I'm writing an academic text in American English. I'm not sure about the compound words: DB-9 connector end-of-packet 16-bit registers Avalon-MM slave interface RS-232 interface Bidirectional full-duplex communication MSB (bit 7) transmitted LSB (bit-0) first endofpacket or end-of-packet? 32-bit system provability-checking algorithm the model checker (or "the model-checker"? I / O, i/o or I/O ? base-case or basecase or base case? I feel it's been difficult to know where to place the hyphen, if anywhere.