[Forum] Editing authors who overuse contractions

When you are editing an author who seems to have a penchant for contractions, what is a responsible guideline for whether the contractions should be left alone or split apart back into two words? This author really does use far too many contractions, which may sound fine in spoken conversation but i

[Forum] RE: Editing authors who overuse contractions

Agreed. You probably won't find a "rule" for this. At least one person thinks tons of contractions are okay--your author--so best to probably just leave 'em alone unless there is a house style guide saying otherwise. I have occasionally worked on books in which contractions were frowned upon, but

[Forum] Contractions in academic essays

You are, perhaps, too quick on the trigger. Generally, the more formal the essay, or the more formal the tone you want to project, the less tempted you should be to use contractions. On the other hand, you can start sounding robotic like Data in Star Trek if you religiously avoid contractions in any

[Forum] RE: Editing authors who overuse contractions

I agree with Jerry. I think it depends on the type of book it is. I don't have a problem with contractions. In the books I work on, they make the text more accessible and approachable. First determine if the contractions are appropriate to the type of writing it is. Then determine whether your disli

[Forum] contractions for a type of academic writing

I write study guides to go along with textbooks for high school students. We're told to write in a conversational style, which includes using contractions. Granted, these are not the actual textbooks being written, nor are they papers to be graded. I call them "portable teachers," and since real liv

[Forum] RE: why do we allow apostrophes in Technical writing

I work on a lot of textbooks. Sometimes we allow contractions, sometimes we don't. It depends on the tone we are going for. I don't think contractions are a sign of "lazy" writing, however (a lot of extremely accomplished and energetic writers use them with abandon), and they rarely lead to confu

[Forum] RE: contractions in academic writing

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[Forum] gonna

Hi! I'm proofing a book, each chapter of which is a different person's experience, told in first person. When "gonna" or "gotta" occurs in dialogue, it makes sense to leave it as such, but my editor wants me to leave them in elsewhere, too. If all (or most) the "it is" and "I am" and such were chan

[Forum] contractions in academic writing

Are there any guidelines or tips on when to use contractions in academic writing? How often is too often? Is it all a matter of sound and taste?

[Forum] RE: colloquial dialog

Apostrophes are used in contractions of words where part of a word is omitted (the [i]o[/i] of not in do not, for example, to make don't). See [url=https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part2/ch07/psec030.html]7.30 Contractions[/url]. In this case, no part of a word has been omitted, but th