Writers and Editors

Editing yourself and others

A selective guide to help on style, grammar, and word choice

• Basic style guides
• Discipline- and situation-specific style guides
• Online style guides
• The process of editing (and being edited)
• Grammar and style websites, quizzes, exercises
• Mastering comma abuse and other punctuation problems
• The right (and wrong) words
• Dictionaries and dictionary-style references
• For editors only

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BASIC STYLE GUIDES
To begin with, the comma: If you are writing for magazines and newspapers, you will not use the serial comma (so it will be "apples, oranges and bananas") but if you are writing for books you will (hence "apples,oranges, and bananas"). What's the best source for this kind of information on style & usage? Here are some of the staples of the editor's desk, American style (British style being different), especially the first three:

FOR GENERAL PURPOSES:

· The Chicago Manual of Style , 15th Edition (the style Bible for books and some magazines, and there's an online edition)

· AP Style Guide (The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing in Media Law, for journalists)

· Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner (VERY useful)

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Also useful:

· Words into Type, 3rd Edition (how a book is put together, supplements Chicago)

· Wired Style (online style guide)

· The Careful Writer by Theodore M. Bernstein, and/or Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage

If budget allows, consider subscribing to Copy Editor: Language News for the Publishing Profession

DISCIPLINE- AND SITUATION-SPECIFIC STYLE GUIDES:

· AMA Style Guide (American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, 10th Edition)

· APA Style Guide (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition), used in psychology and the social sciences

· Apple Style Guide (excellent free style guide for software documentation and other technical writing)

· CBE Manual, Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, Council of Biology Editors

· CSE Manual, Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, Council of Science Editors

· The Economist Style Guide

· The Elements of Legal Style by Bryan A. Garner

· Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market, by John R. Kohl

· Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences, published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics; helpful on math typography and style questions

· IEEE Computer Society Style Guide, online

· MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 2nd Edition (used in English and the humanities)

· Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, explains a convention, then lists correct and incorrect examples of it

· Numbers Guide: The Essentials of Business Numeracy by Richard Stutely

· Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry, from Sun Technical Publications

· Religion Stylebook, online

· Wikipedia Manual of Style


CONSIDER ALSO, FOR THE FULLER LIBRARY:

· Mathematics into Type, updated, by Ellen Swanson, Arlene O'Sean, Antoinette Schleyer (American Mathematical Society)

· Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, by Virginia Tufte

· Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams (on the internal logic of effective writing)

Wendalyn Nichols of Copyediting Newsletter (note that the publication has made "copyediting" one word now) turns to dictionaries for people learning English to find the proper collocation for prepositions--words that "go with" other words, that co-locate in identifiable patterns. Her example: "X is a comfort to Y" is correct, and "X is a comfort for Y" is not, but sometimes what "sounds right" will be different for Brits and for Americans. The books she refers to when checking out collocators can often be found where ESL (English as a second language) is taught:

· The Cambridge Dictionary of American English

· The Longman Advanced Dictionary of American English

· The Macmillan English Dictionary

· The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

I've provided links to some style "crib sheets" to get you going while you wait for those books you ordered to come. Nothing worse than having a deadline and not knowing how to do your commas or references, and not knowing the difference between when to use "caretaker" (when you're taking care of property) and when to use "caregiver" (when you're taking care of someone who's ill).

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ONLINE STYLE GUIDES

Age Beat survey on style (phrases aging people hate)

Apple style guide (excellent style guide for technical publications, related to computers), free PDF download

AP style via FreelanceStarCompany (Associated Press, for articles)

APA style resources (crib sheets)

BBC News Styleguide, useful for current British usage

British vs. American spelling (Jones)

Chicago Manual of Style Q&A (free, but not complete)

Chicago Manual of Style, online (not free)

Chicago style citation quick guide

Differences between British and American English (English as a second language)

Differences between various forms of English spelling (Wikipedia)

Documentation Guide (Purdue, Owl)

Economist style guide

Electronic style (George H. Hoemann, dated)

IEEE Computer Society Style Guide, online

Microsoft Manual of Style (400 pages) free PDF

MLA Formatting and Style Guide (OWL)

MLA style crib sheet (Abel Scribe)

Plain English handbook (Securities & Exchange Commission)

Religion Stylebook, Religion Newswriters

Urban Dictionary (helpful with really current slang!s

Web Style Guide, 2nd ed. (Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton)

Wikipedia Manual of Style

Writing headlines for Google and e-media, by Steffen Fjaervik, Poynter online

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THE PROCESS OF EDITING (AND BEING EDITED)

Editing and proofreading marks (Inkwell Editorial)

Levels of Edit (nine levels of technical editing, downloadable PDF file), by Robert Van Buren and Mary Fran Buehler

Levels of Edit, simplified (Clarity for Editing), by Justin Baker, STC

Process diagrams (Chicago Style--diagrams for book publishing and journal publishing processes)

Proofreading marks (U of Chicago Style Manual)

Proofreader's and editor's symbols (University of Colorado Style Guide)

University of Colorado guide to editorial style (including standard editing and proofreading marks)

What exactly is a copy editor? (and how a copy desk works — The Slot)

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William Safire's Great Rules of Writing

Do not put statements in the negative form.

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

GRAMMAR AND STYLE WEBSITES, QUIZZES, EXERCISES

Ask the English Teacher (Crawford Kilian, and check his excellent links)

ACES interactive online quizzes

***Capital Community College's excellent Guide to Grammar & Writing

***Council of Science Editors’excellent links for wordsmiths

Do you have what it takes to join the Word Police? Barbara Wallraff (requires registering with Atlantic online)

Do you make these mistakes when you write? (Copyblogger)

Edit Yourself (Bruce Ross-Larson & Co.)

