A Matter of Style

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A Matter of Style

• Copy Editing Basics

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• Janitor

Gatekeeper
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• Clarity
• Accuracy
• Tone
• Reputation

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SOME MAIN AREAS

• Usage
• Sentence fragments
• Dangling or misplaced modifiers
• Shifts in verb tense
• Subject-verb agreement
• Pronoun-antecedent agreement
• Wrong words or phrases (see BUGABOOS, way below)
• Style
• Wordiness
• Overuse of passive voice
• Clichés

• Punctuation
• Periods
• Question Marks
• Exclamation points
• Commas
• Semicolons
• Colons
• Dashes
• Parentheses
• Brackets
• Apostrophes
• Quotation Marks
• Mechanics
• Abbreviations
• Capitalization
• Hyphenation
• Numbers
• Spelling

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PECULIAR TO THE NEWS BIZ

• News style in capitalization
• News style in abbreviation
• Punctuation
• Numbers
• Italics

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Newspaper style in capitalization

• As in standard English, proper names including
  people, places, holidays, days and months, big
  events or eras are capitalized. (Uncle John, Aunt
  Sarah, Mom, Dad BUT my uncle, my aunt, my mom,
  my dad Fourth of July, July 4th, Memorial Day
  World War II, the Great Depression, the Roaring
  Twenties)
• In news style, generally
• Capitalize titles in front of proper names but
  not after names or standing alone.
• Superintendent William Wallace, but William
  Wallace, superintendent of schools, and the
  school superintendent
• Same with places
• WL University, but the university Main Street,
  but down the street
• In general, encourage your writers and editors
  NOT to capitalize generics
• the prom, the marching band, the homecoming game
  its astonishing the stuff people want to
  capitalize, but all those letters up and down
  only SLOW THE READERS EYE. NOT what we want!
• So, the marching band, the East Jabib marching
  band, the East Jabib Tigers
• (If you are teaching a J class that addresses
  public relations, marketing and other forms of
  persuasive writing, the rules for capitalization
  change within reason, the writer capitalizes
  everything in the way of titles and the like that
  will make the client look more important. Of
  course.)

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News style in abbreviations

• As with standard English, titles and degrees get
  abbreviated Mr., Mrs., Ms. (but Miss), Dr.,
  Sen., Rep., Jr., Sr., Ph.D., B.A., M.S.
• Also agencies and organizations but in news
  style, usually give the full title on first
  reference with the abbreviation in parentheses
  The National Organization of Women (NOW) the
  Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) the American
  Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE)
• Some news organizations dont give the full title
  for very well known abbreviations such as the
  FBI, CIA, AAA, AA and note that current style
  is NOT to put periods after the letters in an
  abbreviation. (The abbreviations look smoother
  without the periods theyre easier on the eyes.)

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• News organizations almost always have a memory
  device for which kinds of roads get an
  abbreviation
• STAB, for St., Terr., Ave., Blvd., meaning that
  everything else Drive, Lane, Road, or whatever,
  will be written out in an address. At the
  Philadelphia Inquirer at one point, it was BARDS
  Blvd., Ave., Rd., Dr., St.
• EX 17 W. Second St. 340 N. Fisherton Rd. 5 E.
  Truman Blvd. 24 Pearl Lane 3 Starr Dr. or 3
  Starr Drive, all depending on what YOUR news
  organization has decided. BUT your news
  organization may also decide that thats only in
  an address if you are just talking about the
  street itself, it is Second Street, Delaware
  Avenue, or Byberry Road.
• The obvious advantage is that abbreviating saves
  time and space, and thats good if the
  abbreviation is readily understood by the reader.
  But if the abbreviation is obscure, it only slows
  your reader down. This is a case where YOU and
  your editors get to decide! Go with what works
  for you and the readers. Just be consistent.

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PUNCTUATION

• Except for the serial comma, which tends to be
  used in academic writing and NOT in news style,
  news punctuation pretty much follows standard
  usage.
• Punctuation around quotation marks typically
  confuses novice editors. Standard American style
  says commas and periods always go inside
  quotation marks colons and semicolons are always
  outside quotation marks and question marks and
  exclamation points vary.
• He said, Where are you going?
• She replied, I dont know!
• BUT
• Has anyone read the article Bidens Big
  Mistake? (The name of the article wasnt
  Bidens Big Mistake? in this case.)
• NOTE The British tend to put commas and periods
  OUTSIDE quotes, where American style doesnt.
  Students who are reading, for instance, British
  novels, will have seen it both ways, and they may
  be confused, or think you can do it any way you
  want. (British spelling also varies from
  American, and students who are paying attention
  may also be confused when they see British style
  in spelling marvellous, labour, organise,
  defence for examples of Brit spelling and
  punctuation that you can use in class or in an
  editing workshop, some articles from The
  Economist magazine are included in the handouts.)

