Tips on Creating Strong Passphrases:  

A Passphrase can be a sentence where you select the first letter of each word as your password. It will make no sense to anyone but you. A Passphrase can also be an entire sentence with numbers and symbols added.  

• • Is Econ 220 being offered this semester? (IE2bots?)
  • Only three more weeks until vacation time! (O3mwuVt!)
  • The book title The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids becomes (TpoBaTt0m).
  • The affirmation I will become president of the United States becomes (IwbP0US!).
    
    
• Select a sentence and add symbols, capitalization and numbers to it and use the entire phrase as your password. Do not select phrases that are common to everyone. (Go@Pirates!) for example.
• • Our@#WeatherIs2Humid!
  • TrigoNometry!Classr0cks

Guidelines on what to avoid:

• Avoid using personal information. For example, your name, your user ID, the name of a spouse, child, friend, or pet.
• Avoid using information easily obtained about you, such as license plate numbers, telephone numbers, social security numbers, the brand of your automobile, the name of the street you live on, etc.
• Avoid using a Passphrase made of all digits or repeating the same letter to create a PassPhrase.
• Avoid using a word contained in any dictionary, spelling list, or other word list in any language.
• Avoid using simple transformations of a word such as reversing the spelling, changing uppercase to lower-case or vice versa, or using all capitalization.
• Avoid writing down your Passphrase.
• Avoid sharing your Passphrase with anyone.
• Avoid using any of the examples above.

References: George Mason University http://itu.gmu.edu/security/practices/guidelines.html