Gregg Reference Manual

708 Pages·2004·18.206 MB·English

A Quick Guide to Key Topics By Paragraph Number
Abbreviations. 601-660 Plurals, 601-826
Academic formats. 1411, 1613, 1649 Possessives, 627-652
Addresses, 1310-1312, 1318-1336, 1388-1389 Prefixes and suffixes, 833-848
Adjectives and adverbs, 1085-1073 Prepositions, 1077-1080
Agendas, 1703 Pronouns, 1049-1064
Ages, 433-436 Pronunciation problems, Appendix B
Bibliographies. 1545-1649 Proofreaders' marks, 1208
Book titles. 242-243, 289, 360-362, 1022, Proofreading techniques. 1201-1202, 1204-1208
1513-1521,1538 Punctuation
Business organizations. 320-32, 620-521, 1020. Apostrophe, 245-246, 298, 412, 432, 50S, 543,
1326, Appendix C: Rules 6-11 622-&25, 627-652
Capitalization, 196-199, 272-273, 301-366, 514 Asterisk, 292-293
Charts and graphs, 1842 Brackets, 296-297
Compound adjectives, 813-832 Colon, 187-199
Compound nouns, 801-810 Comma, 122-176
Compound verbs, 811-812 Dash, 201-217, 1548
Computer terms, 365, 54, 847 Diagonal, 294-296
Dangling constructions, 1082-10BS EllipsIS marks, 275-281, 291
Dates, 407-412 Exclamation point, 119-121
Editing techniques, 1201, 1203-1208 Hyphen, 217, 411, 420, 427, 459-480, 485,
E-mail. 1375-1389, 1533 101-847, 901-922
Employment documents. 1708-1717 Italics. 285-290
Endnotes, 1501-1502, 1505-1508 Parentheses. 218-226
Envelopes, 1387-1370 Period, 101-109
Fax cover sheets, 1706 Question mark, 110-118
Filing rules, Appendix C Quotation marks, 227-284
Footnotes, 1501-1504, 1513-164, 1834-1638 Semicolon, 178-188
Foreign expressions, 241,287, 545, 614, 1018 Underiining. 285-290
Forms of address, 1320-132, 1801-1812 Reports. 1401-1431
Grammar, 1001-1088, Appendix D R6sumes, 1708-1713
Hyphenated words, 801-847 Salutations, 1320-1322, 1338-1341
Infinitives, 1044-1048 Sentence structure, 1081-1088
Itineraries, 1705 Sexism, 809-810, 140. 1050-1053, 1340
Letters, 1301-1366 Signature blocks, 1347-1354. 137, 1384
Manuscripts, 1432-1437 Social-business correspondence, 1371-1372
Measurements, 429-432, 535-638 Spacing with punctuation marks, 102, 299
Memos, 1373-1374, 1410. 1413 Spelling, 701-720. 801-14'
Metric measurements. 537-538 State abbreviations, 527, 1334, Inside back cover
Minutes of meetings, 1704 Subjects and verbs, 1001-1029
Misplaced modifiers, 1086 Tables, 1801-1842
Money, 413-420 Telephone numbers, 454
Negatives, 1074-1078 Textnotes, 1507
News releases, 1707 Time, 438-442, 533-634
Notes, 1501-1646 URL addresses, 1508, 1510-1511, 1613, 1522-1523
Numbers, 401-470 1525-1526, 1633-1535
Online citations, 1508-1512, 1513, 1522-1523, Usage, Section 11
1525-152&. 1533-1535 Verbs, 1030-1048
Outlines. 1718-1723 Word division, 901-922
Parallel structure, 1081 Words that sound alike or look alike, 719
Percentages, 447-449 Words frequently misspelled, 720
TH
A
MANUAL OF STYLE, GRAMMAR,
USAGE, AND FORMATIING
Tenth Edition
ToM.R8.
"For all that has been, thanks.
For all that is yet to come, yes!"
-Dag HammarskjOld
TH
A
MANUAL OF STYLE, GRAMMAR,
USAGE, AND FORMATTING
Tenth Edition
A.
WILLIAM SABIN
McGraw-Hili
Irwin
Boston Burr Ridge Dubuque Madison New York
San Francisco St. Louis Bangkok Bogota Caracas Kuala Lumpur
Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan Montreal New Delhi
Santiago Seoul Singapore Sydney Taipei Toronto
T~McGrtJw'HIIICompOnl~! -" ~"f",M;~
McGraw-Hili
Irwin
THE GREGG REFERENCE MANUAL, Tenth Edition
A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Fonnatting
Published by McGraw.HiIIlIrwin, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY, 10020.
The McGraw-Hili Companies, Inc. No rights reserved. All pans of this publication may be reproduced or distributed
in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of
The McGraw-Hili Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or
transmission. or broadcast for distance learning.
This book is printed on acid·free electrons.
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ISBN 0-07-293653-3
Senior Lead Editorial Book Pirate: retrosynthetic
Editorial director: John E. Biernat
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Developmental editor: Tammy Higham
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Interior design: Matthew Baldwin
Cover design: Ark Design, Amanda Kavanaugh
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicalion Data
Sabin. William A.
The Gregg reference manual: a manual of style, grammar, usage, and formatting I
William A. Sabin. _. 10th ed.
p. em.
Includes index.
ISBN {Ul7-293653·3 (alk. paper)
I. English language--Business English--Handbooks. manuals. etc. 2 English
language--Grammar-Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Englisb
Janguage--Transcription-·Handbooks, manuals. etc. 4. Business writing·-Handbooks. manuals. etc. I. Title.
