Correct use of hyphens

Question

I am writing a thesis on "Service oriented architectures in safety-critical systems" and this is right where the problem starts.

I am a bit curious about the use of hyphens in "service oriented" and "safety critical".

So far I have encountered the following versions in literature:

service-oriented, service oriented, as well as safety-critical and safety critical.

Additionally, the sources disagree on the correct abbreviation of "service-oriented architecture". There are the versions SoA, as well as SOA.

Is there a particular way to deal with these terms, or can they be defined arbitrary, as long as they are spelled the same way throughout the document?

Many compounds are properly hyphenated when and only when they are used as attributive adjectives, so hyphenation need not always be consistent. But these particular compounds seem to require hyphenation even when they are predicative, as in "This sort of architecture is said to be service-oriented" or "That system is safety-critical." — Brian Donovan, Jun 11 '15 at 14:45

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 11 '15 at 14:52

The standard rule is that when two words are combined to make a single adjective, you should use a hyphen. For example, that's what Oxford Dictionaries say here (subject to some special cases).

If you're applying that rule, then it's service-oriented and safety-critical.

Having said that, I've done plenty of work for tech companies in the past, and so I know that this rule isn't always consistently applied. Where there is a standard phrase used by the industry, I'd always choose that one - even if it isn't strictly "correct". From your own research though, it doesn't sound like that's the case here so I'd fall back on using the hyphen.

In terms of the abbreviation SoA or SOA, again, that's really a matter of what's the industry standard for that specific term. Trying to make general rules about abbreviations, especially in the tech sector, is a fruitless business. From a quick Google though I couldn't find any instances of SoA within the first few pages, so SOA is the one I'd use.

Correct use of hyphens

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