The Chicago Blog

Heidi Stevens wrote about The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion in last Sunday's edition of the Chicago Tribune. Stevens quotes editor-in-chief Richard A. Shweder who handily sums up the book: "It's everything you ever wanted to know but never even thought to ask." Everything in this case being more than 500 articles in a 1,144-page book that was 10 years in the making.

Stevens also interviewed Mary Laur, senior project editor for reference books at the Press. A sidebar to the article notes five things learned from The Child, including this arresting fact: "Children in the U.S. are more likely to grow up with a pet than with both parents."

Sample pages, articles, and more is on our website for the book.

Archived in Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by DB at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WGN's Milton J. Rosenberg recently invited several guests on his radio talk show Extension 720 to discuss the press's recent publication of The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion—the definitive reference book for parents, social workers, researchers, educators, and others who work with children.

Listen in as editor-in-chief Richard A. Shweder, contributor Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, and house editor Mary Laur, talk about their new book and field questions from callers on the WGN Extension 720 website.

Bringing together contemporary research on children and childhood from pediatrics, child psychology, childhood studies, education, sociology, history, law, anthropology, and other related areas, The Child contains more than 500 articles—all written by experts in their fields and overseen by a panel of distinguished editors led by anthropologist Richard A. Shweder—each providing a concise and accessible synopsis of the topic at hand. In addition to these topical essays, The Child also contains more than forty "Imagining Each Other" essays, which focus on the particular experiences of children in different cultures. Compiled by some of the most distinguished child development researchers in the world, The Child is an essential addition to the current knowledge on children and childhood.

To find out more navigate to this special website for the book featuring a full table of contents and several sample articles.

Archived in Anthropology | Books for the News | Education | Psychology | Reference and Writing | Sociology
Posted by TXM at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Subversive Copy Editor "may be the best copy editor's companion since the CMS, the AP Style Guide and that dog-eared xerox of copy editing marks you keep tacked up on the cubicle wall," is how Publishers Weekly begins its starred review of the magazine's Web Pick of the Week.

And PW is in the majority opinion. An article in Sunday's Chicago-Sun Times also is full of appreciation for Saller's "conversational style and insights into interactions between writers and copy editors," which "make reading her book an entertaining trip even for those who never plan to lift a red pen or use the editing feature of a word-processing program."

That might sound surprising: editing guide as beside reading? But it will make perfect sense to anyone who's had a taste of the indispensably helpful and pleasingly witty advice Saller has been dishing out for years for the Q&A feature of The Chicago Manual of Style Online.

Archived in Reference and Writing
Posted by MM at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his On Language column for Sunday's New York Times Magazine, William Safire features Carol Fisher Saller's The Subversive Copy Editor in a survey of new langlit.

Applauding Saller's "good advice," Safire notes that "the editor of The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A has written a book out of her Web experience, in contrast to those who take to the Web to blog-flog a book." That said, Saller's famous (among editors, at least!) online presence stretches from long before to, we hope, long after her new book's appearance.

But this is The Subversive Copy Editor's moment, and we, like Safire, can't help but give her the last witty word: "There's no end to the amount of fussing you can do with a manuscript, whereas there's a limit to the amount of money someone will pay you to do it. At some point it has to be good enough, and you have to stop."

(Before we stop, though, we should point out that at our Web site you can sample and listen to Saller read from the book. And, if you happen to be in Minneapolis, Chicago, or Paris next month, you can hear her talk about the book in person.)

Archived in Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by MM at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Whereas, on his 445th birthday this April 23, Shakespeare still speaks to the people of Chicago through timeless words and works," Mayor Daley proclaimed Thursday "to be Talk Like Shakespeare Day in Chicago"—much to the manifest delight of pun-loving reporters and headline writers across the country.

But while the linguistic dexterity that gives us Da Bard is praiseworthy, it's even more impressive to be able to pronounce Shakespeare's lexicon correctly. That's where Shakespearean voice and text coach Gary Logan comes in.

In a book that was destined to have been published by a press whose hometown would eventually beget Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Logan aims to untie tongues and help anyone speak Shakespeare's language with ease. The Eloquent Shakespeare includes more than 17,500 entries, making it the most comprehensive pronunciation guide to Shakespeare's words—and the best possible preparation for this Thursday in Chicago.

