Books are the anchors of the publishing world, at least judging by the weight of The Chicago Manual of Style. They’re also the subject of CMOS’s first seventy-six numbered paragraphs (1.1–76)—and of this month’s “Chicago style” workout. Take the quiz to learn more.
I’ve used this space before to caution copyeditors against scrubbing voice and character out of fiction manuscripts by adhering too closely to a style manual.
For this month’s quiz we return to the grammar chapter—specifically, paragraphs 5.172–95, which cover prepositions. The main job of prepositions is to set up other words, an important job that usually goes unnoticed (except, maybe, at the end of a sentence).
Do you sometimes dither over whether to put a comma between two or more adjectives? Although the guidelines for deciding in CMOS work well for any kind of writing, there are times when creative writers prefer to ignore them.
This month we return to chapter 5, on grammar—specifically, paragraphs 5.156–71, which cover adverbs. Adverbs are not only amazingly versatile; they’re also incredibly useful. Find out how useful by taking this quiz.
We learn from CMOS 6.23 that “a comma is not normally used to separate a two-part compound predicate joined by a coordinating conjunction.” In other words, when the subject isn’t repeated after a word like “and” or “but” in a compound sentence, a comma is usually omitted.
CMOS supports two systems of source citation. Notes and bibliography, covered in a previous workout, consists of numbered footnotes or endnotes and, usually, a bibliography. Author-date, the subject of this workout, relies on parenthetical references in the text and a corresponding reference list.
In editing as in life, things tend to come in pairs. Life has its ups and downs, left and right, sea and land, victory and defeat. In editing you have capitals and lowercase, justified and ragged right, insert and delete.
What does Halloween have to do with Chicago style? Not a lot, but that hasn’t stopped us from coming up with ten questions designed to challenge your editorial knowledge and stoke your curiosity about this quirky holiday and some of the words associated with it.
According to The Chicago Manual of Style, commas and periods are almost always placed before a closing quotation mark, “like this,” rather than after, “like this”. This traditional style has persisted even though it’s no longer universally followed outside of the United States and isn’t entirely logical.
