Sonia Jaffe Robbins, Editing Workshop, G54.1123, WEEK VII

Publication style, sometimes called mechanical style, describes copy-editing issues that do not have a right or wrong answer. Convention dictates some answers, but the reasons for conventional answers are usually arbitrary.

The primary style books are listed below, but there are others. Sometimes a publication puts together its own manual for use by employees (e.g., The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, UPI). Sometimes it chooses one of the books below and adds personalized exceptions; this is why our class uses a Class Style Manual in addition to the AP Style Book.

AP Style Book and Libel Manual (A)
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (T)
The Manual of Style (U. of Chicago Press) (C)
Words Into Type (W)

(The letter following each style book title is used below to refer to specific examples according to that style book's style.)

Style books may be divided alphabetically, like (A) or (T), so that you look up the term or the problem you need help with. For example, if you want to know if "administration" is capitalized or lowercased, you simply look up the word "administration."

Other style books, like (C) or (W), are divided according to generic problem. For "administration," you look in the chapter on capitalization and look for "organizations" or "political terms," or you can look for "administration" in the index.

The alphabetical division is easier for answering specific questions, while the generic division is easier to browse through and learn general principles.

Publication style affects such questions as

capitalization
numbers
abbreviations
italics
signs and symbols

Americans tend to capitalize less than the British do, newspapers less than magazines. The tendency to capitalize is called "up-style," while the tendency not to capitalize is called "down-style." Here are the kinds of words that would require you to check the publication style book.

Titles: This includes titles of

books,
magazines,
newspapers,
art works,
photographs,
movies and DVDs,
plays,
poetry,
television programs,
record albums as well as
cassettes and compact disks.
Titles also include headlines, sometimes called titles at magazines.

In publications using up-style, the conventional "rule" is to capitalize the first letter of every word except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions of three (or four) letters or less.

The Old Man and the Sea
For Whom the Bell Tolls

Some publications, perhaps to avoid the need to their copy editors to know grammar, capitalize the first letter of every word in a title and a headline. Newspapers, particularly tabloids, tend to use down-style and capitalize only the first word in a headline (and, of course, proper names).

Personal, political, military titles: These titles are almost always capitalized when they precede a person's name. Some publications will also capitalize a title when it stands alone but refers to a specific person, while others will lowercase any title standing alone. Some publications that lowercase titles standing alone make an exception for certain titles, such as the title of the current president of the United States (T) or the pope.

President Bush; the President (T); the president (A)
Secretary of State Colin Powell; Secretary Powell; the Secretary (T); the secretary (A)

Past or future titles, or titles used in apposition, may or may not be capitalized.

former president Clinton (C)
former President Clinton (T), (A)
city Fire Commissioner Scoppetta; ... the city fire commissioner, Scoppetta,...

Most publications will not capitalize descriptive terms that look like titles (author Fran Lebowitz), but a few, like Time magazine, do (Astronaut John Glenn).

Political and governmental terms: In most cases, the full proper name is capitalized, while the partial name is not.

Department of State; State Department; the department
the Kansas legislature; the legislature (C); the Legislature (A)
Democratic Party (A); Democratic party (C)
the Party (often used to refer to the Communist Party, now possibly of historical interest only)
the Government (T), the government (A), (C), when referring to a specific national government

Publications often distinguish between a political philosophy and its formal members or informal followers. The member of a specific party is capitalized (Democrat), but the follower of a philosophy is not (democrat). Philosophies are lowercased, unless they are derived from a proper noun.

The democratic socialist used to be a Communist, but she distinguishes her brand of socialism from that of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Proper nouns and adjectives: These are completely arbitrary and may even have political overtones in their use. Dictionaries differ, as do style books. Sometimes capitalization changes meaning.

Braille (New World Dictionary)
braille (W)
braille or Braille (Webster's Tenth)
Afghan hound or afghan (blanket)
Puritan ethics or puritan ethics
Black or black (referring to people)

Geographic names: Usually the place name and generic term are capitalized when they refer to a specific place, but the generic term is lowercased when used alone. Plural generics are lowercased, even when referring to specific places.

