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Patterson Corp

Patterson copy style

Base references: The Associated Press Stylebook and Webster’s New World College Dictionary [COPY22]. For medical articles, follow AMA style [BG25 p.11]. Patterson’s documented exceptions to AP override AP.

Source keys: [BG25 p.N] Brand Guide 2025 · [COPY22] Copy Style Guide 2022 · [DS20 p.N] DesignSystem_042120 · [SOC19] Social Media Writing Guidelines.

1. Sentence case — check this before anything else

Section titled “1. Sentence case — check this before anything else”

Headlines, subheads, body copy, captions, buttons, text links, eyebrows, email subject lines and preheader text are all sentence case [BG25 p.57, p.58, p.59], [DS20 p.10]. All-caps in a digital channel reads as shouting and degrades screen readers [BG25 p.25–26].

Only three all-caps survivors: print titles [BG25 p.25], footer/title text [BG25 p.27], and the brand-promise line in an Outlook email signature [BG25 p.28].

2. Exceptions to AP — memorize these five

Section titled “2. Exceptions to AP — memorize these five”
Item Patterson rule AP would say
Academic degrees No periods: BA, PhD, RDH, DDS, DVM, CPA periods
Brackets Use brackets to clarify inside quoted material parentheses
Cents Dollar sign and decimal: $.06, $.50 cent sign
Italics Italicize book/journal/magazine/newspaper titles and scientific names (Staphylococcus aureus) no italics
Serial comma No Oxford comma in a simple series (red, white and blue); do use it in a complex series for clarity. AMA-style doctor-authored articles may use it —

3. Numbers, dates, money, time

Section titled “3. Numbers, dates, money, time”
  • Spell out zero–nine; numerals for 10+, except when a number starts a sentence. Always numerals for ages, dates, dimensions, percentages, measures and weights.
  • Percent uses the symbol (%) in copy.
  • Decimals under 1 take a leading zero: increased 0.9 percent. Fractions under one are spelled and hyphenated in body copy: one-third.
  • Money: $1M, $1B. Financial copy includes cents ($0.51); marketing drops .00 ($100). Never $1 billion dollars. K for money only in tight space; elsewhere K means kilometre.
  • Dates: January 1, 2015; Wednesday, July 22, 2015. No month or day abbreviations, no -st/-rd. Numerals-only grids use a four-digit year: 1/1/2015.
  • En dash with a space on both sides for ranges, not a hyphen: 6:30 – 7 p.m.
  • Time: drop :00 on the hour (6 p.m.); lowercase with periods and a space (6:30 p.m.).
  • Phone numbers use periods, not hyphens: 505.884.6747. No leading “1” on toll-free. Comma before an extension: 866.234.2165, ext. 61727.
  • Units take a space: 5 ml syringe, not 5ml. Use mL for Veterinary [COPY22].

4. Punctuation

Section titled “4. Punctuation”

One space after a period. Colon before a list only after a complete sentence. Exclamation points sparingly. Doubles for quotation marks; periods and commas inside. Q&A, not Q & A. Ampersands are not a substitute for and — permitted only in catalog headers, trademarked vendor names, and PowerPoint titles/bullets to save space. Asterisks link to fine print, never for emphasis.

5. Buttons and CTAs

Section titled “5. Buttons and CTAs”
  • No punctuation in button labels [DS20 p.10].
  • No phone numbers in buttons — phone numbers use text-link styling with the “phone” media icon.
  • Never phrase a CTA as a question.
  • Link text for an email address must not display the address itself.
  • One CTA per piece, never more than three [BG25 p.10].

6. Naming — the ones that get missed

Section titled “6. Naming — the ones that get missed”
  • No Inc. or Co. in content [BG25 p.10].
  • Patterson Animal Health is internal-only. Customer-facing, say Patterson Veterinary or Animal Health International.
  • Patterson Veterinary on first reference; Patterson Vet is acceptable afterwards in marketing copy but never in legal copy.
  • Veterinary terminology: patient (not pet/animal), exam room (not operatory), clinic or hospital (not office/business). Elizabethan collar, never e-collar.
  • Brand promise: running copy takes a comma and no ® — Trusted Expertise, Unrivaled Support. Designed graphics take periods and ®, once per piece [BG25 p.6, p.28].

7. Style baseline

Section titled “7. Style baseline”

Follow AP; AMA for medical articles. Use the active voice. Declutter — remove unnecessary prepositional phrases, “ands” and “thats”. Avoid great, special, really, very. One thought per sentence. Find the right word instead of using an adverb. [BG25 p.10–11]

Site directions: italicize, use angle brackets, bold the action word — Learn more at pattersonvet.com > equipment > finance > Get Prequalified [BG25 p.10]. Web addresses: no http://, lowercase, www. may be dropped if the short form still resolves.

References

Section titled “References”
File When
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/copy-style-guide/references/mechanics.md Full numbers, dates, punctuation and capitalization rules
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/copy-style-guide/references/terminology.md Spelling list, commonly confused words, exact product spellings, job titles, veterinary terms
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/copy-style-guide/assets/copy-checklist.md Line-by-line proofreading checklist
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/copy-style-guide/_SOURCES.md · ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/copy-style-guide/REFERENCES.md Provenance and extraction confidence; canonical SharePoint locations

Source of truth: plugins/patterson-brand/skills/copy-style-guide/SKILL.md in the patterson-corp repository.