August 2008: What's in the breeze Developing content for a new women's portal - delivering 400 articles per month Writing web content for a startup company Research and content generation for client's website on a pay-per-month basis Repackaging travel related content for a client's website Developing India-centric content for a new web portal, delivering 15 articles/day Language editing of a corporate presentation... and more
Check out sample articles written by writers from our network.
Writers, use the writers' contact form to get in touch with us.
An Introduction to the Two Most Popular Editing Styles
Assume you are writing a book or working on a thesis, do you use the numeral 9 or nine in words? Do you say e.g. or example? What reference do you give when you are citing a statement from an anonymous source? What if you are referring to a book authored by six people? Do the odd page numbers go to the left page or the right? And what’s the font size for headings and sub-headings? Can you use Monotype Corsiva because you ‘love’ the font? Which one of these words should you use, mankind or humankind?
Welcome to the world of standardised editing styles. Editing styles originated because there was felt a need for uniformity and consistency, in presentation of information and ideas in journals and books. And if you are under the impression that ‘consistency in presentation’ means you begin your paper with an Introduction, move on to write the Body and end with the Conclusion, and find yourself published in a quality journal, think again!
What does an editor do?
For those of us not familiar with editing, we assume that the editor of a book browses through written matter, to correct sentence construction, punctuation and spelling. But that’s not all. An editor has comprehensive knowledge of editing styles and ensures that the manuscript conforms to the standards of the applicable style. There are several styles that are tailored to meet the special needs of the various disciplines. There are writing and editing standards for science, literature, medicine, mathematics, humanities, history and social sciences among others.
A basic introduction to the two most popular editing styles
The two most popular editing styles are the Chicago Manual of Style and the American Psychological Association Style, hereafter, referred to as CMS or Chicago style and APA respectively.
The content of these manuals can be broadly classified into-
The Text- Text is all about the use of language and grammar.
The Page Format- Page format is about the physical arrangement of the written matter on the page.
The Documentation- Documentation is about citing the source of reference and the date of publication of that reference material.
Who uses these styles?
The Chicago Manual of Style is the holy book of the book publishing industry. It is a guide and standard on the usage of American English for publishing. CMS which is now nearly a 1000 page manual, started off in the 1890s as a single sheet that mentioned the typographical fundamentals for the University of Chicago. This style is especially used in publications of books related to history and humanities.
The American Psychological Association Style is the de facto standard for publication of research papers in journals and is not applied to books. APA originated as an article, on a meeting of contributors, to the Psychological and Anthropological journals, in 1928. They had met to discuss and formulate instructions for the writing of journal manuscripts. This article was published in the Psychological Bulletin in 1929. It was in 1952 that these instructions were issued as a Publication Manual. Today, it is a widely accepted standard in the publication of research journals related to psychology and all behavioral and social sciences.
Both the CMS and the APA clearly lays down rules for the presentation style of the paper and the content or the style of writing, as well.
Text Rules – Text rules address punctuation, capitalization, compound words, abbreviations, headings, quotations, numbers, dates, statistics and tables.
Document or Citation of References- This details the citation rules taking into account every possible reference source including books, pamphlets, journals, newspapers, web pages, a chapter from a book, two authors, more than two authors and anonymous authors.
Page formatting - The test manuscript and the final manuscript have distinct page formatting rules. Page formatting rules determines what font should be used, heading and sub heading format, title page, text page, seriation of topics and paragraphs, page numbering, margin width and line spacing. There are rules for the formatting of the documentation or the references in the use of punctuation, capitalization and order of the references.
Citations, References and Documentation
A very significant aspect of both these styles is the demand for meticulous recording of sources of data or information. This ensures that credit for the idea or statement is given, where it is due. Moreover, these reference notes also help the reader to have easy access to the source of the reference material for further study.
CMS in particular is a very comprehensive treatise of style and is best known for its much preferred citation style. CMS dictates that the reference in the text should be given a numeral. For example - She was given small doses of arsenic 2. This superscripted number should be mentioned at the bottom of the page, with the reference detail. This is called a footnote. Further, the footnote sees mention in the bibliography. The bibliography may also contain additional references not mentioned in the footnotes. This allows the reader access to all references and additional information on the subject matter in one place
As against the numeral insert in the Chicago style, APA asks for an in-text citation of the reference source, in the author-date format. For example- (Vera Smith, 2001). This will lead the reader to the Reference List which will indicate the source by the last name, in alphabetical order. For example- Smith V. (2001). If you see parentheses being used liberally in the reference list, it is more than likely that the APA style was used.
A very significant and emphasised requirement of the APA is the style of content.
According to the APA, language used to express an idea, opinion or fact should not convey racial/ethnic, sexual, or gender biases. For example, Mexican-American is preferable to Hispanic. Lesbian is preferred over female homosexual, and using ‘man’, ‘him’, ‘his’ with reference to humankind is not allowed.
APA is also strict about the use of language in the case of people with disabilities. The author may intentionally or unintentionally make statements or use words that could be interpreted as discriminatory and offensive. For example, the use of the word ‘patient’ for a person with a disability would indicate that the person is ill. Words such as crazy, cripple, deformed can be replaced by ‘a person who is mentally unstable’, ‘a person who has a limp’ and ‘a person who has a cleft palate’ respectively. The idea is that the ‘person’ is given priority over the disability.
Electronic age
Both these styles have kept pace with the implications of information technology and the i\Internet on research and documentation. The reference styles include guidelines to record electronic sources such as web sites, web pages, blogs, e-mail, newsgroups and newsletters.
Style manuals have come a long way from being a mere list of basic typography fundamentals, to becoming the ultimate tools for research writers and editors. This has allowed the researchers - students and otherwise, writers and editors to feel empowered by the knowledge of the Style that corresponds with the discipline.
Chillibreeze's disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article.
Out of 5 “chilies”, our editorial team gave this article...
—About our writer:
Padmavani writes for chillibreeze.
>> Read more articles written by our chillibreeze staff and writers network:
more services at a glance
.gif)
