Editorial Style

The online AP Stylebook offers spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage guidance. Various members of the Marketing & Communications team have access to the AP Stylebook.

Fannie Mae’s dictionary preference is Merriam-Webster, a useful resource that everyone can access.

For further guidance — especially with terminology that is unique to Fannie Mae or to our industry — please use the information provided in this guide. And remember, a style guide is dynamic content that continuously evolves.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Acronyms/initialisms

An acronym is a pronounced word formed by the initial components of a phrase (e.g., NATO, radar, laser). An initialism is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a phrase; each letter is pronounced (e.g., FBI, CFPB).

In general, when using a name or phrase with an acronym/initialism more than once in a document, spell out the name in the first use, followed by its acronym/initialism in parentheses. For example: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Exception: FHFA doesn’t need to be spelled out in the first use unless the audience may be unfamiliar with the full name.

If the name or phrase is not repeated in the document, there is no need to use an acronym/initialism. However, you can include it if it is better known than the name or phrase it represents.

Download the acronyms and initialisms list

Abbreviations

[Exception to AP Style]

• When abbreviating “United States,” write U.S. regardless of whether it appears in a headline or in body text.
• When abbreviating U.S. states, use the two-letter postal code abbreviations without periods (e.g., “WY” for Wyoming).
• Follow AP Style when writing about the District of Columbia. Include periods when referencing the city in text (Washington, D.C.), but use the postal code without the periods when writing a full address (Washington, DC).

Editorial basics

Generally, we follow AP Style. Below are some editorial basics, including a few instances in which we deviate from AP Style.

Ampersand

Use the ampersand when it is part of a company’s or Fannie Mae division’s formal name or composition title (e.g., Procter & Gamble, People & Places). Avoid using the ampersand in place of “and,” except for some accepted abbreviations: B&B, R&B.

Apostrophes and quotation marks

[Exception to AP Style]

In general, use curly/smart quotes. There are four curly quote characters: the open single quote (‘), the closed single quote (’), the open double quote (“), and the closed double quote (”).

However, use straight quotes in reference to measurement (e.g., feet and inches, or to degrees of longitude or latitude).

• “Arbor and the DUS program have given us the ability to buy deals we never could’ve pulled off,” said Greg Worchell of Clear Capital, LLC.
• 4'6" (not 4’ 6”).

Note: The current version of Microsoft Word uses curly quotes by default, so generally there should be no need to manually format the punctuation.

Capitalization

In general, avoid unnecessary capitals. Use of capital letters makes text harder to read. Refer to the AP Stylebook section on capitalization for further guidance.

Ellipsis

Indicate any omission of a word or phrase, line, or paragraph from within a quotation by ellipsis points as follows:

Do

“ Four score and seven years ago … a new nation … ” (Note spacing.)

Don't

“Four score and seven years ago... a new nation...”

En and em dashes

[Exception to AP Style]

Use an en dash (–) to indicate ranges, such as ranges of dates or times. Use an em dash (—) to signal abrupt change, as one option to set off a series within a phrase, or before attribution to an author. Include one space before and one space after the dash.

• Sept. 9 – 12: Stop by the cafeteria to get some work-life balance tips during Wellness Awareness Week.
• The prospect of making wholesale changes is daunting — but an even worse scenario is to ignore or underestimate the digital revolution.

Footnote and bibliography style

[Exception to AP Style]

Generally follow the Chicago Manual of Style, since AP Style doesn’t have guidance on this.

Footnotes:

• Ajita Atreya, Susana Ferreira, and Warren Kriesel, “Forgetting the Flood? An Analysis of the Flood Risk Discount over Time,” Land Economics 89, no. 4 (2013): 583.
• Katrina Jones, “Knocking Down Barriers, One by One,” Fannie Mae, April 29, 2024, fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/knocking-down-barriers-one-by-one.
• Alex Schwartz, Housing Policy in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2015), 137 – 155.

