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New Oxford Style Manual

August 4, 2009 by Roy Johnson

compendium of writing skills PLUS  specialist dictionary

This New Oxford Style Manual is the result of putting together in one volume the Oxford Guide to Style [formerly Hart’s Rules] and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. It starts from ‘parts of the book’ then moves on to punctuation, names, capitals, and numbers. The editor covers all other aspects of text presentation – such as how you should deal with music, mathematics, quotations, lists, tables, and even illustrations. There is even a special section on foreign languages which begins with the thorny issue of UK and American English – but it also covers Latin, European, Asiatic, Classical, and even Sanskrit.

New Oxford Style Manual Works such as this reveal the small but important conventions which academics, journalists, and professional writers need to know – but which are hard to remember. How do you punctuate a reference given in a footnote for instance? How are abbreviations shown in foreign languages? Where do spaces go when showing degrees of temperature? It deals with special subjects, plus linguistics and phonetics, translations, audio and visual broadcasts, and electronic data. In addition, it also incorporates the most recent changes in citing digital media, and details on the submission of materials for publication.

The second part of the book is a specialist dictionary for writers, journalists, and text-editors. It offers rulings on words and spellings which are commonly problematic. For instance, do we write Muslim or Moslem, customise or customize? It covers the names of well-known people and places, foreign words and commonly-used phrases such as petit-bourgeois and persona non grata.

The editor Robert Ritter also covers abbreviations, capitalization and punctuation. Only today, I’ve looked up amendment [one ‘m’] superseded [yes – it is spelt with an ‘s’] and manageable [it keeps the ‘e’]. It can also be used as a quick guide to many niceties of writing (the difference between hyphens and dashes) and as a potted encyclopedia for historical names (and their dates).

It should certainly be amongst the reference tools of anybody who takes a serious interest in writing. The single volume is even 25% cheaper than buying the two books separately. Fantastic value. Make sure you get the new revised edition which has materials gleaned from OUP’s latest researches into the Oxford English Corpus – a gigantic database containing hundreds of millions of words in current and historic use.

© Roy Johnson 2012

New Oxford Style Manual   Buy the book at Amazon UK

New Oxford Style Manual   Buy the book at Amazon US


Robert M. Ritter (ed), The Oxford Style Manual, Oxford: Oxford University Press, new second edition 2012, pp.861, ISBN: 0198605641


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Proofreading your writing

March 2, 2013 by Roy Johnson

how to check your work for publication

Proofreading and making corrections is the very last stage of preparing a document for publication. At this point the main content of what you have written should already be finalised – checked for accuracy of content, grammar, spelling, completeness, and layout.

Proofreading looks at the presentation of the text in great detail – mainly for matters of bibliographic and typographic consistency. You will be checking on features in the document such as the following, checking for regularity and consistency.

  • Capitalization of headings
  • Font size and style
  • Spacing between paragraphs
  • Regularity of indentation
  • Use of italics and bold
  • Page numbering
  • Hierarchy of headings

Word-processors

Word-processors take a lot of the strain out of proofreading. Spell-checking will be easy, and matters such as letter-spacing and line-spacing are automatically regularised.

The basic appearance of writing on the page (or screen) is also controlled automatically.

For instance, text justification can be set as left-aligned or fully-justified. Left-aligned text creates regular spaces between words, but the right-hand edge of the text will be uneven – which is called ‘ragged right’ or ‘unjustified’. Choice of justification will be determined by the document type.

Fully-justified text creates an even left and right-hand margin – but there may be uneven spaces between words. These gaps can cause what are called ‘rivers’ of white space to appear in the text. These are created by irregular spaces between words.

Word-processors can usually give you control of a number of features in a document. These can be set automatically, and therefore eliminated from the number of tasks involved in proofreading.

  • Hyphenation on and off
  • Picture captions
  • Headers and footers
  • Size of titles and sub-titles
  • Treatment of numbers
  • Use of quotation marks
  • Bibliographic citations
  • Punctuation of lists
  • Page numbering
  • Hierarchy of headings

Proofreading example

The following extract contains several elements that require an editorial decision. That is, where choices of house style must be made about the use of capitals, quotations, commas, numbers, and so on. The passage does not contain any mistakes.