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Commas and nonessential words, phrases or clauses

• American news style uses that a lot in places
  where the Brits would use which. Typically,
  which introduces a nonessential clause, also
  called nonrestrictive. Think of these clauses
  almost as if they were asides you could put them
  in parentheses, but instead you use commas. The
  same strategy works for nonessential words and
  phrases.
• My brother, Andrew, isnt coming with us. (Andrew
  is the only brother you have, so if you take out
  the parenthetical part, the sentence is still
  true your brother isnt coming.)
• My brother Andrew isnt coming with us. (But some
  of your other brothers might.)
• The book, which was on the table, has
  disappeared. (The book has disappeared. Still
  true its the only book in question.)
• The book that was on the table has disappeared.
  (But perhaps the books under the table, and the
  ones on the sofa, the stove and the front porch
  are still in plain view.)

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• Parentheses
• The punctuation is common sense, if you think
  about it. (A whole sentence inside parentheses
  gets its punctuation inside the box, if you
  will anything less than a whole sentence
  doesnt. For an example of the latter, see above
  the use of parentheses in the taco sentence.)
• Dashes
• Dont use a hyphen where a dash is needed. It
  makes the sentence really hard to read. To get
  the computer to make a proper dash when it
  doesnt want to, type two hyphens, hit the space
  bar once, type a single letter (like x), and
  hit the space bar again. Voila, The two hyphens
  become a dash.
• Hyphenation
• You wouldnt think a little thing like a hyphen
  could cause so much trouble or need a whole
  category to itself. Because news style tries to
  condense ideas, and good news writers strive to
  write as tightly as possible, you get a lot of
  compound words being used as adjectives. WHEN
  THEY PRECEDE THE WORD THEYRE MODIFYING, its
  typically news style to hyphenate them. That way,
  the readers eye can take in the whole word
  cluster and sort it out immediately.
• The iron-clad rule the well-intentioned comment
  the down-and-dirty tactic the well-liked
  politician the little-known fact, the
  bad-tempered dog, the two-mile hike, the
  eight-inch stick
• BUT
• The politician was well liked. Their tactics were
  about as down and dirty as you could imagine. I
  have to say, I think that fact is little known if
  not downright obscure. The stick is about eight
  inches long.
• (IF YOU LISTEN, you can hear the hyphen two
  words that want to be hyphenated are typically
  run together in speaking, with less of a pause
  between them than when they follow later in the
  sentence. Try it.)
• Some compound phrases occur so often that
  newspapers dont hyphenate them perhaps just
  because it would drive the copy desk crazy to try
  to fix them all!
• EX. The high school prom real estate
  transactions my second grade teacher. (BUT They
  are first-rate teachers our teachers are first
  rate.)

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NUMBERS

• In newspapers, the rule generally is to use words
  for numbers one through nine, and numerals for
  numbers 10 and up. This saves space, and also,
  the numerals kind of pop out of the text at you
  theyre easier to see, easier to read. Again,
  this makes the reading move faster 101
  Dalmatians is way easier to digest than one
  hundred one Dalmatians. (Common error One
  hundred AND one but this is on the way to being
  common usage heck, it is common usage, which is
  just one step before being in the dictionary.)
• Newspapers typically write peoples height,
  weight and age as numerals The 6-foot-7 rookie
  the baby weighed just 7 pounds at birth when she
  was 3 years old numbers in addresses are
  written as numerals regardless of the number,
  whether its 2 or 2105 news organizations vary
  as to how they handle the ordinal numbers
  typically in text usage, its first through
  ninth, 10th through infinity but its really
  your choice whether you want to designate, say,
  a street as Third Street, 3rd Street, or 3d St.
  Rules vary!

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SPELLING

• Well, what can we say? Its English. Its
  arbitrary. Its well-nigh impossible. And those
  are just some of the reasons weve saved it for
  almost the very last.
• There ARE rules in English spelling for a pretty
  good summary of them, check that St. Martins
  handbook. And there are

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MNEMONIC DEVICES

• Memory tricks of course include the I before E
  rule, which in its (more or less) entirety, is
• I before E, except after C, or when sounded like
  A, as in neighbor and weigh.
• Exceptions weir, weird, height, sleight-of hand,
  seize, seizure, leisure, feisty, foreign plus
  sheik, caffeine both more recently from other
  languages, where the rule isnt reliable.
• A less-known but somewhat useful trick is to
  remember that most often, though not infallibly,
  in words of two syllables ending in a consonant,
  a word that has the emphasis on the second
  syllable WILL double the final consonant, while
  one with the emphasis on the first wont.
• EX. prefer, preferred occur, occurring patrol,
  patrolled corral, corralled control,
  controlling (emphasis on second syllable)
• BUT sever, severed gambol, gamboling feather,
  feathered tutor, tutored (emphasis on first
  syllable).
• Who knows WHY? Its English, whoa. See what
  others you can think of and pass em on, please!

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Italics

• Italics have replaced underlining in places like
  book titles or to mark emphasis.
• Dude! he said.
• Theyre also commonly used for foreign words
  except the really familiar ones. Were not going
  to italicize taco in everyday use but of course
  its italicized here because another standard use
  of italics is to set off words being used as
  examples.
• If you get in a jam where the italics are already
  being used for one purpose and you need them for
  another, you can always resort to bold face for
  one or the other.
• Dude! he said.