Archived in Literature | Reference and Writing
Posted by MM at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Strunk and White's Elements of Style turns fifty today, according to a story on NPR's Morning Edition. It's just a slim youngster compared to our burly and venerable Chicago Manual of Style, but the little volume has influenced the prose of many an undergrad.

Is that something to celebrate? Writer and NPR guest Barbara Wallraff thinks so, giving approving notice to a "certain zen-like quality" about such famous maxims from the book as "eliminate needless words," and "be clear." But Geoffrey Pullum, professor of linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and a press author, begs to differ in an article today in the Chronicle of Higher Ed:

Some of the recommendations are vapid, like "Be clear" (how could one disagree?). Some are tautologous, like "Do not explain too much." (Explaining too much means explaining more than you should, so of course you shouldn't.) Many are useless, like "Omit needless words." (The students who know which words are needless don't need the instruction.)

And more regrettable in a grammar guide, Pullum argues,

the book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules. They can't help it, because they don't know how to identify what they condemn.

"Put statements in positive form," they stipulate, in a section that seeks to prevent "not" from being used as "a means of evasion."

"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs," they insist. (The motivation of this mysterious decree remains unclear to me.)

And then, in the very next sentence, comes a negative passive clause containing three adjectives: "The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place."

That's actually not just three strikes, it's four, because in addition to contravening "positive form" and "active voice" and "nouns and verbs," it has a relative clause ("that can pull") removed from what it belongs with (the adjective), which violates another edict: "Keep related words together."

The lesson to be drawn from this—other than never to invite a prescriptivist and a linguist to the same dinner party—is that fifty years is clearly too short a time to get limber in the ways of grammar and style. Chicago was pushing eighty before it achieved flexibility on the split infinitive.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Most of us,” writes Scott Norton in his introduction, “enter into book publishing with a romantic idea of the Editor that matches the equally inaccurate notion of the Author as tortured genius.”

As it turns out, editing—especially developmental editing—is hardly romantic. It’s a tricky business, requiring analytical flair and creative panache, the patience of a saint and the vision of a writer. And, of course, the occasional magic trick: Norton can transform a stack of paper into a bestseller, or, at the very least, a book that edifies, enlightens, and entertains.

In Developmental Editing Norton shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Using a series of humorous and relevant “case studies” (election-year polemic, travel guide, even a memoir), he explores the tough work of a developmental editor. From creating content to establishing authorial style, finding the “hook” and editing for pace, sizing up clients and learning when (and how) to sweat the details—Developmental Editing is filled with useful tips for editors, first-time authors, or anyone who fancies themselves a writer.

Read the press release.

See the author's website.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“This author is giving me a fit.”
“I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma at all times.”
“My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face.”

Each year, writers submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online—and one woman, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one of them.

These writer-editor standoffs are classic, hilarious—and, as Saller points out in her new book, all too common. In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller asks her readers to become “subversive” in two ways: one, by rethinking their understanding of the author as the enemy, and two, by keeping in mind that it’s okay to break the rules sometimes (like when it benefits the reader). In one chapter, Saller takes on the difficult author, in another she speaks to writers themselves. Throughout, she includes useful tips for prioritizing work, freelancing effectively, organizing computer files, and writing the perfect e-mail. Saller’s fresh emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many of us who have absorbed—along with the dos and don’ts of our stylebooks—an attitude that our way is the right way. After all, and as Saller puts it, “the point is not how to copyedit, but how to survive doing it.”

Read the press release.

Also, read the introduction to the book and see the author's website.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Perhaps you can remember those halcyon days when the rules of style and grammar ingrained in us by our school teachers offered a reliable framework for writing, and a concrete set of rules to follow when approaching the work of others. But if you can remember that far back, you can also remember how that sense of order and justice was inevitably crushed as one ventured into the grammatical complexities and gray areas of reality. Navigating the diverse and dynamic world of the English language has presented many a writer with a difficult challenge.

The copy editor is the writer's guide through the pitfalls and minefields of language. Among the best of these is Carol Fisher Saller, who's tough yet tolerant approach—both in her career as senior manuscript editor at the press and as the wit behind the Chicago Style Q&A—has improved writers and editors alike. Now, with The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself), Saller offers her guidance and knowledge in book form, tailored to all those frazzled wordsmiths in need of more than just a guide to grammar, but a guide to a life working with words (minus the nervous breakdown). A recent article in Timeout Chicago quotes Saller as she explains her approach: "''I wanted to subvert the idea that editors and writers have to be locked in battle rather than serving the reader.…' Authors often have good reasons for making exceptions, she says, and whatever best communicates to the reader, wins."