Rocky Mountains; the Rockies; the mountains
Ohio River; the river; the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
10th Street; between 10th and 11th streets
Washington state (A); Washington State (C), (W); the state of Washington (C), (W)
New York City; the City of New York (T); the city of New York (A)
the Washington Monument; the monument
but Madison Square Garden; the Garden

Historical periods: Traditional ones are capitalized, general terms are not. But what constitutes a traditional historical period varies.

the cold war (C), (T); the Cold War (A)
the depression, but the Great Depression (C); the Depression (T), (A) (referring to the economic collapse that began in 1929)
the Vietnam War; the Vietnam war

Artistic schools and movements are capitalized, but not styles and techniques.

Minimalism, pointillism

Games are capitalized only if the name is a trademark.

Monopoly, Tetris, dominoes

Holidays are usually capitalized (April Fool's Day, New Year's Eve), unless they are generic (election day).

Seasons are lowercased (spring, summer, fall, winter) unless part of a proper noun (Dartmouth Winter Festival).

AP, newspapers, and most magazines spell out single digits (one through nine) and use figures for all other numbers, except very large numbers (one million or larger), which may combine figures and words (21 billion). Books spell out numbers below 101, round numbers, and isolated numbers in text.

But some publications spell out ten, others use 10. The New Yorker sometimes spells out all numbers, even large specific ones (e.g., one million, two hundred fifty-six thousand, three hundred four). AP and many newspapers use figures for a person's age (the 3-year-old girl).

In most cases, a comma is used with figures that have more than three digits (54,305). But some publications may omit the comma for numbers with only four digits (5500).

When numbers and figures are used in the same sentence or paragraph, books usually make all figures, while magazines and newspapers follow the appropriate rule for each.

(in a book) Buildings in the project range from 5 stories to 109 stories.
(in a newspaper or magazine) Buildings in the project range from five stories to 109 stories.

A number at the beginning of a sentence: Spell out (T), (C); (A, use a figure only for a year).

2003 was not a presidential election year.

Decades:
1990s, 2000s (A), (C)
1990's, 2000's (T), (W)
'90s, '00s (A)*
90's, 00's (T), (W)
nineties (C)
Nineties (Rolling Stone)
And what do we call the decade we are now in? the "ohs"? the "oughts" (as the shortened version of the 1900s were)? or the "naughts" or "noughts" (Fowler says "nought" means zero, while "naught" means nothing)? the "zeros" or the "oh-ohs"? (As a New York Times editorial noted in 1992, the latter sounds "fearful and fainthearted." Little did they know.) Other suggestions: the two thousands, the two grands, the double zero decade, the double doughnuts. What do you think?

*On PC (and Mac) keyboards, you will have to "trick" the computer into understanding that an apostrophe in front of the shortened form of the decade is really an apostrophe and not an open single quote. To do this, simply type the apostrophe twice -- the second one will look like a close single quote (i.e., an apostrophe) -- then delete the first one. Voila -- you are smarter than the computer!

Technical:
8x10 photograph
3 percent
5-4 vote

Money:
5 cents
$4 (A), (T); four dollars; $134 (C)

Cardinal numbers (1, 25, 353) are used for counting. Ordinal numbers (1st, 25th, 353rd) are used to indicate order in a series.

Addresses:
Use ordinal numbers (ending in th, rd) for streets. Use figures for all building numbers. Follow the general number rule for numbered streets and avenues. (See abbreviations for when to abbreviate.) Some publications use figures for all numbers in an address. The Village Voice used figures for all streets, words for all avenues, but only for Manhattan.

3 W. Fourth St.; between Eighth and Ninth streets (A)
75 Fifth Avenue (C); 75 Fifth Ave. (A)
289 12th Avenue

When in doubt, spell it out. Avoid an alphabet soup of abbreviations. Writers on a beat may use the abbreviations used by those he or she is covering within an industry or government. Use only those abbreviations that are common and readily understood by your readers.