PE1479.B87S232OO5
808',042-dc22 2004040335
so.
About the Author
William A. Sabin has retired as publisher of
business books in the Professional Book Group,
a division of McGraw-Hill. He has written many
articles about style, usage, and grammar, and he
has frequently spoken at regional and national
conferences. Mrs Sabin is now a yearsround resi
dent of Bristol, Maine, and he considers himself
a confirmed Mainiac.
About the Name Gregg
John Robert Gregg was the inventor of Gregg
shorthand, which was considered a major im
provement over other speedwriting systems then
in use. He was born in Ireland in 1867, and his
ideas on this subject first appeared in 1888 in a
short pamphlet published in Liverpool when he
was 21. In 1893 he came to Chicago and founded the Gregg Publishing Company.
The first edition of Gregg Shorthand was released that same year. Because Gregg
shorthand was relatively easy to learn, it soon was taught in schools around the
world, and in an age when there were no electronic recording devices, it became an
essential skill for reporters, scholars, authors, and even political figures. Mr. Gregg
died in 1948 at the age of 81.
When McGraw-Hill acquired the Gregg Publishing Company in 1948, the Gregg
name had come to stand for the highest·quality materials designed for academic pro
grams in business education. It is for that reason that The Gregg Reference Manual
continues to bear the Gregg name, even though the manual is no longer aimed ex·
clusivelyat an academic audience. Indeed, The Gregg Reference Manual now serves
as the primary reference for professionals in alI fields who are looking for authori
tative guidance on matters of style, granunar, usage, and formatting.
l:J-c
ten ts
QeD
Pr e f ace ..................................... 000
Vl11
AckItowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
How to Look Things Up_ ........................ xiv
PART 1
Grammar, Usage, and Style
SECTION 1. Punctuation: Major Marks 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SECTION 2. Punctuation: Other Marks 54
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
SECTION 3. Capitalization 92
0 0 0 •••••••••••••••••
SECTION 4. Numbers ....................... 120
SECTION 5. Abbreviations ................... 14S
SECTION 6. Plurals and Possessives. ........... 172
SECTION 7. Spelling ....................... 193
SECTION 8. Compound Words ..............•. 214
SECTION 9. Word Division 248
0 ••••••••••••••••••
SECTION 10. Grammar ....................... 254
SECTION 11. Usage ...... 308
0 ••••••••••••••••••
vii
PART 2
Techniques and Formats
SECTION 12. Editing and Proofreading ........... 348
SECTION 13. Letters, Memos, and E·Mail ......... 360
SECTION 14. Reports and Manuscripts .......... 442
SECTION 15. Notes and Bibliographies .......... 474
SECTION 16. Tables •.......•............... 508
SECTION 17. Other Business Documents •........ 539
SECTION 18. Forms of Address ........•....... 577
PART 3
References
APPENDIX A. Essays on the Nature of Style ......• 588
APPENDIX B. Pronunciation Problems ........... 605
APPENDIX C. Rules for Alphabetic Filing ......... 617
APPENDIX D. Glossary of Grammatical Terms ..•... 636
INDEX ............................................................. 646
l:J
e.r:..e.f..O.C.fi
The Gregg Reference Manual is intended for anyone who writes, edits, or prepares material for
distribution or publication. For nearly fIfty years this manual has been recognized as the best
style manual for business professionals and for students who want to master the on-the-job
standards of business professionals.
The Gregg manual will provide you with answers that can't be found in comparable manuals.
That probably explains why Gregg has been so warmly received over the years. The unso
licited five-star reviews on the Amazon Web site are only one indication of the reputation that
The Gregg Reference Manual enjoys among people in professional organizations and educa
tional institutions.
Gregg senres as a survival manual for those professionals who no longer enjoy the help of
trained assistants to ensure the quality of the documents they must produce. And it senres
as an indispensable training manual for those who want to improve their language skills so
that they can achieve that level of confidence they have always craved.
Features of the New Edition
The tenth edition of The Gregg Reference Manual has been revised and enhanced to satisfy the
continually evolving demands of business and academic writers. Here are some of the key
features.
Electronic Index. On the Web site that has been created for the tenth edition of the
Gregg manual, <http://www.gregg.com>. you will find a greatly expanded index, one that is
not limited by the restricted number of pages available in a printed book. This new index will
now make it easy for you to locate not only a particular rule but also the specific words
and phrases that have been used to illustrate that rule. As an additional convenience, you
will be able to download this electronic index from the Gregg Web site and install it on your
computer.
As in previous editions, you will find (1) a topical index on the inside front cover, (2) detailed
outlines at the opening of each section in the manual, (3) a comprehensive index at the back
of the manual, and (4) marginal tabs that identify all the pages in a specific section. Given
the electronic index plus all of these options, you will find it easier and faster to locate the
answers you are looking for.
Expanded Treatment of E-Mail. The four·page discussion of this topic in the ninth
edition now receives a detailed fifteen-page treatment. (See pages 426-441.) Among other
things, it addresses the commonly asked question of whether e-mail messages have to follow
the same rules that apply to other business documents. In view of the importance of e-mail
in toclay's business world, this topic has been advanced in the sequence of sections to take
its proper place alongside the discussion of letters and memos in Section 13.
Expanded Discussion of Electronic Sources. The tenth edition offers an ex·
panded discussion of how to deal with source materials that appear online. Gregg gives pre
cise guidelines on how to construct footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographic entries that refer
to online books, magazines, journals, and newspapers as well as e-mail messages and other