The McGraw-Hill Desk Reference for Editors, Writers, and Proofreaders

255 Pages·2006·5.06 MB·English

by  K. D. Sullivan

McGraw-Hill
The
Desk Reference
for
Editors,Writers,
Proofreaders
and
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McGraw-Hill
The
Desk Reference
for
Editors,Writers,
Proofreaders
and
K.D. Sullivan and
Merilee Eggleston
Copyright © 2006 by K.D. Sullivan and Merilee Eggleston. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America.
Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or ditributed
in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
0-07-149122-8
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DOI: 10.1036/007147000X
For Mom, John, Tawni, Taevin, and Boomer—who
all make my heart smile
—K.D.
For my parents, for Jere, and for everyone who
makes words matter
—Merilee
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Contents
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xv
PART ONE Gearing Up to Edit
1 Before You Begin 3
What Level of Work Will You Do? 3
Who Is the Audience? 5
When Is It Due? 5
What Format Is It In? 6
Which References Will You Use? 7
Who Will Answer Your Questions? 7
Tools 8
Project Information Checklist 8
2 Techniques and Tools 9
Consult the Experts 9
The World Wide Reference Department 10
Do It with Style 11
Follow the Leader and Pass It Around 13
The Last Word in Style 13
Make Your Mark 14
On Hard Copy 14
In Electronic Files 16
Learn the Art of Asking 16
What to Ask and What to Tell 17
vii
viii Contents
Choosing Your Words 17
Fewer Is Better 18
Going Global 19
Making Queries Stick 19
Reviewing Your Queries 20
Do It in Stages 20
The Preliminary Skim 21
The First Pass 21
The Second Pass 22
The Final (Short) Passes 22
Tools 24
Standard Editorial Marks 24
Starter Style Sheet 24
Online Editorial Resources 26
PART TWO The 3 Cs: What to Look for as You Work
3 Is It Correct? 31
The Pieces of the Puzzle 32
The Rules of the Game 32
Agreement Is All-Important 33
Apostrophes Are for Possessives, Not Plurals 38
Capitals Can Clutter 39
Commas Are Crucial 42
Conjunctions Can Open; Prepositions Can Close 45
Hyphens Are Helpful (but Not Always Right) 45
Dashes Are Indispensable 47
Infinitives Can (and Sometimes Should) Come Apart 49
Danglers Can Deceive 50
Numbers Need Consistency 50
Punctuation Can Pile Up 51
Semicolons Are Sophisticated 53
Colons Wear Coattails 55
Which Word When? 56
A or An? 56
Bad or Badly? 56
It’s or Its? 57
Less or Fewer? 58
Contents ix
Like or As? 58
Was or Were? 59
Which or That? 59
Who or Whom? 60
Tools 61
Words Most Often Confused 61
Words Most Often Misspelled 63
Is It Correct? Checklist 64
4 Is It Consistent? 67
Style Sheets, Revisited 68
Method, 1; Madness, 0 69
A Crash Course in Consistency 69
Fast and Loose Facts 69
Spelling 69
Capitalization 72
Punctuation 73
Numbers 74
Fonts 74
Icons and Symbols 75
Vertical Lists 75
Tables 80
Document Titles and Headings 81
Captions and Labels 82
Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers 83
Tables of Contents 84
Tools 85
Is It Consistent? Checklist 85
5 Is It Clear (and Compelling)? 87
Proofreading 88
Copyediting 88
Light Copyediting 88
Medium Copyediting 89
Heavy Copyediting 89
Substantive Editing 90
Where Clear and Compelling Come From 91
The Level of Writing 91
The Overall Structure 91