Prompts
Four required books for copyeditors (DUST) :: dictionary, usage guide, style manual, thesaurus
Most comprehensive English dictionary. ::: Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Best free online dictionary :: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (M-W Collegiate)
Which free online dictionary is an excellent backup for M-W C? :: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD)
Gregg Reference Manual ::: An established general reference for business documents.
Three best editorial style manuals for beginners. :: CMOS, WIT, and Gregg
To avoid constantly consulting a manual while copyediting, what should you do? :: Memorize basic mechanical rules.
Guidelines in style manuals are ?? not ??. :: recommendations, commandments
Style manual used by medical journals and publishers. :: AMA
Style manual used by newspapers and magazines. :: AP
Style manual used by government agencies and some private sector businesses. :: GPO
Style manual used for technical instructions on using digital products. :: Microsoft style
Style manual used by literary scholars and writers in the humanities. :: MLA
Style manual used by social scientists. :: APA
Style manual used mainly in the natural sciences. :: CSE
What reference book should you consult if you know the thing you are looking for but not what it is called? :: Visual dictionary
Best usage guide :: Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage
More current usage guide :: Garner’s Modern English Usage
Compare DEU and Garner’s take on the sentence-modifying “hopefully.” :: DEU: nothing wrong. Garner’s: avoid it.
Garner’s is best used by ?? :: editors working on academic and professional content
Editors handling a variety of material should consult which usage guide? :: Both DEU and Garner’s
When neither reference books nor language instincts suffice, what reference material should you consult next? :: language corpora
Language corpora ::: Large computer databases of published texts in English
Three most widely consulted corpora for English:
- Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)
- Google Books corpora (Ngram Viewer) ;; Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
Three most widely consulted corpora for English:
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
- Google Books corpora (Ngram Viewer) ;; Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)
Three most widely consulted corpora for English:
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
- Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)
;; Google Books corpora (Ngram Viewer)
How should language corpora be used vis a vis dictionaries and usage guides? :: Supplement
A rule of thumb on fact-checking for copyeditors. :: Only do it when requested by the client or editorial supervisor.
References
Einsohn, A., & Schwartz, M. (2019). The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications (4th ed.). University of California Press.