Publishing

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Fri Jan 4 11:49:39 EST 2013


I agree with Bruce. I have done a lot of work on professional society
technical standards, and while they have style requirements of their own, for
issues of grammar, syntax, etc. they defer to the Chicago Manual of Style
exactly as Bruce recommends. I also agree about the Microsoft Word grammar
checker. It is horrible. I ended up disabling it on my copy because it
was wrong 2/3 of the time.

I'll add my name to the pool of volunteers willing to assist in
proofreading similar to Bruce. It's heartening to see Mr. Schust's willingness to
use the talent in the Society membership to improve things. Errors of
grammar and syntax have been a weakness in some (a small minority, to be sure) of
the books, especially in the earlier ones.

I can be contacted off-line at drperiepa at aol.com.

Dave Phelps
Moneta, VA


In a message dated 1/4/2013 11:27:55 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Alex wrote:



First, with both spelling and grammar, copy editors have different
approaches as to what is correct and I have had one professional copy editor
making changes to another professional copy editors work with respect to
grammar. Typos are generally easier to deal with but sometimes it depends on the
style guide being used. Word/publishing programs will highlight questionable
words or phrases, but you then have to decide how to proceed. As an
example I spell coalfield as one word where many publications will spell it as
two words. Another example is state names. I used to use post offices
abbreviations such as WV for West Virginia and the copy editor agreed with it.
However the Associated Press Style Book says not to use them, but it is ok to
use W.Va., but in some circumstances you should use the full state name.



It appears that one of the first orders of business is for the Society to
declare what style it is going to follow (if it already hasn't) and stick
with it. I'm curious about the reference to the AP Style Book -- it is a
good reference, but it really applies to newspapers, magazines, press releases
(the Virginia Tech University Relations style guide uses it as a starting
point), and like publications. It isn't quite geared for journal articles
and books. One of the mainstays in that area is the Chicago Manual of Style,
which is much broader in its scope and coverage. I've used both, the AP
book a long time ago when I was a newspaper reporter in Radford and the
Chicago manual when I was marking up papers for an education journal, before
each issue was sent to the printer. I also know that Microsoft Word is far
from perfect when it comes to pointing out grammar and other construction
"errors" and shouldn't be followed blindly just because it threw some green
lines on the screen.


That said, I would be wiling on a volunteer basis to read, review, and
copy edit any Society publication at any point in the process. I know I won't
be able to catch factual errors, but can help weed out grammar problems,
typos, and misspelled words (depending on when, where, and how something is
sent on to a printer).


Bruce in Blacksburg






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