With an emphasis on negotiation and flexibility that will surprise those who have absorbed the dos and don'ts of their stylebooks, Saller's The Subversive Copy Editor offers a rare peace of mind in the midst of the too often contentious world of the copy editor.

John A. McIntyre, writer for the Baltimore Sun, also discusses Saller's book on his blog, You Don't Say.

Read the introduction to the book on the Press website; Saller has her own website for the book, too.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's National Grammar Day, brought to you by the fine folks at the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, and, as you prepare for a raucous celebration tonight (just don't drink too many grammartinis or you may be commatose tomorrow! *rimshot*), we wanted to spotlight a book that will help you embody SPOGG's mission of speaking well, writing well, and helping others do the same. After all, as publisher of The Chicago Manual of Style, we take good grammar very seriously.

The A in response to all those Qs on The Chicago Manual of Style Online, Carol Fisher Saller is the gatekeeper of good grammar. In The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself), Saller offers a practical guide to being a prose perfectionist in a world of dangling prepositions and misplaced modifiers. A companion to grammar stylebooks, The Subversive Copy Editor emphasizes habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility while encouraging anybody who works with words to build an environment of trust, cooperation, and, of course, good grammar. Full of good humor, good advice, and, most of all, good writing, Saller's wry and refreshing tome is the perfect book for National Grammar Day.

Craving more? Read the introduction, visit the author's website, and check out all of Chicago's Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by SXH at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From this month's Chicago Style Q&A:

Q. "The first of which is better." I said this is a sentence fragment, but a student pointed out that it has a subject and predicate. Who's correct?

A. You both are. A sentence fragment can have a subject and predicate, but it's a fragment if it's dependent on another clause. Your fragment can't stand alone grammatically; it needs a main clause to lean on: "The choice is between a hamantash and a latke, the first of which is better."

Thus, with an emphasis on negotiation and flexibility, Carol Fisher Saller, assistant managing editor at the University of Chicago Press and the unfailing wit behind the Chicago Manual of Style Q&A, has established herself as a subversive exception to the stereotype of the manuscript-editor-as-quibbler. And now, as Jennifer Balderama has noted in a recent appreciation for the New York Time's Paper Cuts blog, with her newly released book The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) Saller takes the next big step in advancing her mission to revolutionize the way people think about the dialectic of manuscript editing. From the Paper Cuts blog:

This is a "relationship" book, writes its author, Carol Fisher Saller, doyenne of The Chicago Manual of Style Online's Q&A. Here, she hopes to "soothe and encourage and lend power" to editors who have too long suffered "from the oppression of unhelpful habits and attitudes." This is the book Oprah would write if her vocation were saving writers from embarrassment, rather than saving the whole world.

To which I say: finally. I've got dozens of books concerned with the nuts and bolts of copy-editing, but this is the only one that teaches the fine art of chilling out.… Saller's project, in about 100 pages, is to (a) civilize the editing process, and (b) keep copy editors—meticulous and learned and hard-working, but also stubborn and obsessive, sometimes injuriously so…—from going insane. She reminds us that the reader is Priority 1 and that while standards are crucial ("I'm not going to suggest that you toss out your stylebook"), so is flexibility (sometimes "a style is just a style").

Continue reading the posting on the NYT's Paper Cuts blog, or read the introduction to the book.

The author has also created her own website, check it out at www.subversivecopyeditor.com.

Archived in Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kate L. Turabian, author of the A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, now in its 7th edition, would have celebrated her 116th birthday today. The guidelines she championed for the successful completion and submission of academic papers have become the gold standard for generations of students and their teachers, and with more than 8 million copies sold to date, her Manual is one of the bestselling writing references on record.

Turabian died in 1987 at the age of 94. John Marshall, now the books editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote a warm tribute in the October 27, 1987 edition:

Kate L. Turabian was our trusted guide and mentor, the absolute authority, the one who knew all there was to know about the strange world of proper term papers.… A Manual for Writers was one of the first books we bought in college and it was one of the only books we kept with us through all four years and probably beyond. To write a term paper without a well-worn copy of Turabian handy was unthinkable. Our writing on term papers might be weak, our research haphazard, our insights sophomoric, but, thanks to Kate L. Turabian, our footnotes could always be absolutely flawless.

We have more info about Kate on our Turabian website.

