The Copyeditor's Desk

When converting hyphens to one-en dashes in inclusive numbers, I like to do a manual search and replace (find what: – ; replace with: ^=) rather than allowing software such as Editor’s Toolkit to do it automatically.

Manually checking each instance of a hyphen allows you to catch errors that you might otherwise have overlooked. In the piece I just finished, for example, I found I had missed several instances where the author had written “first-hand” rather than the currently accepted firsthand, and I had completely blown off “mid-life” (midlife) and story-teller (storyteller).

Same is true of using macros to replace #-# or #1/n# with 1/m: often an author types any number of variants in a single manuscript: word#-word, word-#word, wordhyphenhypenword, and the like. A manual search helps ensure that you won’t overlook any such quirks.

We have all encountered individuals who when talking insist on using their fingers to gesture quotation marks in the air around certain words, hoping to add emphasis to their statements. This habit has trickled into some authors’ writing and should be discouraged. It not only confuses the reader but can also take away from the accurate use of quotation marks and italics to set certain words and phrases apart.

Used to tell the reader “this isn’t mine” or “I know this is wrong” are called scare quotes. Used with discretion, the device can be effective. But once is enough. Avoid surrounding a term with scare quotes repeatedly throughout a narrative. Scare quotes used in an ironic way can backfire, because they can create a patronizing or sarcastic effect that risks alienating the reader.

by T.M.

English has broad rules for the use of italics. More specific conventions depend on the style manual your publication uses. For example, Associated Press (AP) style does not italicize titles, and Modern Language Association (MLA) style still has authors use underscores, on the theory that  some of us have yet to move on from our Smith-Coronas. In general, though, the rules of thumb go like this:

Italicize titles of long works, such as books, periodicals, epic movies, TV series, and plays.

Moby Dick
The New York Times
The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
Gone with the Wind
Star Trek
A Streetcar Named Desire

Place titles of shorter works (such as chapter titles, articles, short poems, a single show in a TV series) in quotation marks:

“Disease in the Ancient World” (chapter title in Cartwright and Biddis, Disease and History)
“Schooling the Imagination” (article in the September 1999 Atlantic Monthly)
“The Trouble with Tribbles” (episode in Star Trek)

We italicize foreign words that have not yet been assimilated into the Borg…that is, into English: garde-robe, bambina, caballo, but chaise longue (or, heaven help us, chaise lounge), spaghetti, taco.

In Russia, children’s homes, detdoma, are often underfunded.

The Latin terms used in scientific taxonomy also fall under the heading of “foreign words.” So, genus (always capitalized) and species (always lower-case) should be set in italics: Felis catus, Canis lupus familiaris.

The dogwood tree, Cornus florida, has beautiful flowers.

Use italics sparingly for emphasis. Italics get out of hand quickly and unless kept under control will create a rococo effect. Don’t allow your authors to sprinkle italics around the copy; instead, design sentence or paragraph structure to indicate emphasis.

by T.M. and V.H.