A style guide comparing Associated Press style and Chicago style for editors, writers, teachers, students, word nerds, and anyone else who gives a dollar sign, ampersand, exclamation point, and pound sign about style.
Funny Posts
Compounds Ending with a Preposition or Adverb: Open, Hyphenated, or Solid?
It seems as if I’m always rifling through my reference books to check whether a compound is open, hyphenated, or solid in a particular style.
Apostrophe-S vs. Apostrophe: Forming Possessives of Words Ending in S (or an S Sound)
I’m going to focus on the difference between how The Associated Press Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style handle possessives for words ending in s or an s sound.
Slashes: Uses and Restrictions
Misunderstood. Abused. Ignored.
No, not me. Well, maybe that, too, but I’m referring to the beleaguered slash . . .
Numbers: Spell Out or Use Numerals? (Number Style 101)
Numbers take up their own planet in the style universe, so let’s explore it one mountain at a time.
Fun-Free Posts
Styling Text Messages in Fiction
Your protagonist’s phone vibrates. It’s a text from her best friend, but how? He died exactly one year ago in a car crash. The words come into focus.
Wait a second. How should text messages be styled in a manuscript?
Beyond Kerning: How to Proofread Design
If you love catching a zero in place of a capital O, a curly quote in place of a prime, or two single quote marks in place of a double, you can hone your eagle eye by learning to spot flaws in design.
Crafting Citations through Principles, Not Rules: MLA Style, Eighth Edition
As a student of the humanities, I worked with Modern Language Association (MLA) style long before I became aware of the other styles. So it’s big news to me and generations of scholars that the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, published in April, breaks from a rule-based format to one that focuses on the principles for crafting useful citations.
Staying Ahead of Style Guides
Were you delighted by the ruling on Internet by The Associated Press Stylebook? Effective June 1, 2016, Internet became internet, no longer capitalized. Though many reacted with trepidation, others have desired this change for the last decade or so.
