The nice thing about Google Maps is that it will plot out latitude and longitude coordinates in either DD or DMS format.
(Decimal Degrees or Degrees Minutes Seconds)

It is safer to use N and S for latitude and E and W for longitude rather than relying on Google to guess it correctly. In the US the latitude is always north and the longitude is always west.

For coordinates in DMS format just leave out the degree, minute, and second characters (° ' ") and leave a space between each degree minute and second. The lat and lon indicators can go either in front of or after, just be consistent. Therefore this coordinate pair:

38° 53' 51.4" N
77° 2' 11.7" W

would be entered into Google Maps as

38 53 51.4 n 77 2 11.7 w

- or -

n 38 53 51.4 w 77 2 11.7

Go ahead and copy either line into Google Maps and see that it works.

Decimal degrees work the same way. You can enter it like this:

n 38.8976111111111 w 77.0365833333333

or like this

38.8976111111111 n 77.0365833333333 w

For DMS you do not need to have all three pieces either.

You can use degrees only:

n 38 w 77

Or you can only use degrees and minutes:

n 38 53 w 77 2

If you send me an e-mail (no comments so you don't give the answer away to others) and tell me where these coordiantes are I will send you a post card. Don't use the last two examples where I don't use seconds. Use one of the first examples.