Scottsdale Arts Basic Writing Guide

Our Style: Scottsdale Arts House Style is based primarily on the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).

The information below contains the basics of what any employee of Scottsdale Arts should use when referring to our organization to patrons, donors, vendors, and others. Employees should also strive to follow the guidelines below when submitting any documents to Marketing & Communications in order to streamline the process. We do deviate from CMS in some instances, including the capitalization of art movements, where we follow the style of the Getty Thesaurus.

Our Dictionary: Because CMS uses Merriam-Webster as its dictionary of choice, we do too. If you have a question about how anything is spelled, whether it’s one word or two, or whether it’s hyphenated, please do not just guess; consult Merriam-Webster online: Merriam-Webster.com/

Common problems

• Fact-checking: If you are submitting a document to Marketing & Communication for editing, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to check facts before submitting. This includes proper spelling of names, venues, locations, exhibitions, festivals, creative works, shows, awards, etc. It is especially important with artist/performer bios, which often have minor errors in these areas.

• Style for dates, times, and other basics: Please follow our house style on dates, times, composition titles, etc. These are all listed below.

• Spacing between sentences: Please only use one space following a period. Do not use two spaces. Please check your document to ensure that you only have single spaces between each sentence before submitting to Marketing & Communications.

Style Basics

Scottsdale Arts comprises six departments:

• Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts (the Center)

• Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA)

• Scottsdale Public Art

• Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation

• Canal Convergence

• Civic Center LIVE

Notes on branch names

• It’s always an ampersand in Learning & Innovation, not “and.”

• Make sure to use a small “o” in SMoCA.

• Outside of our internal communications, we do not use the following initializations, acronyms, or abbreviations: SCPA, SPA, SALI, CC, CCL, Devo, or Perfa.

• SMoCA and the Center are acceptable on second reference.

• When writing Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts or Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, we do not add “the” at the beginning unless grammatically necessary for the sentence. However, it is always “the Center” or “the Museum” (note the lowercase “t” in “the” because “The” does not come before either building’s formal name).

  • Correct: Rudetsky is performing at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.

  • Incorrect: Rudetsky is performing at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.

  • Correct: Rudetsky is performing at the Center.

  • Incorrect: Rudetsky is performing at Center.

  • Incorrect: Rudetsky is performing at The Center.

Venue names

• Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts

  • Virginia G. Piper Theater (note the American spelling of theater)

  • Stage 2

  • Dayton Fowler Grafman Atrium

  • Center Space (if “gallery” is used, it is not capitalized: Center Space gallery)

  • ArtReach Space

  • The Store @ the Center (note the spaces around @ and the lowercase “the”)

  • Mezzanine Lounge

• Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

  • SMoCA Lounge

  • _____ Space (Blank Space, formerly the Smart Space)

  • Shop@SMoCA (note the lack of spaces around the @)

  • James Turrell Knight Rise Skyspace

• Scottsdale Civic Center (the city has asked that we not use park, mall, or plaza)

  • Scottsdale Civic Center Library 

  • Scottsdale City Hall 

  • East Bowl (large amphitheater between City Hall and the library) 

  • 360 Stage (between the West Bowl and the Civic Lawn) 

  • West Bowl (lawn area west of the 360 Stage) 

  • Marshall Gardens (north of West Bowl) 

  • Civic Lawn (lawn area east of the 360 Stage, above the Drinkwater Boulevard underpass) 

  • West Paseo (west entrance between Main Street/Brown Avenue intersection and the rest of Scottsdale Civic Center) 

  • Scottsdale Historical Museum (old schoolhouse along the West Paseo) 

• Off-campus

  • Civic Center Public Gallery

  • Appaloosa Public Gallery

  • Scottsdale Waterfront

  • Scottsdale Arts District

  • Old Town Scottsdale (not downtown Scottsdale)

• Capitalization of certain common nouns

  • In an exception to CMS, we do capitalize some specific common nouns, most relating to venues: the Center, the Museum, the Valley, The Store, and the Festival.

Collection names

• Fine Art Collection of the City of Scottsdale

  • Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Collection

    • Managed by SMoCA

  • Scottdale Public Art Portable Works Collection

    • Managed by SPA

  • Scottsdale Public Art Permanent Collection

    • Managed by SPA

Seasons

• 2022–23 season with an en dash.

  • Do not use a hyphen (2022-23), em dash (2022—23), or forward slash (2022/23).

  • The first year listed should be four digits, so 22–23 would be incorrect.

URL/email/social media stylization
Note the capitalization (camel caps) of separate words in the domain and the lack of http:// or www. Also note that anything after the domain is all lowercase.

• ScottsdaleArts.org

• ScottsdaleArts.org/fundraising-events

• ScottsdalePerformingArts.org

• ScottsdalePerformingArts.org/events

• SMoCA.org

• SMoCA.org/collections

• ScottsdalePublicArt.org

• ScottsdalePublicArt.org/permanent-art

• ScottsdaleArtsLearning.org

• ScottsdaleArtsLearning.org/exhibitionss

• ScottsdaleArtsFestival.org

• CanalConvergence.com (the only .com URL among our websites)

• GerdW@ScottsdaleArts.org (email example)

• @ScottsdaleArts (Instagram handle)

• @SdlPubArt (Instagram handle)

• @_SMoCA (Instagram handle)

Composition and exhibition titles

• Use italics for exhibitions, paintings, albums, plays, musicals, books, films, and television shows.

• Use quotation marks for songs, chapters, and episodes names.

• Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.

• Question marks and exclamation points go outside quotation marks unless they are part of the composition or exhibition title.