In 1539 the monastery was ‘dissolved’, and the Abbot, in distress of mind—recognising that there was no alternative but to co-operate with the King’s officers—blessed the monks (they numbered fifty-seven), prayed with them, and sent them out from the abbey gates to follow their vocation in the world.

There are eight issues here that call for editorial decisions on the styles used in presentation of text.

  1. Dates are shown using numbers [1539]
  2. Quotations are shown using single quote marks [‘dissolved’]
  3. Capitals used for titles of specific office holders [Abbot, King]
  4. No capitals for informal references to institutions [monastery]
  5. Em-dash used for parenthetical remarks [—]
  6. Use of -ise not -ize for endings [recognising]
  7. Numbers up to 100 shown in words [fifty-seven]
  8. Use of the serial comma

These details make all the difference between an amateur attempt at document production, and a successful and professional piece of work.

Inconsistencies in any of these style issues will cause problems for the reader: For instance, Abbot is an official title, whereas abbot is merely a term to describe the type of clergyman.


House style

House style is the term given to a set of conventions for the presentation of printed documents in an organisation.

The conventions might be formalised as a printed style guide [The Economist Style Guide, New Hart’s Rules] or they might be an informal set of guidelines governed by tradition and convenience.

Any company that wishes to appear professional will have its own house style. It can decide on its own protocols, some of which might contravene traditional practices.

The organisation could be any form of business or official body:

  • Publishing company [a newspaper or magazine]
  • Government body [Department of Education]
  • Legal institution [Courts of Justice]
  • Commercial enterprise [IBM, Amazon]

These organisations have a house style so that there will be consistency and uniformity in the way they present themselves visually to the world.

They might wish to specify the size and font style of their titles, headings, and sub-headings. They are likely to specify how graphics are to be displayed, and they might have policies regarding the use of foreign or emotionally loaded terms.

For instance, newspapers have to make policy decisions on how to describe a dictator’s staff – as a ‘government’ or a ‘regime’.


Proofreading method

The first choice you will need to make is between proofreading on screen or on paper. Many people find it easier to spot mistakes if they print out a document and do the editing and proofreading by hand.

The advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches are essentially as follows.

Editing directly on screen has the advantage that you do not have to transfer corrections from paper to screen. The disadvantages are that any changes you make will over-write the original text. It is also harder to see small details on screen than on paper.

It is true that you can save each separate version of an edited text. This means you have a record of your earlier versions. But each new version leads deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of complexities when making comparisons to select the best.

Editing by hand on a printed document has the disadvantage that all corrections will need to be re-typed, The main advantage is that the original text will still be visible if second thoughts arise.

For details of the advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches, see Editing documents on screen and paper.

You might find it difficult to concentrate on all the small details of proofreading. This is because it is very tiring to hold a number of issues in your head at the same time.

If this is the case, try this tip to make things easier. Split the task into a number of separate stages. Proofread for just one feature at a time. Go through the work checking only on your use of capitals in headings; then go back again to check only on your use of italics, and so on. Use the list of features below as a guide.

Abbreviations Full stops
Apostrophes Hyphens
Bold Italics
Brackets Numbers
Capital letters Quotation marks
Colons Semicolons
Commas Spelling
Dates Titles

Further detailed guidelines on

Proofreading Editing your writing


Proofreading marks

There is also an elaborate system of marks used in professional proofreading for correcting the proofs of printed documents. These are for the specialist, and it is unlikely that the average writer would need to use them. But they might be of interest.

Proofreading marks

© Roy Johnson 2013



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Re-writing essays

August 24, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Re-writing is an important part of producing successful essays and term papers. Your first draft is a temporary document which can be altered. Treat it as a rough version of your essay upon which the final version will be constructed. Don’t think it’s the best you can produce, just because it might have cost a lot of effort.

2. Most successful authors make several drafts of their work. They edit and re-write what they produce, correct mistakes, and make additions and deletions. Good writing is often the result of extensive re-writing before the final draft. Don’t imagine that you should be able to write perfectly well at your first attempt.

3. Get used to the idea of re-working your ideas and your expression. Don’t feel guilty about correcting and revising several times over.