Elements of Style (Strunk & White) (beware banner ads)

Englishforums.com (learn English with online help from volunteer teachers all over the world)

Five grammatical errors that make you look dumb, by Brian Clark (Copyblogger)

Fuzzmail (silly fun for the typo-aware)

Grammar Bytes! interactive grammar review (active learning exercises)

Grammar exercises (OWL)

Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tricks for Better Writing

Grammar Police

Grammar Hotline Directory (by state)

Grammar Slammer

Guide to Grammar and Style (Jack Lynch--very handy!)

Hit Parade of Errors in Style, Grammar, and Punctuation (University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre)

Links for writers (Northwestern University)

Newsroom training (no train, no gain)

Nonsexist language (U of Minnesota)

Online English grammar (EduFind)

Online grammar tutorials (Englishpage.com)

Online technical writing course (David A. McMurrey)

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Passive voice (Bartleby, on when its use might be called for)

Plainlanguage.gov

Poynteronline writing and editing tips

Pronunciation links (Karen's ESL Partyland)

The Tongue Untied (guide to grammar, punctuation & style for journalists--turn the pages!)

Resources for ESL students (students for whom English is a second language)

Schoolhouse Rock (grammar songs to music, such as "Pack Up Your Adjectives"), good for enlivening a lesson maybe!

Self-study quizzes for students of ESL

Slip-ups archive (errors in books, bloopers in movies and on tv)

Spelling test (Mindy McAdams' test, using 50 commonly misspelled words)

Starting a sentence with a conjunction (and, but, etc.)

Style guide for technical writing (Ronald B. Standler)

Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See But Can Easily Fix (Holt Uncensored)

Tips on writing and editing (Poynter)

Triangle grammar guide (Pam Nelson's blog on use and misuse of language)

You Don't Say — Language and Usage Blog (John McIntyre, Baltimore Sun)

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MASTERING COMMA ABUSE AND OTHER PUNCTUATION PROBLEMS

"I'm exhausted. I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out." ~ Oscar Wilde

Apostrophe abuse (visual examples)

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Capitalization (Colorado style)

Commas, Turning Up, Everywhere (The Onion, newsbrief)

Correct punctuation, British style

Gallery of Unnecessary Quotation Marks

Hyphens and compound words (U of Minnesota style guide)

Punctuation (OWL)

Punctuation Made Simple (Gary A. Olsen)

To comma or not to comma (OWL)

The Tongue Untied (guide to grammar, punctuation & style for journalists--turn the pages!)

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"Punctuation to the writer is like anatomy to the artist...." ~ Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, quoting Thomas J. McCormack

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THE RIGHT (AND WRONG) WORDS

Banished words list (clichés banished for misuse, overuse, and general uselessness)

Common errors in word use (Paul Brians)

Commonly confused words (Calgary)

Commonly confused words (AskOxford.com)

Confusing Words (3,000 of them)

Down with Provided That (attention: lawyers)

Fun with Words

It's vs. its (Gary D. Shapiro, "changing the world one apostrophe at a time")

Language corner (Columbia Journalism Review)

Language identifiers (when you don't know which language a word comes from)

Language Log, for linguists and language buffs

One word or two? (NYU, Sonia Jaffe Robbins editing course)

Visual thesaurus

The Vocabula Review ($)

The Word Detective (Evan Morris answers readers' questions about words and language)

Word Traps

WordReference forums (translation)

Wordsmith.org (the magic of words)

Words About Words (Mindy McAdams on language used to explain errors)

World Wide Words (Brit Michael Quinian on international English)

Writing Tools, the musical (Roy Peter Clark, Poynter)

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DICTIONARIES AND DICTIONARY-STYLE REFERENCES

Do not assume that a reference work is good because it's called Webster's or Roget's. Those labels are public domain now, so anyone can use them.

AskOxford.com (Oxford English dictionary)

A-Z list of English idioms

Bartleby, reference books online, free

Buzzwhack (demystifying buzzwords)

Financial terminology and other quizzes (for ESL students, about.com)

Glossary of spiritual and religious terms

Grammars and Language Corners in many languages--great links at YourDictionary.com

Hutchinson dictionary of difficult words (from literati to verbigerative)

100 most commonly mispelled (oops misspelled) words in English (yourdictionary.com)

100 most often mispronounced words and phrases in English (yourdictionary.com)

Online dictionaries

Plain Language Offenders (and simple words to replace them)

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, at Bartleby's

Trademark checklist (International Trademark Association)

Urban dictionary (slang terms)

The Visual Dictonary (infovisual.info) Click on arrows to change volumes (vegetal biology, animal biology, human body, music, transport, clothing).

Visual Dictionary Online (Merriam-Webster) Search within 15 themes.

**Visualizing data (fabulous site)

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FOR EDITORS ONLY

Assignment Editor (home page, with links, for newsroom)

Bechtel, The Editor's Desk (blog)

Bob Baker's Newsthinking

A Capital Idea (a newspaper copyeditor's blog)

Copy Editing Resources (American Press Institute, excellent links)

Copy Editor (a newsletter and job board), pricey but good

Editorial Eye (eei press)(a sampler of articles)

**E-resources for copy editors (Sonia Jaffe Robbins, NYU)

Headsup: The Blog

Organizations and resources for editors

Regret the Error reports on media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press


The Slot (Bill Walsh, Washington Post)

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The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

~ Ogden Nash
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