After Deadline

Since we are currently focusing on sentences in class, I wanted to send a link to one of my favorite sites, After Deadline, a weekly critique of grammar, usage, and style in the New York Times. I believe Pat posted something from it the other day. I like it because (a) it reminds me that even the New York Times makes mistakes; (b) it deals with real, not contrived, sentences; (c) it comes out only once a week, so it is easy to keep up with; and (d) it is short, so you an read it in a few minutes and not feel overwhelmed with information.

Quick Comment on Styles

I've been using MS Word 2007 for quite a while now, and the automatic style (called "Normal") is beyond irritating since I always make adjustments when typing papers. However, I never knew how to make changes to the styles. Needless to say, this new tool is useful to me beyond the editing world.

Things to add to Frank Stewart's list of style elements

As you recall, Frank pointed out that the following elements characterize an author's style:

1. Level of diction (big words, Latinate words, slang words, foreign words)

2. Sentence structure (long sentences, short sentences, complex, simple, fragments, parallel and formal)

3. Punctuation (dashes instead of semicolons, full stops rather than commas or semicolons, exclamations)

4. Paragraphing (short or long, for emphasis or whole thoughts)

5. Tone (serious, silly, sarcastic, witty, lofty)

6. Person (first, second, third; one rather than you or we)

I added one element soon after I posted his list: references and allusions. Today I thought of another: metaphors and similes. I'll bring to class an example of the latter.

six-step editing process

Copyediting with the style sheet this past week reminded me of the six-step editing process we were taught in English 308. I realized I was subconsciously integrating the process into my copyediting. Though it has been created with technical writers specifically in mind, I feel it's still helpful so I've posted the link below.

http://www.english.hawaii.edu/henry/308/Technical%20Reading.html

There is a Style Sheet for Everything

I was looking around for examples of style-sheets the other day and I just realized that these are everywhere. Style sheets are present in everything that we use. Web content is mostly constructed of style sheets like the one above. The only difference between our style sheets and the ones used online is that ours deals with grammatical style as opposed to the styling of the appearance that is included in every aspect of this blog and other websites we browse. Just made the connection after my Google search and thought I would share.

Indirection

I, too, have been interested to learn about Eleanor Gould Packard. One of the most interesting things, I thought, was her abhorrence of indirection, which former New Yorker editor Harold Ross is said to have shared. I had never heard of indirection and wasn't sure what it was, but this morning I read an obituary in the Star Advertiser that I think has two good examples in the first paragraph:

"After she died this month, a frail 89-year-old alone in a flat in the British seaside town of Torquay, Eileen Nearne, her body undiscovered for several days, was listed by local officials as a candidate for what is known in Britain as a council burial, or what in the past was known as a pauper's grave."

Is this indirection? If it is, I can see why it might be annoying. (Eileen Nearne was awarded a number of medals for her work with the French resistance during World War II.)

Test 3

(from Moon-Yun)

For some parts of the test, I felt like the copyeditor would have looked up the answers on a stylebook and not necessarily have the answer in his/her head, such as with the punctuation question. Would that be true?

Ellipsis

In Chapter 10, p. 141, the book shows examples of how/when to use an ellipsis. However, there are no spaces between the ellipsis and the surrounding words. I have been told in both my English and journalism classes that there should be a space before and after an ellipsis. Is this just a style difference (MLA and AP v. Chicago) or did the book make a mistake?

Flair

(from Moon Yun)

As I mentioned in my previous question, I'm the editor for an online movie website called "Ain't It Cool News." I have a very good writer who writes with a lot of flair. The problem is she doesn't have formal education in journalism so she lacks the style and the standard format. I noticed that when she submits her articles. I don't want to ruin her natural flair but do you think I should come up with suggestions to make her a better, yet formal, writer?

Styleissh

What if an author's intention is to mix styles such as pidgin with academic speak? How does one copyedit accurately, meaning how do we make sure the author's intentions still come across when the focus is a hybridity/differing power structures? The author's intentions may be to point out or defy conventional grammatical structure while still maintaining their mastery of it. Ah, maybe this is more of a "regular" editor question, huh.

I ask because I just read Sage Takehiro's column in the BIW, in which she systematically destroys (but is still nice) to a reader's response of her response to Maui Fever; yes, the show on MTV. Anyway, the article was da bomb, but I was thinking, ho, that would be one hard thing to copyedit!

Style

When I was copyediting the letter and poem that we were given in class today, I found it difficult to "respect the author's style." I just wanted to cross everything out, and to re-write it. This has been addressed here and there in previous entries of the blog, but I wanted to know what it meant to respect a author's style. Does that mean we should copyedit a sentence to sound like the rest of the sentences? If so, then how would we have copyedited the letter and poem to "sound" as if the author had written it?

The Author's Voice

Here's my question. I suppose it's not too technical, but I have been wondering exactly how bendable some of these rules of grammar are. I know that recently (as in the few decades) grammatical aspects such as the comma have had more open "rules" about placement, but I am more curious about dangling modifiers and the like; the words. Where do you draw the line between style or voice and what is just clearly wrong? How much can one argue that, even though a phrase is incorrect technically, it should be allowed into a publication because it's part of the author's voice. I would think it all depends strictly on the context, but is that always true? (or true at all?) Would it be okay to leave an unclear phrase in a piece if the mistake has so ingrained itself into the common language that it would make more sense to the reader left as it is?

(from Claire)

Guide to Grammar & Writing website

Does anyone know what style the Guide to Grammar & Writing website is using? I've used this site before and really like it, but want to know if the grammatical references are adhering to the Chicago Manual of Style.