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• Titles of books
• Titles of long works go in italics short works,
  in quotes
• IN ITALICS Books, operas, plays, record album
  titles, newspapers and magazines,
  films/feature-length DVDs or videos TV series
  video games.
• In quotation marks Poems, songs, articles,
  individual TV episodes
• Stranger in a Strange Land The Magic Flute The
  Best of Celine Dion The New York Times Get
  Smart BUT To a Rose My Heart Will Go On
  Masterpiece Theater/ Inspector Lewis, Series I
  Old School Ties)
• Note Capitalize first word and all main words
  lower-case a, an and the except as first word
  lower-case short prepositions and conjunctions
  (in, on, of and, but, or) The Catcher in the
  Rye.

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REDUNDANCIES, EXCESS VERBIAGE AND OTHER STYLE
GREMLINS

• Future plans
• Each and every
• First and foremost
• Blue in color, hasty in manner, period of time
• Due to the fact that, in view of the fact that,
  for the reason that as regards, it is necessary
  that has the ability to, has the capacity for,
  is in a position to on the subject of

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• Over news style says that with numbers, where
  it very frequently creeps in, over is replaced
  with more than. Not He was over six feet tall,
  and there were over 2,000 people protesting, but
  more than in both cases.
• The reason is because Good syntax offers The
  reason is that but there may be an even shorter
  way to say it.
• On my list for sure would be the dastardly
  homophones (which we used to clump under
  homonyms). The obvious ones for starters, the
  ones that Spell-Check wont catch bear and bare
  reign, rain, rein deer and dear, and so on
• And then the more insidious theyre there .
  their your youre its its

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A trick that may help keep the possessives and
the verb contractions sorted out

• You wouldnt put an apostrophe in his or her so
  dont put one in its, if you are using it to mean
  belongs to! Its is just the same as his. The
  other its is like theyre, Ive, youve, youre,
  hes, and all the rest of the contractions.
• BUT WHY do we show the larger possessives, the
  NOUN possessives, by using apostrophes? Beats me!
  Its English. But a way to keep its and its
  straight is to remember that the possessive,
  belonging-to its is like his, and the contraction
  its is like hes.
• (There IS a theory, BTW, that the reason noun
  possessives have apostrophes is that originally
  they WERE contractions The man, his house the
  mans house or more likely, in old English, the
  mannes house, way back when we had an inflected
  language. But we really dont want to go there.)

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CONFUSED AND CONFUSING

• All right, not alright people probably confuse
  this with already, so it seems logical, but its
  wrong.
• Lead the parade, but I led the parade BUT
  leaded gasoline. A plea bargain, and Let me plead
  with you not to go. Also, its now He pleaded the
  Fifth, which used to be He pled the Fifth. Pled
  is now considered archaic in writing, but thats
  how we still say it. Arrrggh!
• Passed away, not past away but pastime, meaning
  a diversion but past time, as in, Its past
  time for him to be here.

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MORE BUGS

• Youd be amazed how often someone types then for
  than. Spell-Check wont catch it. Proofreader
  alert!
• And speaking of than, technically its still
  different from, not different than, even though
  in speaking we all say different than.
• And speaking of speaking, hopefully is colloquial
  for something much more prissy-sounding, like
  maybe it is to be hoped or one hopes stuff
  wed never really say. Try to just avoid
  hopefully altogether.
• And speaking of altogether, it means entirely,
  not to be confused with all together, as in,
  Thank goodness the overdue books were all
  together in a bag in the hall.

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• And speaking of goodness, the correct form is
  for goodness sake a days work your moneys
  worth, a good nights sleep. These are obscure
  possessives for which no one can handily explain
  the reason, and they are beginning to fade out of
  use even in good publications, but technically
  they are still the right way to do it. Another
  mysterious possessive construction, but correct
  A friend of my sons, a friend of his, a friend
  of hers.

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• A few more fall in the category of words whose
  meaning has gotten lost over time, or is in the
  process of doing so
• Correct NOT
• palmed off
  pawned off
• rein in
  reigned in
• BUT, in the latest Merriam Webster dictionary,
  the word gantlet, as in, He ran the gantlet, is
  deemed obsolete. The reader is referred to
  gauntlet, which originally of course was
  exclusively a glove, especially the glove you
  threw down as a challenge (the gantlet meanwhile
  was something like an arch of swords that your
  buddies held up for you to run through as a rite
  of passage its not hard to see why these two
  distinctions are fading!).
• In another example of meanings getting lost over
  time, one of my students wrote that he had
  fallen prey to a rut. Really, how many people
  are at all clear about what prey is, or for
  that matter, a rut?
• Other distinctions that are getting lost Of
  course, the difference between like and as. Does
  anyone remember the fuss we used to make over
  Winston tastes good/Like a cigarette should? But
  hey, that was back when cigarettes were cool,
  too.
• I think the distinction between lie and lay will
  someday be eliminated, instead of just being
  hopelessly blurred, as it is now. And
  publications now allow forbidden from, as in
  He was forbidden from crossing the border
  whereas a good dictionary will prescribe
  forbidden TO and prohibited FROM. Some of
  these distinctions will just plain get lost. Pick
  your battles!

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