RÉSUMÉ ENCYCLOPEDIA
SPELLING
Spell it “résumé”, except in e-mails, text messages, and Web postings, where the accented characters might be converted into garbage characters on the recipient’s end. In those cases, use “resume.”
In fact, it is becoming increasingly safe to use accented characters (and many other special characters) in the body of an e-mail, and it is also becoming safer, though more slowly, to use them in e-mail addresses and subject lines. This may be true of text messages as well. But, for now, it’s probably still safest to avoid them in e-mails. In a few more years, this will perhaps no longer be an issue.
(Accented characters are not part of the ASCII character set that was for a long time the standard in the U.S. for plain-text documents like e-mails and text messages, so they sometimes get converted to other characters or combinations of characters. (See the article on Plain Text.) But ASCII is gradually being replaced by the UTF-8 encoding, which does allow accented characters, as well as many other characters that were not part of the ASCII standard.)
But always use “résumé” when possible. The spelling “resume” is not well-thought-of in fields where language skills are valued. I don’t recommend “resume” for executives and professionals. (Except in e‑mails and texts.)
Another recognized spelling is “resumé.” Some good dictionaries recognize it, and a good theoretical, linguistic, and practical case can be made for it. I used it for some years. But it hasn’t caught on, so I bow to common usage.
(For the distinction between a résumé and a curriculum vitae, see Curriculum Vitae.)
HOW DO I TYPE THE É?
On a Mac: Type Option+e, then e. (For a capital E, type Shift+Option+e, then e.)
On a Windows PC in Word:
• Type Control+’ (Control+apostrophe), then e. (For a capital E, type Control+’, then Shift+E.)
• A more roundabout method, but one that lets you freely access many other special characters as well: In the Ribbon, click Insert, then Symbol > More Symbols. In the resulting dialog box, for Font, select [normal text], for Subset, select Latin-1 Supplement. Then scroll down in the display to find the letter, and double-click it. (Or you can select the character and click Insert.)
Or you can find the character you want on the Web or in some other document, and copy and paste it into your document.
On a Windows PC using applications other than Word:
• Use “Alt codes.” NOTE: You must have a numeric keypad, and Num Lock must be turned on. Alt + 0233 for é, Alt + 0201 for É. Hold down the alt key while entering 0233 on the numeric keypad. The character will appear when you release the Alt key.
• If you don’t have a numeric keypad (or if you do), you can use the Windows Character Map. Click Start, then click Apps (Programs), click Windows Accessories, then click Character Map. In the Character Map, select the desired character (or multiple characters), and then copy and paste them from the Characters To Copy field at the bottom of the panel.