Okay, so you’re an editor or proofreader who knows Chicago style, but now you need to follow AP. Or you’re a student, and you need MLA for one project and Chicago (or Turabian) for the next—and APA after that. . . .
Many of us write or say “12 p.m.” (or “12:00 p.m.”) when we mean noon and “12 a.m.” when we mean midnight. This seems reasonable enough, at least intuitively. . . .
Pronouns are small but powerful words that often trip us up. This workout, the third in a series of four on grammar, focuses on paragraphs 5.30–40 in CMOS 18, which cover the definitions and uses of pronouns.
When words are left out of a quotation, an ellipsis of three dots (. . .) takes their place. When this works correctly, the reader can skip over the dots and the sentence . . .
This workout returns to the usage list under paragraph 5.254 in CMOS 18. Today we focus on words beginning with the letters i through k. Writing and editing are more efficient when you never have to look up imply and infer or dither over “in regards to.”
I love Microsoft Word shortcuts, and I post them from time to time when I stumble across a new one. But how’s a body supposed to discover all the features of this gigantic application when so many of them aren’t even visible on the ribbon? To root them out, I went online and browsed around. Confession: half of these tricks
This workout focuses on paragraphs 8.158–69 in CMOS 18. Advanced editors might tackle the questions cold; learners can study that section of the Manual before answering the questions.
Cheryl Klein is editorial director at Lee & Low Books and the author of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults and the forthcoming picture book Wings.
This morning I was looking at a writer’s website and once again wondered about an anomaly I see all the time in author bios. You know what I mean: those short blurbs that appear on book jackets, at online bookstores and fan sites, on guest posts, conference programs, and other hangouts where writers need to be identified.
Double negatives come in many flavors in addition to the familiar “we didn’t find no money” type. Our friends at the website Language Log keep an archive of documented cases of “misnegation,” featuring popular head-scratchers like “I can’t help but not be X,” “I don’t doubt
