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Style Guides: Rosemary Shipton
The term "style" covers all those technical aspects of
language where there is a choice, such as numbers, dates, abbreviations,
capitalization, distinctive treatment of words, notes and bibliography,
and a few points of spelling and punctuation. The pitfalls of variations
mean that editors and writers need to be familiar with the options
or at least with resources for checking out specifics. As well, publications and clients are increasingly asking writers
and editors to follow a particular editorial style. Two popular
guides, the Chicago Manual of Style and New York Public
Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage, are descriptive in
approach and outline general principles and styles among which an
editor can choose. In numbers, for example, they outline two basic
systems: editors can write out one to nine and use figures for everything
specific over 10, or they can write out one to ninety-nine, and
use figures for everything specific over 100. If writers or editors can pick a style to follow, their key for success is choose, then be consistent. Style rules Many editors and writers do not realize that they may be asked
to follow other style guides that are prescriptive in approach.
These guides set out one way to handle these questions of style
and to present many other elements, such as headings, quotations,
lists, tables, and charts. The most common of these style guides are the MLA Handbook for
Writers of Research Papers, published by the Modern Languages
Association and used mainly by writers of literary criticism; the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association,
used extensively by publishers of books and journals in the social
sciences and in some branches of health and engineering; Scientific
Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers,
prepared by the Council of Biology Editors and used by publishers
of books and journals in the soft and hard sciences and the other
branches of health and engineering; the Canadian Guide to Uniform
Legal Citation, published by Carswell and used by writers of
legal texts; and the Canadian Press Stylebook, used by the
majority of Canadian newspapers and magazines. What makes these guides attractive to publishers is their inflexibility:
authors are obliged to present their manuscripts exactly as prescribed
in the stylebook, and that really cuts down the time publishers
have to spend on copy editing. No wonder so many of these authors
are hiring editors to fine tune their manuscripts before they present
them to the publishers. In addition to these published guides, many clients develop their
own style guides, and editors are asked to follow these rules as
they edit. To use the example of numbers again, one children's book
publisher in Toronto writes out one to 10, and switches to figures
only at 11*presumably because children count on all 10 of their
little fingers! These house guides may be brief, picking out only
a few points of style in a couple of pages; others are comprehensive,
as in the detailed guide prepared by the Canadian Tax Foundation. Editors may be asked to prepare customized style guides for large
projects that have several writers and editors working on them,
such as a major reference publication or a royal commission report.
Editors may also be asked to prepare a basic guide for an ongoing
series, such as a journal, newsletter, or a line of books, and to
update the guide as needed. Professional editors and writers, then, are expected not only to be able to follow a style guide implicitly, but to understand the principles behind editorial style and to create a workable guide on demand. Amid all these variations, the descriptive Chicago and New York are still the basis of editorial style, but there are good reasons why the different prescriptive guides are well suited to their particular kinds of texts. The challenge for editors is to get their heads around them all.
Published in Sources,
Number 45, Winter 2000.
Sources, 489 College
Street, Suite 305, Toronto, ON M6G 1A5. The
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