• The: While CMS says not to capitalize or italicize “The” when it is at the beginning of a composition name, our style is to remain true to the composition’s full name. Therefore, it is The Catcher in the Rye and not the Catcher in the Rye.

Theater/theatre

• Although “theater” is the American English spelling and “theatre” is British English spelling, it is common in the American arts industry to use “theater” for the structure and “theatre” for the practice. This is the style we use.

• Most importantly, we must recognize proper names the way they are spelled. If you don’t know, check the organization/venue website to verify which spelling is used.

Art movements

• In an exception to CMS, we do capitalize art and design movements, such as the Studio Glass movement, Art Deco, or Pop art, using the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus as a guide (see link at the top of this document). Note that the words “movement” or “art” are not capitalized when used after the style of the movement.

Numbers

• We use the alternate CMS that spells out zero through nine, and we make an exception to CMS by using numerals for all ages. Additionally, measurements (length, weight, etc.) and percentages are always numerals, even if they are between zero and nine. Absurd example: “We have 68 students, ages 6–18, touring SMoCA today with eight teachers. Throughout three different galleries, they will be viewing 27 paintings—all measuring 8 feet by 14 feet—that were created by a 4-year-old. Of the students, 8 percent are English-language learners and 15 percent are on free or reduced lunch.”

Dates

• Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018

• Note that we spell out the day. We do not use ordinals (rd, st, th) following the date. And we use the full, four-digit year.

• As for the month, in most cases (listings in print and on the web, emails, social, etc.) we will abbreviate in an exception to CMS. However, spelling out the month with a date is acceptable in running copy for more formal uses, including exhibition labels and certain development documents. For exhibition run dates, either the full month name or abbreviation is acceptable, depending on graphic design needs.

• If a date comes in the middle of the sentence, make sure to place a comma after the year (“Jeffrey Siegel is coming to the Center on Tuesday, December 4, 2018, for his first Keyboard Conversation of the season.”)

• If a day and a date are used together in the middle of the sentence without a year, make sure to place a comma after the date (“Jeffrey Siegel is coming to the Center on Tuesday, December 4, for his first Keyboard Conversation of the season.”)

Time of day

• 7 a.m. (not 7:00 a.m.), noon, 4:30 p.m., midnight

• We never use 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.; it’s always midnight or noon.

• Note that we use spaces between the numerals and the letters, lowercase letters, and periods after the letters.

• Arizona is on yearlong Mountain Standard Time. We are never on Pacific Daylight Time, even though we align with it for part of the year. And we are never on Mountain Daylight Time. If a time zone is necessary to avoid confusion, use MST (AZ). 

Names

• Use full name on first reference and last name only on second reference. We do not use titles or honorifics, such as Mr. Siegel or Dr. Wuestemann, on second reference.

• Exceptions are made for stage names where only the first name is used or where a first name and middle name are used. 

Titles for jobs or positions

• Only capitalize job titles if they precede a name. The only time a title should be capitalized following a name is when it is used in a signature for a letter or email.

• A job title following the name is preferred: Dr. Gerd Wuestemann, president and CEO of Scottsdale Arts NOT Scottsdale Arts President and CEO Dr. Gerd Wuestemann.

Punctuation basics

• Oxford comma/serial comma: We use it. This means you use a comma before “and” or “or” in a series of three or more.

• Semicolons: Use like a comma between items in a series when one or more of those items has multiple parts separated by commas.

• Ellipses: A series of three periods without spaces between them but with spaces preceding and following the ellipsis. “This is how you use an ellipsis … if you absolutely must use an ellipsis.”

Preferred Language 

• over / more than: We only use “over” to indicate spatial relationships, such as “the artwork is installed over the canal.” In general, “more than” should be reserved for numerical relationships, such as “we sold more than 2,000 tickets to the show.” If you mean “more than,” use “more than.”

• 15 and younger / under 15: Similar to the over / more than relationship, we should avoid “over” and “under” when referencing ages. Instead write “ages 15 and younger” or “older than 15.” 

• as well as / and: In most cases, the term “as well as” can be replaced by a simple “and.” If you write “as well as,” substitute “and” in its place and see if the sentence still makes sense. If it does, keep the “and” in there. Overall, “as well as” should be rarely used, especially before the last item in a list.

• first / first ever / very first / first: Whenever you see the phrases “first-ever” or “very first” you can pull out the qualifiers. “First” means the same thing as “First-ever” or “very first,” so the “ever” and “very” are unnecessary, and typically sound less professional. 

Parallelism

• When listing things in a series, make sure each item is the same part of speech (all nouns, verbs, gerunds, infinitives, etc.) and that they all interact with the beginning part of the sentence in the same way. If you can’t take the sentence apart and make it work for each item in the list on its own, then you have a parallelism problem.

  • Incorrect: He has performed in amphitheaters, famous stages, and across the United States. (You don’t perform in a famous stage. And performing in an amphitheater is a very different thing than performing in the United States.)

  • Correct: He has performed in amphitheaters, music halls, and stadiums.

  • Correct: He has performed in amphitheaters, on famous stages, and across the United States.

  • Incorrect: He has performed in Idaho, Utah, and across Arizona. (If you take this apart, it would create a sentence that says, “He has performed in across Arizona, which just doesn’t work.)

  • Correct: He has performed in Idaho and Utah and across Arizona.

  • Incorrect: Classical musicians like practicing, competing, and to perform.

  • Correct: Classical musicians like practicing, competing, and performing.

  • Correct: Classical musicians like to practice, compete, and perform.