Manuscript Preparation
Q. Should we left-align text or use justified alignment? Answer »
Q. When a subsequent edition of a book is being published, is it proper to make any changes to the title of the book, or should the title appear exactly the same in all editions? Answer »
Q. The author wishes to have first mention of foreign words italicized and explained. The book consists of a series of weekly readings, and therefore the reader may well not start at the beginning. In these circumstances, should the first mention of a foreign word in each article be italicized and explained, even though there will be many duplications throughout the book? Answer »
Q. I am editing a military history. The author insists on all numerals for the army units, rather than using numerals for 101 and above. With the exception of roman numerals for corps, is it all right to use the author’s preference? Answer »
Q. I have to write about someone with two PhD’s and a wealth of other academic degrees. The editors I freelance for require a degree behind the name, but are of two minds: one says that only the terminal degree should be named; the other says that all the degrees should be used, but asks, in what order? Mostly we will call her Dr. Doe, but which is right? Jane Doe, PhD, MBA, BA, or Jane Doe, PhD? Answer »
Q. Though the standard Chicago-style proofreading practice is to use the margins to identify all corrections, is there ever an alternate method of proofreading where the symbols and changes are marked only within the text due to margin space issues? Answer »
Q. This headline appeared in the New York Times on Friday, May 11: “A Tough Fight Still Looms, Cheney Warns G.I.’s in Iraq.” I thought no apostrophe was necessary here, as the s represents a plural, not a possessive. What’s up at the Times? Answer »
Q. This is a two-part question if you don’t mind. I’m editing academic writing and would like to (a) insert nouns when an adjective is being used alone, for example “Medievals think . . .” (I would prefer “Medieval philosophers think . . .”), and (b) insert “and” when an author left it out of a series, for example, “of discerning true from false, good from evil, just from unjust.” (I want to insert “and” before “just.”) Am I being too picky? Answer »
Q. I am putting together a pamphlet that compiles articles from another publication. To make the signatures come out right, I’ve put the two-page contents on a spread (pp. iv and v) and put the first article (a two-pager) on pages 1 and 2. Is there a convention that I should have a blank page between the front matter and the start of the text? Answer »
Q. Is footnote numbering allowed in an index along with a page number? Answer »
Q. I have looked online, in your book, in the dictionary, and in numerous textbooks but cannot find the answer to this question: when correcting proof, what mark should a proofreader use to indicate that a word or words need to be underlined? Answer »
Q. Can you tell me the indentation for typing endnotes? Answer »
Q. The paper I am editing has five tables in the main body (which I am numbering 1 to 5) and one table in appendix 3. How should the table in the appendix be numbered? Answer »
Q. I recently began working as a reporter and copy editor at a small weekly newspaper. My editor tells me to correct grammar and style errors in letters to the editor. This seems strange to me. I think those errors characterize the persons writing them and we should leave them as is. Who is right? Answer »
Q. Can you tell me the proper indentation for typing endnotes? Answer »
Q. In the references section of a paper I’m editing, I found a misspelled word. I checked the original journal and found that it was published with this mistake. Should I correct the typo or leave it as is? My colleague says the typo should stay because this is how it appeared in print originally. Thanks a lot! Answer »
Q. As a trial attorney, I do many pleadings and briefs, which I think look better in “full justify” (fj) alignment. This troubles my new secretary, who dislikes fj as too “rote and mechanical,” and less reader-friendly. Though I highly value her opinion, am I being too hawkish on this? Answer »
Q. Where should illustrations and the lines of text that refer to them be placed with respect to one another? Should the illustration be allowed to interrupt the text, say with the last line of text aligned with the bottom of the illustration and saying “as in the figure to the right”? Or should the illustration always go below an unbroken paragraph? Answer »
Q. I’m compiling footnotes for a history book, and in several instances a newspaper is cited. Is it proper to list the city of origin in parentheses and italics for each newspaper? The paper is located in Virginia, Minnesota. The name of the paper is Mesabi Daily News. The author of the book is listing this newspaper in the footnotes as (Virginia) Mesabi Daily News. Should all the words be in italics, or just the name of the paper and not the city? Thanks for your help. Answer »
Q. A styling trend lately that is keeping me up at night is a failure to identify new paragraphs by either a line break or an indent.This new line of text, for example, is the sort of thing I mean. Is this a new paragraph or not? How can one tell? Does it matter?I first spotted this ambiguous formatting in ad copy (which at the time I presumed to be bulleted points without the bullets), and then in corporate communications. But tragically, yesterday I read a review on the back of a novel that did the same thing: a new line for every sentence without letting me know if it was a new paragraph or not.I’m already annoyed by the look of this e-mail! Please help! Answer »
Q. I’m in search of a good solid reference work for style in books in the sciences. Thanks. Answer »
Q. When submitting a pitch package (my first novel, copyrighted) to a literary agent (query letter/synopsis/first three chapters) I have heard that it is bad manners or insulting to use the copyright symbol. Why? Is it true? Is there correct behavior? Answer »
Q. Greetings. Is it necessary to have a dissertation broken up into chapters? Answer »
Q. Should I double-space a press release? There seems to be little consensus on this issue, though most releases are single-spaced. Answer »
Q. This is a widely debated issue. When reporting on your own research in a manuscript, do you refer to yourself in the first or third person? Example: “The authors surveyed participants at a local library” or “We surveyed participants at a local library.” What is CMOS’s take on this issue? Answer »
