The intent of the Kentucky State University Editorial Style Guide is to serve as an effective resource for communicators across the campus community to establish consistency in editorial style for websites, print publications, social media and more. Our foremost goals are clarity, consistency and tone, ensuring we speak in one voice.

Generally speaking, these style guidelines are written for use in narrative copy — complete sentences and paragraphs as you’d employ in a news story, annual report or descriptive web copy. For narrative copy, our starting point is the Associated Press Stylebook. Unless we establish Kentucky State style to the contrary, AP style will always be correct. Because academic communities pose style questions not addressed by the Associated Press, we use the Chicago Manual of Style as a secondary guide and Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

Kentucky State University's name is one of our most valuable assets. It is also most frequently misused in the following manner:

Abbreviating to KSU

Our editorial style is simple:

We are Kentucky State University on first reference, Kentucky State on second.

We are not “KSU” because the Kentucky State name has greater awareness and familiarity than KSU.

Geography is a factor, too: - There are multiple KSUs out there, and the web doesn't stop with Kentucky's boundaries.

It is equally important to always spell out Kentucky State versus using shorthand for our name as KSU - whether in naming or copy.

In athletics and social media, “KSU” or “KYSU” are acceptable in copy/hashtags used to engage audiences of current students and alumni (e.g., #KYSU23), but should not be used in hashtags designed to influence external audiences.