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Contents

Preface ix

PART I. THE ABCS OF COPYEDITING 1

Principal Tasks 4
Levels of Copyediting 13
The Editorial Process 15
Editorial Triage 19
Estimates 21
One Paragraph, Three Ways 23

2. Basic Procedures 29

Marking Changes on Hard Copy 30
Making Changes On-Screen 37
Querying 39
Style Sheets 47
Cleanup 54

3. Reference Books and Resources 57

Four Essential Books 57
On the Bookshelf 62
Newsletters 66
Internet Sites 66

PART 2. EDITORIAL STYLE 69

Conventions, Fashions, and Style 72
Function 1: Terminal Punctuation 76
Function 2: Joining Clauses 78
Function 3: Setting Off Phrases 86
Function 4: Indicating Omission 92
Mark-by-Mark Pitfalls 93
Multiple Punctuation 111
Eyeballing Every Mark 113
Controversial Techniques 115
Exercise A 117
Exercise B 119

5. Spelling and Hyphenation 121

Improving Your Spelling Skills 122
Variant Spellings 125
British Spelling 126
Homophones 127
Foreign Words and Phrases 129
Proper Nouns and Adjectives 130
Plurals 131
Possessives 134
One Word or Two? 137
Spellcheckers 144
Exercise C 146
Exercise D 148

6. Capitalization 151

Personal Names and Titles 152
Geographical Names 155
Racial and Ethnic Groups 157
Company Names, Trademarks, and Brand Names 158
Cyberjargon 159
Titles of Works 160
Names of Plants and Animals 163
Exercise E 164
Exercise F 166

7. Numbers and Numerals 171

Words or Numerals? 171
Money 178
Mathematical Signs and Time 180
Inclusive Numerals 188
Symbols 189
Street Numbers and Phone Numbers 183
Style Sheet Entries 190
Exercise G 192
Units of Measurement 184
Exercise H 194
Roman Numerals 187

8. Quotations 196

Misspellings in the Source Document 197
Odd Wording in the Source Document 197
Run-in and Set-off Quotations 199
Punctuation of Quotations 203
Syntactical Fit 205
Ellipsis Points 208
Brackets 210
Citing Sources 211
Exercise I 213

9. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Symbols 216

Abbreviations 218
Acronyms 226
Symbols and Signs 231
Exercise J 234

10. Tables, Graphs, and Art 242

Tables 243
Graphs 261
Art 269
Exercise K 271
Exercise L 272

11. References 274

Author-Date System 275
Reference Notes 284
Citation-Sequence System 292
Exercise M 295

12. Front and Back Matter 297

Front Matter 297
Back Matter 300
Glossaries 300
Indexes 302
Exercise N 307

13. Typecoding 309

Typecoding on Hard Copy 309
Typecoding On-Screen 312
Heads and Subheads 317
Lists 319
Design Specs 322
Exercise O 329

PART 3. LANGUAGE EDITING 333

Whose Grammar? 337
Subject-Verb Agreement 339
Troublesome Verbs 347
ModiŽers 359
Case of Nouns and Pronouns 364
Split InŽnitives 351
Subjunctive Mood 352
Dangling Participles 356
Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement 361
Parallel Form 368
Adjectives and Adverbs 369
Fewer and Less 371
Dangling and Misplaced Prepositions 372
Miscellaneous Bugaboos 374

15. Beyond Grammar 377

Organization 377
Bias-Free Language 404
Expository Style 383
Publishing Law 416

Checklist of Editorial Preferences 421
Glossary of Copyediting Terms 431
Glossary of Grammar Terms 447
Answer Keys 457
Selected Bibliography 527
Index 531