Manuscript Preparation

A. The problem here may be that you are trying to use CMOS for writing a paper, when it is not intended for that use. Kate L. Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is a standard student reference for writing papers. I highly recommend that you take a look at Turabian, which is available in bookstores and many school libraries. While it’s based on Chicago style, it’s a much smaller book and easier to navigate than CMOS. There are also many websites that show Turabian style. Type “Turabian title page” into Google and you’ll find one. Here’s an example:

Gallaudet University, “Chicago (Turabian) Style Guidelines”

Good luck on that Monday deadline!

A. Try to be sensitive to your intended readers. To gloss “infra dig” would insult the intelligence of some audiences; other times, readers might need a little help. Sometimes a writer needs to use a particular expression. You might have to say “infra dig” because you’re writing an article about expressions that derive from Latin. In those cases, it’s appropriate to gloss if you are trying to teach something or reach a wide audience.

As for your authors’ motives, it’s not necessarily perverse for a writer to leave difficult words unexplained. Skilled writers convey the meaning through the context. Skilled readers keep a dictionary at hand. If a word is perfect for a given context and it would break the mood to explain it, a writer just has to trust that any reader who cares will figure it out.

Oops—I forgot to answer your question! Yes, for introducing arcane expressions, quotation marks with a parenthetical explanation work well.

A. To be honest, the author is often the worst person to edit and proof her own work, even if she is fully sighted. The writer tends to see what she meant to write rather than what she actually did write. A fresh reader is usually more effective. So for that reason, I recommend instead that you work with a professional editor and proofreader. If you are determined to do this yourself, however, then you should seek advice from someone who is blind or works with blind people. Since you’re writing to me through e-mail, you may already know about Web-Braille and other kinds of computer assistance for the blind. The website of the American Foundation for the Blind (http://www.afb.org/ ) is a good resource.

A. One.

Of course, a surfeit of one-sentence paragraphs will easily annoy readers, and in expository writing (as opposed to creative writing), most sentences will be much more highly developed in order to present and defend an argument.

In many contexts, however, such as newspaper articles or fiction, single-sentence paragraphs can add punch and variety to the writing, and should not be outlawed.

A. This is the impression line. In Chicago’s books, the numbers are arranged somewhat differently from your example. A book printed this year would have the following numbers:

14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05        1 2 3 4 5

The first group of numbers refers to years (2014 to 2005), and the second group indicates the impression number. The line tells the reader that this is the first impression, printed in 2005. If the next impression were printed in 2007, the printers would mask the numbers 05 and 06 in the first group and the number 1 in the second group, so the following line would appear:

14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07                     2 3 4 5

This would tell readers that it was the book’s second impression, printed in 2007, and it could be done without retypesetting the copyright page.

A. Yes, it is essential for an indexer to index concepts. That’s the difference between a computer-generated concordance to a book and a professionally prepared index. It would be perverse to contend that a discussion of justice must contain the word “justice.” Sixth graders are old enough to understand this idea. I doubt that they will be confused if the page they are sent to by the index contains information about laws, crimes, and punishments, but if they are briefly confused, the experience will help them begin to learn what “justice” means, as well as something important about using indexes.

A. Include a term under “see also” only if the entry you are directing the reader to gives additional information about the first entry. There’s no point in sending the reader to another entry that turns out to be a duplicate of the first. When you think about it, it’s just plain mean.

A. Please see CMOS 5.220, s.v. I; me: “When you need the first person, use it. It’s not immodest to use it; it’s superstitious not to.”

A. The reason some copy is double-spaced is that copy editors need room to write between the lines when they mark corrections. If you’re drafting a press release for someone to edit on paper, double-space it. If it’s the finished copy, single-spacing is conventional.

A. Most educational institutions have dissertation guidelines or even requirements, so whether chapters are required or not may depend on a school’s particular preferences. The use of chapters, however, shows that an author has organized his thoughts to a certain extent. The lack of chapters might impress a dissertation committee as evidence of the opposite.