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When writing the date, some prefer to put the month first, still others the day. Some people write the date out in full, others use abbreviations or just numbers.

Should dashes or forward slashes be used?

How are the months (especially the shorter ones, like March) supposed to be abbreviated?

These are some of the challenges of writing the date.

Noting the Date in the US

The United States has a rather unique way of writing the date that is imitated in very few other countries (although Canada and Belize also use the form).

In America, the date is formally written in month/day/year form. Thus, “January 1, 2011” is widely considered to be correct.

In formal usage, it is not appropriate to omit the year, or to use a purely numerical form of the date. For example, if you were to write a formal letter for business, you would write…