Bibliography:

• Atreya, Ajita, Susana Ferreira, and Warren Kriesel. “Forgetting the Flood? An Analysis of the Flood Risk Discount over Time.” Land Economics 89, no. 4 (2013): 577 – 596. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24243692.
• Jones, Katrina. “Knocking Down Barriers, One by One.” Fannie Mae. April 29, 2024, fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/knocking-down-barriers-one-by-one.
• Schwartz, Alex. Housing Policy in the United States. New York: Routledge, 2015.

Lists

Bulleted lists:

Use bullets. Put a space between the bullet and the first word of each item in the list. Capitalize the first word following the bullet. Use a period at the end of each bullet if the bullet completes a full sentence. For bullets that are phrases, use your discretion as to whether to add periods.

• Review the bankruptcy notice carefully to determine:
  • The date the petition was filed.
  • The chapter the petition was filed under.
  • The date when claims must be filed.
• The Chief Administrative Office comprises the following teams:
  • Communications & Public Affairs
  • Economic & Strategic Research
  • Legal
  • Marketing & Shared Services
  • Mission & Impact

Enumerated lists:

In an enumerated list of objects, use a period without parentheses after each numeral. In general, only use enumerated lists when describing steps in a procedure or if the order of the list is important.

1. Get out of bed.
2. Brush your teeth.
3. Put on your clothes.

Numbers, decimals, and time

Numbers:

In general, write out the numbers one through nine, and use numerals for numbers 10 and above. If a sentence begins with a number, use the written form unless the number identifies a calendar year.

• “Five new HomeReady features now are available to lenders.”
• “In May, we closed 14 deals.”
• “Twenty-five stockholders attended the luncheon.”
• “1865 was an important year in American history.”

Numerals are also used for addresses, monetary units, distances, and measurements. Refer to AP Style for further contexts in which numerals are spelled out.

• 1100 15th St., NW 
  Washington, DC 20005
• “$5 bill,” “8 euros”
• “He walked 4 miles.”

Decimals:

Be consistent in the number of places carried out after a decimal point.

Do

“$50.9 and $68.2 billion.”

Don't

“$50.9 and $68.24 billion.”

Time:

When stating time of day, always use lowercase letters with periods: a.m. and p.m.

• Use noon or midnight, not 12 p.m., 12 noon, 12 a.m., or 12 midnight.
• Use this style: 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., not 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. (unless: 1:15 p.m., 2:45 p.m., etc.).

Abbreviate time zones as ET, CT, MT, and PT in place of Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific times when writing for audiences primarily in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. [Exception to AP Style] This eliminates the need to be precise with regard to whether it’s currently Daylight or Standard Time. Otherwise, follow AP guidance on writing time zones.

• “Join our webinar on business writing at 3:30 p.m. ET.”

Serial/Oxford comma

[Exception to AP Style]

Use commas to separate elements in a series, including before the conjunction (“and,” “or,” etc.). This type of comma is known as the serial comma or the Oxford comma.

• “The conference brought housing leaders, policy makers, city officials, developers, and innovators from across the country.”

Spacing between sentences

Use one space between sentences (not two).

Website URLs

When listing a URL, the URL should appear without the communications protocol (http://, https://, ftp://, etc.). The “www” is not required if readers will clearly understand the implied web address. URLs are preferably written in all lowercase, but as a rule of thumb, use the exact capitalization preferred by the organization that owns the title or name. Generally, underscore and link website references when they appear online. Where possible, avoid breaking a URL between two lines.

• fanniemae.com (not FannieMae.com)
• HomePath.com
• FHFA.gov

General corporate style

Business units

• Capitalize Fannie Mae business units, such as Finance and Internal Audit.
• When referring to Fannie Mae business units, hyphenate Single-Family and write Multifamily as one word.

Fannie Mae name

Do

Use “Fannie Mae” (two words) when referring to the corporation.

Don't

Use Federal National Mortgage Association, the initials FNMA and FM, or Fannie.

