Show Summary Details
Expressing Unit Names and Symbols
Expressing Unit Names and Symbols
- Chapter:
-
(p. 787)
Units of Measure
- Author(s):
Phil B. Fontanarosa
and Stacy Christiansen
The SI includes conventions for expressing unit names and abbreviations (often referred to as symbols) and for displaying them in text. | The SI unit names are written lowercase (eg, kilogram) when spelled out, except for Celsius (as in “degrees Celsius”), which is capitalized. Abbreviations or symbols for SI units also are written lowercase, with the following exceptions: ▪ Abbreviations derived from a proper name should be capitalized (eg, N for newton, K for kelvin, A for ampere), although nonabbreviated SI unit names derived from a proper name are not capitalized (eg, newtons, amperes). ▪ An uppercase letter L is
Access to the complete content on AMA Manual of Style requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.