Division of Words

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Guidelines for dividing words at the end of lines are:

• Pay attention to the way the word is pronounced - its syllables -- and do not break the word so that it would be mispronounced or misunderstood. Check a dictionary if you are unsure of the syllable breaks.
• Divide between doubled consonants, except when it would divide a simple base form, e.g. re-com-men-da-tion, but sell-ing, buzz-er.
• Do not divide a one-syllable word, even if there is an inflected ending like '-ed', e.g. spelled, bummed.
• Do not divide a word so that one or two letters is left either at the end of one line or the beginning of another. Division after a prefix of three or more letters is permissible.
• Do not divide words of six letters or less.
• Divided hyphenated words at the hyphen.
• Do not divide before the following suffixes; they should not be at the beginning of a line alone nor should they be divided themselves: -able, -ceous, -cial, -cion, -cious, -geous, -gion, -gious, -ible, -sial, -sion, -tial, -tion, -tious.
• When a vowel alone forms a syllable in the middle of a word, keep it with the previous syllable, e.g. physi-cal.
• A liquid or silent 'l' syllable at the end of a word or part of an inflected ending should not be put on the next line alone, e.g. read-able, twin-kling.
• Proper nouns, contractions, initialisms, numerals, and abbreviations should not be divided.
• Do not leave a syllable at the end of a line that might be read as a complete word.
• Please note that both the MLA and APA style manuals now discourage breaking words at the end of lines. If you are using a computer, the word-wrap feature will eliminate most end-of-line divisions. Some word processing programs offer automatic hyphenation.