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January 29, 2008
Dear Everyone,
Please do me a favor and STOP inserting two spaces after a period. Modern type formatting does not require this. Additionally, it is a pain in this editor's ass to go into your documents and fix it.
Other tips:
In AP usage, it's "Web site."
Punctuation is always within quotation marks.
Write out numbers one through nine; use the numerical equivalent for anything above nine unless you're using a number to start a sentence.
ALWAYS write out "percent." There is never a cause to use the % key in proper writing.
Capitalize any title word with four letters or more.
i.e. means "in other words." e.g. means "for example." Always place a comma after both i.e. and e.g., (i.e., like that).
Enormity is not synonymous with immensity, rather it implies a magnitude of immoral behavior or action.
Punctuation in bulleted lists is a personal matter; use when you feel it's appropriate (e.g., when you are bulleting full sentences). Another option is to not put a period after any bulleted item until the very last one.
Thanks!
Bree
Posted by Bree at January 29, 2008 02:17 PM
Comments
"Punctuation is always within quotation marks."
i _always_ did this, and then someone told me it was wrong. which left me entirely flummoxed as to the appropriate usage.
now i can go back to the way i've always done things. thanks.
Posted by: stephen o'grady at January 29, 2008 04:03 PM
I sometimes think it looks a little funny to always stick it in, but tend to err on the side of the rule.
You're also never supposed to split an infinitive; meaning "He wanted to also go" should really read, "He wanted to go also" or "He wanted also to go." This looks TOTALLY wrong in most instances, and is not how people speak, but alas. A slave to style guides, I be.
Posted by: Bree at January 29, 2008 04:21 PM
I will never get used to the one space after a period thing. Never.
Posted by: Jessica at January 29, 2008 08:02 PM
No.
Posted by: ANP at January 29, 2008 08:09 PM
And:
The pronoun for the action of a business is "its," not "their."
Generally, if it is (properly) preceded by a comma, use "which." Otherwise, your default is "that." (Or learn the actual rule).
"If [pronoun] were, not 'was.'" Subjunctive matters.
Stop with the dangling prepositions. Just because everybody does it doesn't make it ok.
Posted by: E.B. White at January 30, 2008 12:05 PM
Oh, and:
Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun (um...usually).
Insure = Mutual of Omaha. Ensure = to make certain.
Posted by: E.B. White at January 30, 2008 02:00 PM
I don't agree with always spelling out percent. When I see a sentence like "Obama received 55 percent of the SC vote," it seems more like 55 discrete entities were allocated, instead of 0.55 parts of a quantifiable total whose exact size is not relevant to the statement. Perhaps it's just me, but the % sign helps set of the fractional aspect of the figure.
Posted by: ChrisPrince at January 30, 2008 02:56 PM