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by DB at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With universities across the country slashing budgets and implementing hiring freezes, the job market for many PhDs seems to be, as the Chronicle of Higher Education recently put it, cloudy.

But our career guides can serve as sturdy life rafts in this storm of bad news. Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius's "So What Are You Going to Do with That?", for example, covers topics ranging from career counseling to interview etiquette to translating skills learned in the academy into terms an employer can understand and appreciate. A witty, accessible guide full of concrete advice for anyone contemplating the jump from scholarship to the outside world, "So What Are You Going to Do with That?" is packed with examples and stories from real people who have successfully made this daunting—but potentially rewarding—transition.

Taking a more specific approach, The Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology is designed to help students and post-docs navigate the tricky terrain of an academic job search—from the first year of a graduate program to the final negotiations of a job offer. In the process, it covers everything from how to pack an overnight bag without wrinkling a suit to selecting the right job to apply for in the first place.

And when you do land that job? The world of scientific research is, of course, a competitive one, with grants and good jobs increasingly hard to find, but The Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science is intended to help scientists not just cope but excel at the critical early phases of their careers.

Finally, no matter which discipline you're in, The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career offers frank answers to the profession's most enduring questions. Its three distinguished authors—with more than 75 years of combined experience—talk openly about what's good and what's not so good about academia, as a place to work and a way of life. Written as an informal conversation among colleagues, the book is packed with inside information—about finding a mentor, avoiding pitfalls when writing a dissertation, negotiating the job listings, and much more.

Archived in Books for the News | Education | Reference and Writing
Posted by MM at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The stock market goes up, the stock market goes down. Presidents are elected, impeached, and succeeded. The world we know is transient.

One of the less-transient things in the world is the Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. Really. The manuscript editors from the University of Chicago Press have been answering style questions online for more than ten years. Why, that was two stock market bubbles ago!

And throughout they seem to have kept their sense of humor:

Q. My colleagues are divided in their opinions about "storing data in a computer" versus "storing data on a computer." Which is correct? Thanks.

A. You can do either, but I would store the data in the computer. It used to be easy to store stuff on a computer, but now with flat screens and laptops it tends to slide off.

Read more on the CMOS Online website.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eugene G. Schwartz offers an excellent review of Susan Bielstein's guide through the labyrinthine world of visual image copyright law, Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property, for his latest posting on ForeWord magazine's Publishing Matters blog:

Before the internet, and especially before desk top publishing, you pretty much had to work with physical copies of things.… This imposed a variety of practical barriers that kept the leakage of rights to a minimum and concentrated its more substantial flow in the hands of professional thieves.

All of that has changed—and with the low cost and ubiquity of scanners, [and] cell phone cameras… gate-keeping the rights of images is like keeping a safe deposit box in a room with an open window.

Nonetheless, the publishing industry still relies on copyright law as the foundation of its economic viability. As all who read ForeWord well know, publishers have struggled to cope with establishing rights in an electronic world, and authors and agents have been pushing back while warily going with the flow.

All of this leads to a book I'd like to recommend to any of you who are interested in the subject, and especially if you deal with pictures as well as intellectual property and copyright in general: Permissions, A Survival Guide. Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property, by Susan M. Bielstein.

The author is the executive editor for art, architecture, classical studies and film at the University of Chicago Press.… The practical value of this work is that it draws on the author's experience and she takes you through the details of everything from choosing the size and format of digital files that you may be ordering to how to negotiate on price with museums. There is also a useful bibliography and a short list of image banks and artist's rights organizations.

The real meat on the bone of this work, however, is the author's blending of anecdotal experience, procedural advice and a critical effort to point the way out of the box that electronic reproduction and increasing layers of rights control are putting the users of creative assets—adding thickets of procedural obstacles and barriers of cost that lead either to shrinking use and availability or increasing use without permission.

Read the rest of the review on the Publishing Matters blog.

Also, read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Law | Literature | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Seth Lerer tells us the bedtime story of Western culture's obsession with books for the young. He traces the transformative power of literature across centuries, from the moralizing allegories of antiquity to the swashbuckling epics of the nineteenth century and the acerbic self-awareness of Judy Blume and Weetzie Bat.

Written with the panoramic scope of a distinguished scholar and the affection of a parent and avid reader, Children's Literature reminds us of the sublime power of books in an era when videogames, MySpace, and text messaging compete for the free time of our youth.

Read the press release.

