As writers and editors, we tend to spell things out a little more than most. We explain what acronyms stand for the first time we use them; we avoid “info” and write information, we spell out documents instead of writing “docs”; and we avoid abbreviations.
Sometimes, however, we make exceptions, but we still like being consistent with those exceptions. This brings me to the topic of today: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Imagine if you will, a document that mentions this full coverage ten different times. What a mouthful and an eyeful! Read that often enough and you could be asleep very quickly. At some point, all of these amounts of time were whittled down to the numbers 24/7 or 24/7/365. Hip hip hooray!
Here is where the editors come in. Remember we are one company, and we want to represent time consistently. Here are a few reminders for you.
Correct:
24/7 or 24/7/365
Incorrect:
24 x 7 x 365
24x7x365
24 / 7 / 365
24*7*365
The slashes are the only correct symbol to use between the numbers, and you do not need spaces before or after the slashes.
The time of day is a little more flexible. We prefer hours and minutes, with a.m. and p.m. in lowercase and with periods. Time zones should be written in capital letters and without representing Daylight or Standard time. Here are some examples.
Correct:
7:30 a.m.
7 a.m.–3 p.m.
5:15 p.m. ET
Incorrect:
5:15 PST (do not mention Standard time)
6 A.M. (do not use capital letters with periods)
7:30 AM – 9:30 PM (do not use capital letters without periods; do not use spaces on either side of the en dash)
In case you forget the different zones, here you go:
Eastern Time: ET
Central Time: CT
Mountain Time: MT
Pacific Time: PT
Wherever you are and whatever time it is, I hope you have a lovely day!
Kara Church
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Technical Editor, Advisory
Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/
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