Here are a few common examples and some clarification.

Is it freshers, fresher's, freshers' - and do you capitalise it?

• When you're talking about the actual people, they are the freshers as they are plural.
• When you're talking about the first week, it's freshers' week as it's a plural noun.
• Some universities call events Freshers' Fayre or similar and is fine if you're using title case (Where You Capitalise The First Letter Of A Line) but not when you're using regular sentence case.

What is the union of students called?

• It's the students' union. But that's if the word is on its own. Never use students union, student union or student's union.
• If combined with a place to make a proper noun it's Atlantis University Students' Union.
  Similarly if you're referring to the university, it's lower-case but if you're referring to Atlantis University, it's capitalised.

How do you describe a union officer?

• Each publication should have a house style, but typically it would be Joe Bloggs, students' union president / Joe Bloggs, Atlantis University Students' Union president or Joe Bloggs, AUSU president.
• Roles should not normally be capitalised.

How do I refer to my students' union that has an acronym?

• Take Southampton University Students' Union for example, who use SUSU as an acronym. You would write it all capitalised because you can't say it as one word.
• If Students' Union Rosegate Elementary used the acronym (SURE), you would capitalise the first letter and the use lower-case: Sure.

Getting it right will take an extra few seconds but boosts the professional image of your publication. It would be a bit embarrassing to misspell freshers' week on the front page!

Good luck and let us know what you're doing for freshers by tagging us on socials or sending us a PDF of your first edition to communications@spajournalism.com.