Locations

• Fannie Mae offices are:
  • Boston (MA)
  • Chicago (IL)

  • Granite Park (TX)

  • Midtown Center (D.C.)
  • New York (NY)
  • Philadelphia (PA)
  • Reston Town Center (VA)
  • San Francisco (CA)
  • Sterling (VA)
  • Urbana (MD)
• Do not use periods with the quadrants of Washington, D.C. They should appear as NW, NE, SW, and SE.

Phone numbers

The preferred style for phone numbers is 202-752-7000 and 1-800-2FANNIE (1-800-232-6643). Note that not all telephones have identical keypads.

For internal communications, it is acceptable to use extensions (e.g., x1234).

Products

• Capitalize Fannie Mae products, such as HomeReady mortgage.
• Capitalize and italicize the Fannie Mae Selling Guide and Servicing Guide.

Standard work documents

When referring to field labels in a standard work document or set of instructions, use title case and avoid quotation marks.

Do

“The Loan ID is the key to finding a specific loan when using Desktop Underwriter.”

Don't

“The ‘Loan ID’ is the key to finding a specific loan when using Desktop Underwriter.”

Titles

[Exception to AP Style]

Formal Fannie Mae titles should be written in title case. When using descriptors, use sentence case.

• “L.C. Jones, Chief Financial Officer at Fannie Mae, attended the meeting.”
• “Fannie Mae CEO Jane Park spoke at the conference.”
• “John Smith, who leads Fannie Mae’s Single-Family business, attended.”

Trademarks and copyright notice

Trademarks

Refer to this page for a list of Fannie Mae registered trademarks.

When to use trademark symbols:

• In internal documents, trademark symbols are not required, unless you know that the document will also be shared externally.
• In external publications, Fannie Mae uses trademark symbols when a trademark is first referenced but not in subsequent instances. As a rule, avoid using trademark symbols in a document title.

Usage:

• Trademark symbols (“^®” and “™”) are usually superscripted.
  • Day 1 Certainty^® (Note: Do not use “D1C” externally.)
  • Desktop Underwriter^® (DU^®)
  • EarlyCheck™
  • If the format of the publication does not technically allow for superscripting, or if superscripting affects legibility (such as in HTML pages or some social media postings), the trademark symbol does not need to be superscripted or can be omitted if the context makes it clear that the product or service is offered by Fannie Mae.
• The registration symbol is required when the Fannie Mae logo is larger than 1½ inch.
• Trademark attribution paragraphs (such as “DU is a registered trademark of Fannie Mae”) are optional in Fannie Mae publications as long as the proper symbols are used.

References to third-party marks in external publications:

• In external publications, it is also customary to use trademark symbols when referring to third-party products. There is usually no need to use a symbol with the company’s name.

Do

“Standard & Poor’s LEVELS^®: RMBS Model”

Don't

“Standard & Poor’s^® LEVELS^®: RMBS Model”

• Check the third-party’s literature to confirm that you have the proper symbols.
• A trademark attribution paragraph (such as “trademarks are the property of their respective owners,” at a minimum, or such as “LEVELS^® is a trademark of Standard & Poor’s” ) is recommended when third-party marks are not attributed to their owners in the text of the publication.
• Note that some programs within the Loan Quality Initiative carry trademark symbols, while others do not:
  • Uniform Mortgage Data Program^® (UMDP^®) (this is a trademark of Freddie Mac)
  • Uniform Appraisal Dataset
  • Uniform Collateral Data Portal^® (UCDP^®) (this is a trademark of Freddie Mac)
  • Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset (ULDD)

Copyright notice

Affix a copyright notice on Fannie Mae works that will be published externally. Fannie Mae uses the following format:

© 2025 Fannie Mae

Note: The year is the year of first publication. If a work remains unchanged over the years, do not update the year in the notice for future publications. If the work is subsequently modified, use the year of last modification.

Address your questions on trademarks, copyright, and other intellectual property matters to the Legal Department by emailing [email protected].

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