• 2-minute read
• 24th January 2015

Quoting US Spellings

When writing an academic document, it’s vital to use the correct vocabulary and spellings for your region. Most English-language universities and journals therefore specify whether to use British, American or Australian English.

Failure to use the correct language conventions risks drawing attention away from your ideas; the reader will focus on the way you have written your essay, rather than what you have written.

Set your Spellchecker to the Correct Language

If you are writing in British English, check that your word processor’s spellchecker is set to UK English. If you do not, you could find that it autocorrects to American spellings (such as ‘colonize’ instead of ‘colonise’, ‘rigor’ instead of ‘rigour’, and ‘theater’ instead of ‘theatre’).

Using Original Spellings in Quoted Text

If you quote authors who use US spellings, you should make sure to keep the original spelling. Do not change them to British spellings! As such, a quotation would look like this:

The catalogue was colour-coded to help organise the products more effectively: ‘we color-code all of our catalogs to make product organization more effective’ (Walmart, 2004).

The blue words above use British spellings, while the red words in the quotation use US spellings.

To check the spelling is correct when quoting US English, select the quoted text and set your spellchecker to ‘US English’. The spellchecker will then use US spellings for the selected section and UK spellings for the rest.

If you want to check that your document is perfect, get the professionals at Proofed to have a look! They have years of experience and are very skilled at proofreading international students’ essays.