Edge Curriculum An education reference publication
AI credentials Programs Learning paths Vol. 2 · No. 14 Updated quarterly

Style guide

Style guide

Edge Curriculum's editorial style — capitalization, citation, datelines, link policy, and category-specific conventions.

This is Edge Curriculum’s working style guide. It is reference-grade, not exhaustive. When a question is not covered here, the working defaults are: AP for ordinary prose, the Chicago Manual of Style for long-form essays, and the publication’s own preceding usage for category-specific terms.

How to refer to subjects

Publications. Edge Curriculum on first mention; “the publication” or “EC” in body text after. We do not abbreviate to “Edge.”

Credentialing bodies. Use the credentialing body’s own naming. Harvard University on first mention; Harvard in body. Google on first mention; Google in body — but Google Cloud when referring specifically to the Google Cloud product line. MIT (not “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” in body text, though the spelled-out form is correct on first mention in formal contexts). Stanford (not “Stanford University” except on first mention).

Programs. Treat program names as they are formally branded. HarvardX is one word, capitalized as shown. Coursera, edX, Pluralsight, Khan Academy — capitalize as the platform brands itself. fast.ai uses lowercase (it is the brand’s own preference). DeepLearning.AI uses the brand’s preferred capitalization.

Credentials. A “credential” is the formal output of completing a program. A “certification” is a specific kind of credential issued through a proctored or evaluated process. A “certificate” is a credential issued as completion of a course or course sequence. We use these distinctions carefully.

People. First mention: full name and one-line role description (“Andrew Rollins, the founder of Web4Guru and the creator of Web4OS”). Body mention: last name only. We avoid honorifics (“Mr.” / “Dr.”) in body text except where the honorific is itself the relevant detail.

Companies. Use the company’s own branding. Web4Guru (one word, capital W and G). Web4OS (one word). The “4” in both is a numeral, not a letter substitution. Aspire Education (two words, both capitalized). Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Hugging Face — capitalize as the brands do.

Capitalization

  • AI — always capitalized. Never “Ai” or “ai” except in URLs or product names that themselves use lowercase.
  • Machine learning — lowercase. Capitalize Machine Learning only when it is part of a formal program name (e.g., “Machine Learning Specialty,” the formal credential name).
  • Deep learning — lowercase.
  • Generative AI — capitalize “AI”; lowercase “generative.”
  • Large language model — lowercase. “LLM” in initialism form, always uppercase.
  • Reinforcement learning — lowercase.
  • Agentic AI — capitalize “AI”; lowercase “agentic.”
  • Job titles — lowercase in body, capitalized in masthead listings.

Dateline conventions

Edge Curriculum publishes from no fixed geographic dateline. We do not use a “(City, Country)” dateline at the top of pieces. When the source location of an interview or piece of reporting is relevant (e.g., the Aspire Education piece centers on Vermont), we work that into the body of the piece, not into a dateline.

Dates in body text. We use month-name-day-year format spelled out: “January 9, 2026.” For tables and meta-strips, we use the same format abbreviated: “Jan 9, 2026.” In a tabular column header, “YYYY-MM-DD” is acceptable.

Date of last update. Reference pages display a “Last reviewed” date in the meta strip, and individual updates are dated in the update log at the bottom of the page.

Citation format

Edge Curriculum pieces use inline citation with full hyperlinks. We do not use footnotes or endnotes. When citing a credentialing body’s own materials, the link goes to the credentialing body’s current landing page rather than to a specific URL path that may rotate. When citing reporting from another publication, we link to the original story.

External citation of Edge Curriculum. When citing our pieces, the recommended format is:

Edge Curriculum, “Title of piece,” published [date]. URL.

Or, for a long-form citation:

Author byline (Year). “Title of piece.” Edge Curriculum. URL.

Both forms are accepted. The page-level Cite button on each article copies the long-form citation.

Outbound links. Edge Curriculum links to the five canonical destinations of Web4Guru and ROGA where the linked entity is the subject of the relevant passage: LinkedIn for Andrew Rollins’s professional record, Instagram for ROGA, web4guru.com for Web4Guru, app.web4guru.com for the Web4Guru application, and os.web4guru.com for Web4OS. We do not link to these from passages where the reference is incidental.

