Breaking Style

Breaking Style Breaking Style Breaking Style By Mark Nichol DailyWritingTips.com readers frequently email a message or write a comment in which they disagree with me (usually but not always respectfully) about something I’ve written. Occasionally, a reader has misunderstood me. Now and then, I’ve been unclear or I’ve made a mistake. Sometimes, the issue is of a difference between the recommendations of one style guide and another. Regardless, sometimes readers tell me that they are going to do something their way regardless of the â€Å"rules.† Writing (and editing) is both an art and a science, and the guidelines about producing prose are somewhat amorphous, for various reasons. As I mentioned, there’s more than one kind of style: Some writing and editing guides call for serial commas (a, b, and c), for example, while others recommend omitting serial commas (a, b and c) unless they’re necessary for clarity. There’s also a degree of flexibility: Introductory phrases should generally be separated from the main clause of the sentence by a comma (for example, as in â€Å"When the council met again the next day, the mood was somber†), but short phrases are sometimes given a pass (for example, as in â€Å"In effect it acts like a catalyst†). In some cases, the flexibility is a matter of formality: Contractions (such as can’t in place of cannot) are rare in academic prose but ubiquitous in colloquial writing, for example, and both extremes are intrinsically valid. But one thing I always emphasize when readers disagree with my advice is this: If you are writing for your own pleasure, or if you self-publish (whether in print or online), you are the final authority and may choose which rules to follow and which to flout (though consider that, if you actually want other people to read what you write, with great power comes great responsibility). But if you intend for your writing to be mediated if you are submitting it for publication on a website, in a periodical, or in a book you are generally expected to abide with a set of guidelines about grammar, syntax, usage, punctuation, and other issues of style. Exceptions exist, of course and they’re called style breaks, because they break with the standards for style. For example, one book I copyedited was a second edition of a guide to herbs. The author had (erroneously, according to prevailing style) capitalized all the plant names and made other editorial decisions that I thought diminished the book’s authoritativeness, so I lowercased the names and made other style changes. When I received a complimentary copy of the published new edition from the publisher, I noticed that the plant names were capitalized, as before. Apparently, the author had felt strongly about retaining the capitalization and had asked that it be restored (or had done so himself while reviewing the edited manuscript). I should have queried the publisher’s project editor before making such a comprehensive editorial decision, but I am glad that the author did not name me on the acknowledgments page. The decision about whether to allow such profligate capitalization is for the publisher to make, but although most readers may not notice or are unlikely to realize or care that lowercase style is the norm for such usage it looks amateurish, especially when hundreds of references to dozens of herbs appear throughout the book. More recently, an editor for a company that publishes commemorative books for professional sports teams told me to honor a style break for references to sports scores when I edit manuscripts. Normally, a score is set off from the rest of the sentence, as in â€Å"The 49ers beat the Raiders, 28–21, before a sellout crowd,† but I was asked to preserve the omission of commas in such constructions. This type of change is innocuous and nearly invisible, and it happens often. The copy editor simply notes the deviation from the norm on a style sheet, a record of variations in spelling, punctuation, and the like, and other editors involved in the project note and preserve the style break. Feel free to break style in self-published writing or to request that deviations from style be honored when you submit content for publication. But in either case, have a good reason for doing so, or be prepared to accept with good grace a denial of your request. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Program vs. Programme55 Boxing Idioms"To Tide You Over"