Academic copyediting – The copy-editor’s lexicon
John Bowdler
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Abbreviation, contraction. Abbreviations omit letters from the end of a word (vol., vols., ed., eds.), contractions from the middle of a word (Dr, Mr, Mrs). The former are usually followed by a full stop (point, period).?
Acronym. An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word (BBC, NASA).
Author–date. A system of referencing which lists titles in alphabetical order by author name, and then by the date of publication of each of the author’s works. Repetitions of an author’s name might be replaced with a few em dashes:
Kortanek, K.O. and Medvedev, V.G., Estimating the Term Structure of Interest Rates, …
?, “Models for estimating the structure of interest rates from observations of yield curves,” …
?, Building and Using Dynamic Interest Rate Models …
Backmatter. Matter that comes at the back of a book. Cf Endmatter.
Bibliography. A list of works that does not relate exclusively to the citations in the main text. Where it contains ???????? than all the works cited it may be styled a ‘Select Bibliography’. Cf References.
Brackets ((rounded), [square], {wiggly}, ??nested??). Square brackets are sometimes used to indicate parentheses within parentheses: ‘Arthur (the short one, not the tall one [As a rule, short Arthurs don’t like to be referred to by their height; it makes them really cross.]) grunted’. In the example, the square brackets are said to be ‘nested’ within the round brackets.?Wiggly brackets ({}) are used in mathematics and computing.?
Citations. Defined as ‘a quotation from, or reference to, a book, paper or author’, can also refer to other chapters, figures, tables, equations, boxes, case studies – you name it, we’ll cite it! When referring to publications, citations usually give the name of the author(s) and the year of publication. The full details may be listed in a Bibliography and ???????? be listed in a List of References. See Short-title system.
Copyedit. The copyeditor checks text for sense and consistency of style and presentation, and corrects spelling, grammatical and typographical errors. The final appearance of the book has not yet been set. Cf Proofread.?
Dashes (en and em, see below). These are so-named because the en dash is the width of the letter ’n’ and the em dash is the width of …. Both are longer than a hyphen.
Ellipses (…). There is a specific punctuation mark for the ellipsis – option/; on a Mac. Three dots should not be used.?
Em rules/dashes. These are longer than the en rule and are generally used to create parentheses in US-style texts:
?“Hopkins—the blighter—stole my girl!”
In UK style spaced en rules are used:
‘Hopkins – the blighter – stole my girl!’
En rules/dashes. These indicate ranges (1939–45) or relationships (the Black–Scholes model). They can also be used parenthetically (see above).
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Endmatter. matter that comes at the end of a book. Cf Backmatter.
Figures can include charts, pictograms and even photos. There may be more than one part to a figure: ’see Figure 5(c)’. They may have a heading and will always have a caption.
H&SS (Humanities and Social Sciences). Classics, law, linguistics, literature, music …. Cf STEM.
House Style. The style and format used by a particular publisher.
Plates. full-page illustrations, pictures or photographs that are printed separately from the text of the book and bound in during production.
Possessives. House style will indicate whether to add an s (Roberts’s) or not (Roberts’). Different rules apply to ancient names: Pythagoras’ not Pythagoras’s.
Prelims. The introductory part of a book (cf Backmatter/Endmatter). Also, see my article Academic copyediting: The Parts of a Book.
Proofread. A review of a manuscript after it has been typeset. So, the text, tables, figures, headings, etc will appear as they would in the final publication. Cf Copyedit.?
References. A list of the works cited in the main text. A references section must contain ???????? works that are cited in the text. Usually, these are books, articles, chapters in multi-author books … but may also contain attendances at conferences and personal communications.?
Running Heads. Not a desperate bid for freedom, rather the headings at the top of each page. The name of the publication will be on one page (eg, verso) and that of the current chapter/section on the other.?Copyeditors are usually asked to create a List of Running Heads and to ensure that headings are no longer than, say, 50 characters. So, the Running Heads are only visible at the proofreading stage.?
Short-title system. A system of citing which gives the full details of a work on first citation in the main text and a short-title form in subsequent citations.?
STEM. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Cf H&SS.
Tables. These usually begin with a caption or heading, contain rules (lines) and end with notes/sources. See the example at the top.?
Typo. A typographical error: two spaces where there should be one, a space before punctuation, bold letters/punctuation in the middle of non-bold text ….?
URLs. Publishers often ask for ‘https://’ to be removed.
Websites. Since websites change, the convention is for the author to give the date on which they ‘Last accessed’ the website.
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1 年I fear this is a dying craft. Spelling and syntax seem to have become ‘personalized’; style stands even less of a chance. Perhaps, like horse riding, we can attribute the dissipation of this skill to technology.