database

is the Toxics Release Inventory.

United States

Always write out when talking about the country (Canada, the United States and Mexico). Use "US" when

it is employed as an adjective (“US companies”); not “American.” *Note: In Spanish, use “Estados

Unidos” not “los Estados Unidos.”

website, web page

One word, lower case, for website, web page is two words, also lower case. However, the Web (like “the

Internet”) is a proper noun and is capitalized.

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Guidelines for Document Submission

Page layout

• All reports should be typed in Microsoft Word for PC or Mac.

• Do use the CEC report template for styles, formatting, etc.

• Never indent the first paragraph after a heading.

• Use only one space between sentences (the old habit of using two spaces owes to typewriter

days; computerized word processing adjusts for the difference spacing needed between words

as opposed to between sentences).

• Do not insert additional hard returns [“Enter” or “Return”] between paragraphs. [This is best

done by setting the paragraph command (Format menu) to add 6 points of space after a hard

return (end of paragraph) and then not pressing “Enter” until all the text for a given paragraph

has been typed. The same technique works well for series—like this one, for example. If you

are using the CEC document template, the incorporated paragraph style already has this

feature.] Don’t use a tab to begin paragraphs.

• Do not use all capital letters for titles, emphasis, sections heads, etc. Only use all caps for

certain acronyms [see the section on “Acronyms” about this].

• Use Times New Roman typeface at 11 points for all body text. Use bold and italic where

appropriate. Don’t use the underline format; use italics instead.

• Footnotes are set in 10-point Times New Roman; the Footnote reference numbers in 8-point

Times New Roman superscripted 3 points. Be sure to use Word’s automatic style and “Insert

Footnote” command [Insert menu] for creating and formatting footnotes. [Note: these styles

are included in the CEC Document Template.]

• All text should be left justified.

• Use all accents and other special characters where necessary. Be especially careful, however,

that documents are sent back and forth to authors/editors in Word format and not as ASCII

text. Special characters often drop out when documents are sent as ASCII text in an e-mail

message; use the attachment feature instead.

• When making a table or other section that uses vertical columns do not be tempted to align

columns using the space bar. Instead, use Word's "Insert Table" command to set the proper

number of columns and rows. Jump from one to the next by hitting the “Tab” key.

• Resist the temptation to add fancy formatting such as special fonts, drop caps or columns

(other than in tables). We can make the document look good in layout once the text has been

edited.

• The author is responsible for giving full names for acronyms (in original language and

translation, where necessary) in a list of acronyms.

• Use Word’s “smart quotes” feature to ensure opening and ending quotation marks are

identified properly.

• Excel graphs and charts must be inserted in the Word file directly and not pasted in as pictures.

• Use proper bibliographic style (see the following section giving appropriate formats for

entries) and be sure that citations are complete (this is especially important with contractor-

written documents which may contain many sources not available for checking here at the

Commission offices. When working with contractors, PLEASE insist that they follow our

English Style Guide

Commission for Environmental Cooperation

bibliographic style AND that they provide complete citations. This is easiest to do during the

actual writing of the document; it is much more time-consuming to go back and revisit or

correct later.

• Do not use Word’s “Mark revisions while editing” option. Embedded revisions that appear to

be hidden can come back to haunt us later. The best way to show changes made during editing

is to use the “compare documents” feature. You can then save the compared version as a

separate file for reference.

Bibliographic Entries

The following is a very brief attempt to provide a standardized bibliographic style for use by all CEC in-

house staff and external consultants when writing reports for publication. Editing poorly formatted or

inconsistent bibliographies is exceedingly

time-consuming and expensive, and the desirability of

minimizing such expenditures will be obvious to all. This bibliographic style is a synthesis of the principles

presented at much greater length for scientific and technical entries in the bibliography chapters of the

current edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.

The basic entry for journal articles and books or reports

Journal:

Stapleton, H. et al. 2009. Detection of organophosphate flame retardants in furniture foam and US house

dust. Environ Sci Technol. 43(19): 7490–7495. Consulted online 15 May 2015 at:

<www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782704/

Book or report:

Fowler, H.W. 1996. The new Fowler’s modern English usage. Third ed., R.W. Burchfield (ed.). Oxford:

Clarendon Press.

The information fields contained in these can be referred to simply as (1) author(s), (2) year, (3) title(s), (4)

publication data, (5) Internet URL and, if you consulted the source online, the date you did so. All of these

basic fields are separated by periods. Note that “sentence style” capitalization is used in titles of journal

articles, reports and books. Add URL as with journals if the book or report was consulted online.

(1) Author(s)

The first (and if one, only) name is given surname first followed by initials (preferably) or given name. All

other authors are listed with given name or initials first. In the case where there is no discernable author,

the issuing agency will be listed or else this field will be omitted. Avoid the use of “Anonymous” or

“Anon.” A period follows this field. An in-sentence reference to any work cited in the bibliography

authored by more than one person will include only the first author, the year of publication, and relevant

pages for that particular reference: (Kirk 2015, 25-30).

(2) Year

This follows immediately after the author for both book and journal entries.