4. A word-processor is ideally suited to working with multiple drafts. This can be done in two ways. You can choose to keep polishing and refining the same basic document, saving it to incorporate each set of changes. Alternatively, you can create and save separate drafts. These may then be compared and mixed until you have produced something to your satisfaction.

5. If necessary, you may also wish to read the work out loud to check for weak grammar. However, keep in mind that a conversational tone and style is best avoided in formal essays.

6. When producing successive drafts of your work, keep in mind the following suggestions.

Checklist for re-writing

  • Simplify any awkward grammar
  • Split up sentences which go on too long
  • Re-order paragraphs to improve your argument
  • Eliminate repetitions
  • Correct errors of spelling or punctuation
  • Create smooth transitions between paragraphs
  • Add any important ideas you have missed out
  • Delete anything which is not strictly relevant

© Roy Johnson 2003

Buy Writing Essays — eBook in PDF format
Buy Writing Essays 3.0 — eBook in HTML format


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Filed Under: Writing Essays Tagged With: Academic writing, Editing, Essays, Re-writing, Reports, Study skills, Term papers, Writing skills

StyleWriter

July 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

grammar, spelling, and editing software program

Lots of people don’t like spelling-checkers and grammar-checkers. It’s no fun having your weaknesses highlighted. Yet they can save you from many embarrassing mistakes – and you can learn good writing habits from them. STYLEWRITER tries to overcome this problem by offering a wide palette of distinctions and a selection of writing styles from which to choose. Its stated aim is to help users produce plain English. As the guidance notes say, “A low average sentence length and a low Passive Index makes your writing much more readable and interesting.”

StylewriterThe program is invoked from within your word-processor, and it works by splitting the screen in two. The top window reveals several lines of your text, with any problems highlighted. This has the advantage that individual items can be seen in their grammatical context.

The highlights are also colour-coded: dark red for suggested improvements, black for misused words, and bright red for spelling mistakes. The bottom window contains your original file, which can be edited. This editing function is commendably efficient: it takes the cursor to the exact spot in your text where corrections will be made. A full help system is available from pull-down menus, and this also includes tips on punctuation, grammar, and appropriate style.

At the end of the check, a full statistical report is available. This includes a word and sentence count, and a natty bar chart with encouraging comments on your results [Sentence-length ‘Excellent!’] There is also a summary which reveals the number of occurrences of features such as complex words, business clichés, foreign words, hidden verbs, and jargon. These can all be customised.

It is easy to observe that many great prose stylists would not pass the test of the forty word maximum sentence length which the program recommends. Henry James would only just be approaching the subject of his sentence after such a short preamble, and his verb would be still some way off. But for we lesser mortals the strictures are probably useful.

So – the program is well worth recommending. I ditched Grammatik in its favour, hardly without thinking. The publishers have recently dropped the price if you download it from their website.

It also allows you to choose the type of writing you wish to check and edit – so it copes with the various requirements for writing by lawyers, government officials, engineers, educators, or accountants. There’s even a setting for ‘creative’ writing that permits the bending of grammatical rules.

But on the whole it aims to produce witing which is shorter, clearer, and free from cloudiness and jargon. You even get a statistical summary of what you write (keep an eye on those long sentences) and if you don’t agree with a particular item of advice, you can remove it. On the other hand you can add rules and dictionary items.

The latest version has been completely re-vamped, and the best feature of all that’s been added is a free trial version which you can download here.

© Roy Johnson 2002


StyleWriter: the plain English editor – Version 4. Editor Software, 64 Woodmancote, Dursley, Glos, GL11 4AQ, England. Tel: 01453-548409


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Subediting for Journalists

June 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the art and skills of subediting for publication

The best thing about Subediting for Journalists is that it is quite clearly based on practical experience in professional journalism. There are some interesting accounts from newspaper and magazine journalists describing exactly how they work. It’s all to do with rigour and attention to detail. They deal with the basics of house style – adhering to a set of standards in spelling and representation. This means taking care with punctuation and grammar, spotting cliché, and getting names right.