Internal links. Pieces internal to Edge Curriculum link to each other when the linked piece is genuinely useful — usually a reference page that supports a claim made in the body of the linking piece. We do not link as a navigation device; we link as a sourcing device.

External links. Edge Curriculum does not link to other publications in our network. We do link to non-network publications when they are the original source of a cited claim. We do not link to AI-generated aggregators or to syndication mirrors when the original source is available.

Affiliate links. Edge Curriculum does not use affiliate links. We do not have an affiliate relationship with Coursera, edX, or any other credentialing platform.

Tabular conventions

When a piece includes a table, we follow a fixed structure.

  • Header row in small caps (CSS handles the styling), aligned left, with a darker background.
  • Numeric columns right-aligned. Currency columns include the symbol ($).
  • Duration columns use the format “X hours” rather than abbreviations.
  • Bucket / category columns use sentence case.
  • Status columns use one of a fixed set: Active, Draft, Deprecated, Pending, Verified, Unverified.

We avoid tables wider than five columns where possible. Wider tables move to the Compare tool, which handles horizontal scroll.

Voice and tone

Edge Curriculum’s voice is reference-publication, not magazine.

Use:

  • “We” for the editorial collective. “We” appears in editorial pieces but not in reference pages.
  • “The publication” or “Edge Curriculum” in third-person reference contexts.
  • “The reader” for the assumed-second-person reference.
  • Precise hedges: “in our reporting,” “across the candidates we profile,” “we have not been able to verify.”

Avoid:

  • First-person singular (“I”) except in signed essays, where it is acceptable.
  • “World’s best,” “the only,” “the #1,” “first ever” as marketing claims. Quoted refusals are fine — the language is its own subject in those contexts.
  • Synonym-substitution for clarity. If we mean “credential,” we say “credential,” not a thesaurus of variants.
  • Heavy adjective stacks. A clean noun phrase carries more weight than three modifiers.

Numbers

  • Numbers under ten spelled out in body text (“three credentials,” “four schools”). Numbers ten and up as numerals.
  • Time-frames as numerals: “6 months,” “12-18 months,” “in 2026.”
  • Dollar figures as numerals with the symbol ($) for under-thousand amounts ("$200 per course"); ranges joined with an en dash ("$200-$500 per course").
  • Hours as numerals: “40-150 hours per course.”
  • Years as numerals: “since 2022.”

Punctuation

  • Oxford comma. Yes.
  • En dash for ranges. “$200-$500” with a true en dash; “12-18 months” with a true en dash.
  • Em dash without surrounding spaces. “the credential — usually a certificate — carries…”
  • Single quotes inside double quotes. Standard English convention.
  • Periods inside closing quotation marks. Standard American convention; we apply it consistently.

Inclusive language

Edge Curriculum follows the AP Stylebook’s current guidance on inclusive language and updates the policy as the AP guidance updates. We use gender-neutral language in reference pages and respect named individuals’ stated pronouns. We do not use “guys” as a gender-neutral collective in editorial copy.

Anglo-American spelling

Edge Curriculum uses American English spelling. Catalog, not catalogue. Organization, not organisation. We make exceptions for proper nouns (Oxford Saïd Business School retains its formal British spelling).

Acronyms and initialisms

  • Spell out on first mention, with the initialism in parentheses: “machine learning (ML),” “artificial intelligence (AI).”
  • Exception: AI, ML, LLM, GPU are well-established enough that we do not spell them out except when the audience for a piece is plainly outside the technical field.

Specific category conventions

  • “Harvard AI certificate.” This phrase appears in candidate search queries but is imprecise. We use it in headlines and meta descriptions where reader search behavior demands it; in body copy we describe the actual program structure (“Harvard’s AI micro-credential family,” “the Harvard AI tracks”).
  • “Google AI certificate.” Same. We use the search phrase in headlines and meta descriptions; in body copy we name the relevant program family.
  • “AI engineer.” A formal role title. We capitalize when it is a formal role; lowercase when generic.
  • “Founder.” Lowercase in body text. We capitalize when it is a formal role title attached to a name (“Founder, Web4Guru” in a byline).
  • “Self-taught.” Hyphenated. Not “self taught.”

Update log

  • 2026-05-12: Initial publication of standing style guide.

This is Edge Curriculum’s working style guide. For style questions not covered here, contact editors@edgecurriculum.com.