More Grammar and Style Guidelines: Capitalization, Contractions, and Lists

- Capitalize a job title if it immediately precedes a name (Chief Executive Officer Scott Johnston). - Don't capitalize a job title that follows a name or is a generic reference (Scott Johnston, chief executive officer of Docker). - Capitalize department names when you refer to the name of a department, but use lower case if you are talking about the field of work and not the actual department. - When referring to specific user interface text, like a button label or menu item, use the same capitalization that’s displayed in the user interface. ## Contractions A contraction results from letters being left out from the original word or phrase, such as you're for you are or it's for it is. Following our conversational approach, it's acceptable to use contractions in almost all content types. Just don't get carried away. Too many contractions in a sentence can make it difficult to read. ### Best practice - Stay consistent - don't switch between contractions and their spelled-out equivalents in body copy or UI text. - Avoid negative contractions (can't, don't, wouldn't, and shouldn't) whenever possible. Try to rewrite your sentence to align with our helpful approach that puts the focus on solutions, not problems. - Never contract a noun with is, does, has, or was as this can make it look like the noun is possessive. Your container is ready. Your container’s ready. ## Dangling modifiers Avoid [dangling modifiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_modifier), where the subject of a clause's verb is unclear: - ❌ After enabling auto-log-out, your users are logged out. - ✅ When you enable auto-log-out, your users are logged out. ## Dates You should use the U.S. format of month day, year format for dates: June 26, 2021. When possible, use the month's full name (October 1, 2022). If there are space constraints, use 3-letter abbreviations followed by a period (Oct. 1. 2022). ## Decimals and fractions In all UI content and technical documentation, use decimals instead of fractions. ### Best practice - Always carry decimals to at least the hundredth place (33.76). - In tables, align decimals on the decimal point. - Add a zero before the decimal point for decimal fractions less than one (0.5 cm). ## Lists Lists are a great way to break down complex ideas and make them easier to read and scan. ### Best practice - Bulleted lists should contain relatively few words or short phrases. For most content types, limit the number of items in a list to five. - Don’t add commas (,) or semicolons (;) to the ends of list items. - Some content types may use bulleted lists that contain 10 items, but it's preferable to break longer lists into several lists, each with its own subheading or introduction. - Never create a bulleted list with only one bullet, and never use a dash to indicate a bulleted list. - If your list items are fragments, capitalize the list items for ease of scanning but don't use terminal punctuation. Example: I went to the shops to buy: - Milk - Flour - Eggs - Make sure all your list items are parallel. This means you should structure each list item in the same way. They should all be fragments, or they should all be complete sentences. If you start one list item with a verb, then start every list item with a verb.

This section continues the grammar and style guidelines, focusing on capitalization of job titles and department names, proper use of contractions (advising against negative contractions), and avoiding dangling modifiers. It prescribes the U.S. format for dates and the use of decimals instead of fractions, including best practices for formatting them. It also discusses the effective use of lists, recommending brevity, parallelism, and avoiding single-item lists.