Subediting for JournalistsMost of what they have to say concerns correcting common mistakes – dangling participles, misused phrases, and unnecessary repetition. Anyone who wants to improve their writing skills could learn valuable lessons here. They also cover all those grammatical niceties such as that/which and who/whom which you look up then forget about by the next time you need to use them. The advice they give could not be more up to date:

your publication …. could be printed, it could be uploaded onto a website, it could be cannibalised for delivery to WAP or G3 mobile phones and it could also appear on television.

There are plenty of examples of re-written news items which illustrate the advice being given. They deal neatly with issues of names, dates, places, accuracy, and getting to the point. There are sections on writing headlines and photograph captions. These need to be snappy, but the advice is the same in both cases – make it accurate.

They outline the main legal and ethical problems confronting subeditors – issues of copyright, libel, slander, defamation, and contempt of court.

They also explain the print production process. This includes the use of computer software such as Quark Publishing System (QPS) to control what can become a very complex collection of documents. It’s like a peek behind the scenes for the uninitiated.

There’s also a chapter on print technology which won’t tell you much about subediting, but which is a fascinating sketch of the revolution which took place in 1983 when hot metal was replaced by digital typesetting.

They finish with a chapter on subediting web pages. They conclude with a glossary of journalism terms, a sample house style guide, and standard proof correction symbols in UK and US style.

This is a good book. It’s readable, written by people who are clearly well-informed, and just about as up-to-date as it’s possible to be in the old-ish world of print publication.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Subediting for Journalists   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Subediting for Journalists   Buy the book at Amazon US


Wynford Hicks and Tim Holmes, Subediting for Journalists, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.180, ISBN: 0415240859


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The Forest for the Trees

July 3, 2009 by Roy Johnson

advice to writers – from an experienced editor

All authors, editors and publishers should read this book. Even those who think they know all about writing and the publishing process will find fresh ideas and perceptive insights. Betsy Lerner has a wealth of experience, from her youthful beginnings at Simon & Schuster to becoming executive editor at Doubleday and now as a literary agent. She writes with style, empathy, wit, realism, and above all humanity. In The Forest for the Trees she identifies five ‘writer types’, all of them familiar.

The Forest for the TreesThe Ambivalent Writer is one who can’t commit to a one idea for a story from the many possibles and who does not realise that writing is 90 per cent sheer sticking power. The Natural Writer is the one for whom writing appears to come easily. Or is that the myth of not realising that hard writing makes easy reading? Lerner’s definition of the ‘natural’ is one who is always writing. She cites Thurber who never quite knew when he was or wasn’t at it, ‘Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, “Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.”‘ For ‘natural’, maybe one should read ‘persistent’.

The Wicked Child relies on ‘kiss-and-tell’: someone who exposes family relationships, friends, acquaintances (or even, like Philip Roth, a whole tribe) in a more or less disguised fashion. personal relationships. The Self-promoter will do anything for fame – there are many such writers today, but it is a shock to realise that Walt Whitman shamelessly trumpeted himself from the roof-tops and sucked up to celebrity writers of the day. Emily Dickinson on the other hand died with 2000 poems unpublished .

The Neurotic makes a great fuss about the process itself – writing has to be done with an HB pencil, or on lined paper of exactly the right width. Few of these quirks are as eccentric as Dame Edith Sitwell who needed to start the day’s work by lying in an open coffin, but every reader will recognise such stalling techniques.

The second half of the book deals with the publishing process – everything from finding an agent to the book jacket and sales conference. Authors should be aware of what editors are looking for and what they can realistically expect from a publishing house. It would seem that a wad of rejection letters followed eventually by a book without a launch party and no reviews is completely the norm. And if authors turn up to read their books in local bookshops only to find they haven’t got any copies to sell, that’s par for the course too.

Naturally every author is looking for validation, but ten per cent of all titles earn ninety per cent of all revenues. Publishers are clearly going to concentrate on those at the top of their lists. Yet the truth seems to be that even the publishers don’t know which books are going to be in that top ten per cent. If they did, they probably wouldn’t print any of the others at all.

Lerner concludes: ‘Most of the disappointment that writers experience in having a book published can be traced back to their initial expectations – what most writers don’t understand … is that landing a contract and being published do not guarantee the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams.’

Why do we do it?

© Jane Dorner 2004

The Forest for the Trees   Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Betsy Learner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers, New York: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam, revised and updated edition 2010, pp.304, ISBN: 159448483X


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