Archived in Classics | History | Literature | Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University of Chicago News Office has posted a podcast featuring Charles Lipson, author of Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada speaking about his new book. In the podcast, Lipson addresses many of the hot button topics for foreign students trying to adapt to life in the United States and Canada, both in and beyond the classroom. From the norms of classroom participation to obtaining health insurance, Lipson covers what students need to know to have a successful and enjoyable adventure as an international student.

To find out more listen to the podcast or see this special website for the book featuring reviews, info on institutional use, and an excerpt from the book, "Passports and Visas: A Quick Overview."

Archived in Author Essays, Interviews, and Excerpts | Education | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's issue of the the Chicago Reader—the Spring Books Special—has a nice little feature about the writer of The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. But if you're hoping that the identity of the Q&A writer will at long last be revealed to all the world … you’ll be disappointed to learn that the woman behind the wit of the Q&A has adopted a pseudonym, Jody Fisher.

Every month new entries are published to the The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. Here’s one from this month’s lot:

Q. Is it really necessary to include “as” before “per”? For example, “Client has requested, as per original agreement, two hard copies of all reports.” Since “per” means “according to,” can’t we just delete the unnecessary (and wordy-looking) “as”? Thank you, great gurus, for your wisdom!

A. It is not necessary to add “as.” In fact, it used to be considered incorrect, and sticklers still feel superior when they slash through it.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by DB at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After months of anticipation the moment you've all been waiting for has arrived—the winners of the raffle hosted by The Chicago Manual of Style Online were announced today at approximately 3:00 pm Central Time in the boardroom of the University of Chicago Press. Not one but two lucky individuals were chosen at random from a pool of respondents to the recent CMOS Online survey. The winners receive up to one hundred dollars worth of free books from the Press, that's right, one hundred dollars worth of FREE BOOKS. Choosing the winning tickets was none other than Director of the Books Division of the Press, Mr. Bob Lynch. In his press release, Mr. Lynch stated that he was pleased to present the awards on behalf of the CMOS staff and thanked the lucky winners for their time spent helping to improve the CMOS Online user experience.

Congratulations!

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by TXM at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Susan Basalla May, co-author of So What Are You Going to Do with That?: Finding Careers Outside Academia has posted an interesting FAQ for students preparing for a nonacademic career to the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Culled from the question and answer sessions that follow her frequent lectures, Basalla comments on a variety of topics including how to get started as a freelancer and how to explain to potential employers about unfinished dissertations. You can find the full article in the career section of the Chronicle.

A witty, accessible guide full of concrete advice for anyone contemplating the jump from scholarship to the outside world, So What Are You Going to Do with That? covers topics ranging from career counseling to interview etiquette to translating skills learned in the academy into terms an employer can understand and appreciate. Packed with examples and stories from real people who have successfully made this daunting—but potentially rewarding— transition, and written with a deep understanding of both the joys and difficulties of the academic life, this fully revised and up-to-date edition will be indispensable for any graduate student or professor who has ever glanced at her CV, flipped through the want ads, and wondered, "What if?"

Archived in Author Essays, Interviews, and Excerpts | Education | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Susan Bielstein, author of Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property will appear on Library Café, a program on WVKR Independent Radio FM 91.3 in Poughkeepsie, NY, on March 27th at 11 am CST. Bielstein will join host Thomas Hill to discuss her book. You can tune in to a live broadcast online at the Library Café where they should also post archived audio after the show.

Organized as a series of "takes" that range from short sidebars to extended discussions, Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction of an image? What does "fair use" really mean? Is it ever legitimate to use the work of an artist without permission? Bielstein discusses the many uncertainties that plague writers who work with images in this highly visual age, and she does so based on her years navigating precisely these issues. As an editor who has hired a photographer to shoot an incredibly obscure work in the Italian mountains (a plan that backfired hilariously), who has tried to reason with artists' estates in languages she doesn't speak, and who has spent her time in the archival trenches, she offers a snappy and humane guide to this difficult terrain.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seventy years ago, in a small office at the University of Chicago, dissertation secretary Kate L. Turabian changed forever the way research is reported. Asked to provide students with a style guide, she wrote a small pamphlet describing the correct format for writing college dissertations. That pamphlet eventually became A Manual for Writers and has gone on to sell more than eight million copies in six editions. This spring the University of Chicago Press will publish the seventh edition of her widely used and respected Manual—now fully revised to meet the needs of a new generation of students and researchers. The stellar team of Joseph Williams, Gregory Colomb, and Wayne C. Booth, master teachers and authors of the bestselling Craft of Research, have thoroughly updated the Manual while respecting the Turabian tradition. With this careful revision, they have ensured that A Manual for Writers will remain the most valuable handbook for writers at every level—from first-year undergraduates, to dissertation writers, to senior scholars.