Check style book for the correct abbreviation to use and what should be used on first reference.

Most style books do not favor putting an abbreviation in parentheses after the first spelled-out reference. If the second reference is so far away from the first reference that the reader might not understand it, the full name should be repeated or a shortened form can be used.

Department of Transportation (first reference)
DOT (second reference)
the department (second reference)

Using periods (or points) in abbreviations:
The tendency has been toward removing the periods (ACLU, not A.C.L.U.). Some publications make this a fact-checking matter; if the organization uses periods, so will the publication. Some abbreviations traditionally retain periods (a.m.; M.D.; Ph.D.; e.g.). Some abbreviations have become words (e.g., radar, laser, scuba).

Some publications distinguish between "true" abbreviations (a word or phrase shortened by dropping letters after the first, like a.m.) and false ones (shortened by dropping letters in the middle, like Dr. or Mr.). Only the "true" ones take a period at the end, while the others do not. This is why the British, for example, do not put a period after Dr or Mr (unless Mr ends a sentence).

A recent development has been to capitalize only the first letter of an abbreviation that is read as a word (these are called acronyms by some), while continuing to capitalize all letters of an abbreviation that are pronounced as separate letters (called initialisms).

Nafta, ACLU

What do you think of this practice?

Some publications put all-cap abbreviations in small caps.

ACLU

What sorts of terms can be abbreviated?

Agencies and organizations:
FTC; UNPROFOR
UNICEF (A), Unicef (T)

Biblical references: (A) does not abbreviate, but (C) and (W) have lists of acceptable abbreviations.

Businesses: (A) abbreviates Co. and Corp. when it is the last word of a company name. (T) spells out.

Compass directions:
N; E; SW; NNE

Dates and times:
a.m. or A.M.
January 18 (C); Jan. 18 (A), (T); last January (A), (C), (T)

Dialogue: If an abbreviation is spoken, it may be used in quotes.

OK (A); O.K. (T); L.A. (but not NYC; why?); TV; PR; DJ; r&b; R&R

Geographical terms: In books (C, W), place names and addresses are always spelled out, except in tables and charts. (A) and (T) permit abbreviation of streets, etc., when used with the complete address, but not as a general term (see Numbers).

Measures, weights, other such units are usually spelled out, but there may be some exceptions.

Italics are commonly used for titles of works. AP does not mention italics because they cannot be sent over the wire or in plain ASCII text. Consequently, many newspapers do not use them either, to eliminate extra work for the copy desk. Most magazines and all books do use italics, however.

Titles usually italicized:
books,
long poems,
magazines and journals,
newspapers,
movies and DVDs,
plays,
operas and long musical compositions with names (Beethovan's Eroica);
paintings and photographs;
record albums, cassettes, compact disks,
names of ships and other vessels (but not generic or company names: The Spirit of St. Louis, but a Boeing 767)

Titles in roman within quotation marks:
chapter titles,
short stories,
magazine and newspaper story headlines,
short poems,
songs,
exhibits,
television show episodes (the "Chuckles the Clown Is Dead" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show)

Policy mixed:
Television and radio shows are italicized by (W), but in roman with quotes in (C). Sometimes a TV series, like "Masterpiece Theatre," is in quotes, while individual programs shown as part of the series are italicized (The Jewel in the Crown). Sometimes both the series and program are italicized. Comic strips may be roman in quotes or roman only.

Titles only in roman:
musical compositions that are essentially descriptive: Mozart's Quartet in A minor.

Signs and symbols may be chess notation, or the following symbols:
%, @, #, &, *, +.
These are usually not used in text, although they may be acceptable in technical journals and books. The ampersand (&) may be used in the name of a company or partnership, if it is used on its letterhead (a fact-checking matter). The "at" sign (@) is used for computer addresses, as are triangular brackets (<, >) to set off what is typed on a computer screen from the rest of text and punctuation, or a different font is used. But increasingly the brackets are omitted, and the regular font is used for e-mail addresses or URLs.

Check your style book for what is acceptable.

Last revision: January 9, 2005