In novels and stories and other creative works, words spoken by a character are normally set off from the narrative with quotation marks, and the speaker is identified in the run of text by tags like “she said.”
Q. Engineers think “CMOS” stands for “complementary metal-oxide semiconductor,” so how should we refer to The Chicago Manual of Style?
Q. Is it OK to hyphenate a hashtag at the end of a line?
Q. Is “student teacher” hyphenated?
A comma is normally placed before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet) that joins two independent subject-verb clauses—that is, clauses that could stand on their own as complete sentences. . . .
In editing formal prose, we fix nonstandard English without hesitation. But in editing creative works, we often need to throw out the stylebook so a narrator or character in a novel or play can abuse grammar to good effect. . . .
It’s time for another editing and proofreading quiz! Once again, we test your knowledge of some of the finer points of Chicago style.
Since it was first published almost twenty years ago, The Copyeditor’s Handbook has served as both textbook and guide for copyeditors in book publishing and corporate communications. The revised fourth edition of the Handbook is now published alongside a companion, The Copyeditor’s Workbook, . . .
Parentheses can be used almost anywhere, but they are rarely seen in fictional dialogue or in quoted speech of any kind. The problem with parentheses in dialogue is that readers may not know exactly how to interpret them. . . .
This month’s workout, “Word Usage, Part 7,” once again centers on section 5.250 of CMOS 17. This time we’re focusing on words beginning with the letters n as in “nauseous” through p as in “proven.”
Janet Burroway is the author of plays, poems, children’s books, a memoir, and eight novels, most recently Bridge of Sand. Her book Writing Fiction (10th ed., University of Chicago Press, 2019) is the most widely used creative writing text in America. . . .
Most writers and editors learn not to join (or splice) two independent clauses with a comma alone. . . .