(3) Title(s)

In the case of journal articles, such as the example above, the article title is given in normal type (no

quotation marks), with only the first word and any proper nouns and adjectives capitalized (“sentence”

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Commission for Environmental Cooperation

capitalization). The journal title (which is more properly considered part of the publication data field, since

it is not followed by a period) is set in italics with all significant words capitalized. Periods follow each

element of the title field. If the entry refers to a book or report, the title is set in italics and the first word

and proper nouns are capitalized (“sentence” case). Thus: Pesticides and peace in Northern Ireland.

Subdivided Author and Title fields

This happens when the work cited is actually part of a larger collection, for instance, one volume within a

multivolume series, a chapter of a book or a paper within a larger one-volume collection, or a document

edited by someone other than the principal author of the overall collection. Examples of these situations

are:

One volume within a multivolume series:

Environmental Conservation Task Force. 1981. Ecological land survey guidelines for environmental

impact analysis. Ecological land classification series. No. 13. Ottawa: Environment Canada and

Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office.

(The series number or volume—indicated as No._, No._,pt._, or Vol._—follows the series title, as:)

Gilbert, G., R.G. Hélie and J.M. Mondoux. 1985. Ecoregions and ecodistricts of Québec. In Ecosystem

sensitivity to acid precipitation for Québec. Ecological Land Classifications Series No. 20, pt. A. Hull,

QC: Environment Canada.

A chapter of a book or paper within a larger one-volume collection:

Álvarez, T. and F. de la Chica. 1974. Zoogeografía de los vertebrados de México. In El escenario

geográfico-recursos naturales, A. Flores-Díaz, L. González, Q.T. Álvarez and F. de la Chica, ed.,

219–335. México, D.F.: SEP-INAH.

(Here the author field is subdivided into those who wrote the chapter and the editors of the book overall,

who are designated by “ed.” Note that name order inversion happens only with the very first author listed

in the entry. Inclusive page numbers, if given, can be considered a subset of the author field, following the

names of the editors of the book. The title field is subdivided into the chapter title and overall book title

which are set in normal and italic type respectively and separated by “In”—no colon following. Note also

that capitalization in Spanish and French titles, as with our English style, follows a “sentence style.”)

(4) Publication data field

Journals and other serial publications

Publication data include the year of publication, indication of the volume and possibly number, and the

pagination. As can be seen in all of the above examples, scientific style for bibliographic entries for either

journals or books places the year immediately after the author field (or the first part of it if it is

subdivided). The great advantage of this is that it allows references to be made within the text without

resorting to footnotes by simply citing the author`s last name, the year, and then adding the relevant page

numbers: (Álvarez and de la Chica 1974, 221–23). No punctuation is used between the author’s name and

the date of publication. Notes in this format are then easy to correlate to the works cited in the

bibliography.

Scientific bibliographic style attempts to condense publication data as much as possible. Thus designators

such as “Vol.” or “No.” or “pp.” are omitted in entries concerning journals and serial publications and

indicated instead by position only. As an example:

Loveland, T.R., J.W. Merchant, D.O. Ohlen, J.F. Brown. 1995. Seasonal land-cover regions of the United

States. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85(2):339–55.

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Commission for Environmental Cooperation

(Here we have volume 85, number 2, and pages 339 to 355 inclusive. If the journal does not designate

issue number, that field will obviously be omitted.)

Abbreviated forms of journal titles are also permissible (without periods for the abbreviations): Canadian

Journal of Botany = Can J Bot

Books and Governmental Publications

Place of publication and publisher are also structured around a colon, as in:

New York: Charles Scribner and Sons

If the city is potentially ambiguous or not well known, it should be followed, as here, by the two-letter state

or province abbreviation, in capital letters.

Ft. Collins, CO: GIS World, Inc.

Publications released by government agencies or a service, centre, or bureau within them should be treated

as a subdivided field and listed in descending hierarchical order, each element separated by commas:

Ogden, UT: US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, Intermountain Region.

Tables/figures/etc. should be labeled according to chapter (i.e., Chapter 1.0, Table_).

Laws and Statutes

Canada

Canada, Species at Risk Act (S.C. 2002, c. 29)

You can also include the website: <http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/S-15.3/>.

United States

A US law would be treated fairly similarly:

US Congress, Endangered Species Act of 1973, Public Law 93-205 (1973), 87 Stat. 884; amended

through Public Law 107-136 (2002), 16 USC 1531.

Again, including the website is desirable: <http://epw.senate.gov/esa73.pdf>

Special note about bibliographic style in legal publications—The CEC is not, per se, a legal publisher,

and publications that are produced in the course of the law and enforcement program area adhere to the

stylistic and bibliographic conventions described above. However, determinations and factual records

produced by the Submissions on Enforcement Matters unit are an exception to this. Their bibliographic and

referencing style are those prescribed by the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (McGill

University Law School’s Redbook legal citation style (6

or 7

edition) (KE259 C35).

(5) Internet (Web) Addresses

Supplying the hyperlinked Web address is absolutely necessary if you consulted the source online. In

addition, as hyperlinks can easily become “broken” and cease to work if the publisher or organization

redesigns its website, it is important that you give the full title of the source (for a later Web search) and

the date you consulted the source. We prefer that web URLs be enclosed in carets < > to make clear that

any surrounding characters or punctuation are not part of the address. It is not necessary to include the

“http://” if it is followed by a “www” term in the address. However, if this is not the case, then the

complete address must be given:

<www.freedoniagroup.com/industry-study/2987/world-flame-retardants.htm

<http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPdf/Antimonytrioxide_508.pdf>