UCAR Style Guide

L [Greek symbol alpha]—See "Lyman-alpha."

laboratory directors—See "Associate directors, NCAR."

Lagrangian—initial cap. Measures parcels of air as they move around, like a drifting buoy; cf. "Eulerian."

latitude—use the degree symbol closed up: 30°N (in nontechnical writing, 30° north). Also see "degrees."

least-squares (adj.)

lee-wave (adj.)

library—NCAR Library, Mesa Lab library, Foothills library

lidar—Treat as a word, not as an acronym with a spellout, but include brief explanation ("a laser radar")

-like—For compounds ending in "like," spell solid except when the base word is a proper name, ends in l, or has three or more syllables.

links to PDFs—See "PDFs."

Linux—initial cap (computer operating system) But note UNIX is all caps. [2/00]

lists, numbered or lettered—

1. Do not use parens around the identifying numbers or letters when the material consists of full sentences or paragraphs. The number followed by a period should be at the normal paragraph indent. It is followed by an em space (or two letter spaces for fixed-width fonts) and then the text. The paragraph will look like this.
2. When numbered or lettered items are run in with the text, the designators should be in parens (a) to help the reader pick out the points and (b) to avoid possible confusion between the article "a" and the letter. For the same reason, it may be preferable to use numbered items, unless (as in this paragraph) the paragraph is already numbered. If there are a great many numbered/lettered items, or a few lengthy and clause-ridden ones, it's more readable not to run them in with the text.

For lists in classic outline form, we deviate from The Chicago Manual of Style in only one way: all levels of numerals or letters are set off by periods, none by parentheses.

See also Bullets.

locations—National laboratories and state governments should be followed by both the city and state. If either is already in the title, it should not be repeated. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; Illinois Water Survey, Springfield; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts. Give locations for NASA centers and for NOAA labs, if known.

logos—See the downloadable files and design standards for using NCAR and UCAR logos in print and online.

longitude—use the degree symbol closed up: 30°W (in nontechnical writing, 30° west). Also see "degrees."

Loran—Long Range Aid to Navigation—an acronym, but initial cap only

Lyman-alpha—also written L [Greek symbol alpha] . Either spell out both words or abbreviate both.