Read the press release. Much more information will soon be available at www.turabian.org.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Publishing the online edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has given us some insight into how people use electronic editions of books, an awareness of the usability issues posed by the online environment, and a renewed appreciation for the simplicity and naturalness of the physical book.

Or at least the physical book seems a simple and intuitive interface. But maybe not. Maybe the first users of the codex had technical difficulties just as computer users have today. Maybe every monastery had a help desk to assist readers and scribes with recalcitrant books. Via YouTube:

According to a comment on YouTube, the clip is from a show called Øystein og meg (Øystein and I) and appeared in 2001 on NRK, the Norwegian television network. The sketch was written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad. The spoken language in the clip is Norwegian; the subtitles are in English and Danish.

[Updated February 23: If the video above does not play, try this version from YouTube, which has the advantage of including a bit at the end about reading the manual (RTFM), but the disadvantage of being quite dark. On February 19, NRK had a news story about the worldwide interest in this video.]

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every month the manuscript editors at the Press field questions submitted to The Chicago Style Q&A, a feature of the new Chicago Manual of Style Online. Our manuscript editors respond to these questions with serious explications of the subtleties of style and usage, although they cannot resist the occasional—well, maybe more than occasional—diversion into delicious irony.

This month's Harper's reprinted some highlights from the Q&A under the appropriately paradoxical title of "Stet Offensive," further described on their Web site as "aggressive advice from the editors of the Chicago Manual of Style." Here are examples of our editors' advice:

Q: When I began learning English grammar from the nuns in 1951, I was taught never to use a comma either before or after independent clauses or compound sentences. Did the rules of English grammar and punctuation change while I was in that three week coma in 1965, or in the years it took to regain my basic and intellectual functioning before I returned to teaching?

A: I'm sorry I can't account for your state of mind, but standard punctuation calls for a comma before a conjunction that joins two independent clauses unless the clauses are very short. I would go further and suggest that it's a good idea to examine any rule you were taught that includes the word "never" or "always."

---

Q: Is there any standard for the usage of emoticons? In particular, is there an accepted practice for the use of emoticons that includes an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parenthesis? Should I incorporate the emoticon into the closing of the parenthesis (giving a dual purpose to the closing parenthesis, such as in this case :-); simply leave the emoticon up against the closing parenthesis, ignoring the bizarre visual effect of the doubled closing parenthesis (as I am doing here, producing a double-chin effect :-)); or avoid the situation by using a different emoticon (some emoticons are similar :-D), placing the emoticon elsewhere, or doing without it (i.e., reword to avoid awkwardness)?

A: Until academic standards decline enough to accommodate the use of emoticons, I'm afraid CMOS is unlikely to treat their styling, since the manual is aimed primarily at scholarly publications. And the problems you've posed in this note have given us added incentive to keep our distance.

Read more Q&A and sign up for a free trial of The Chicago Manual of Style Online.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pulling your hair out searching for that last minute gift? You can't go wrong with The Chicago Manual of Style. It might not fall under the category of "fun" gifts, but it won't require two 'C' batteries, or any assembly. It's perfect for the person who has everything and universal enough to be appreciated by everyone from students to professionals—you've got all the bases covered with a shiny new copy of The Chicago Manual of Style. Heck, run down to the local bookstore and pick up two just in case there's anyone you forgot. And remember, The Manual is now available as a CD-ROM and an online version as well—with our online subscription service you won't even have to fight the crowds at the mall to get it.

Want more gift suggestions? Tempt your mind in our gift catalog.

Happy Holidays!

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Google Print Library Project is the latest of Google's efforts to digitally copy and distribute the holdings of several of the world's largest libraries—a project which has incited controversy among both the book industry and academe alike. Google presented this digital repository as a first step towards a long-dreamed-of universal library, but skeptics were quick to raise a number of concerns about the potential for copyright infringement and unanticipated effects on the business of research and publishing. Google is being sued by Association of American Publishers for copyright infringement.

Jean Jeanneney's new book Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge exposes the controversy surrounding this important issue and articulates some of the most powerful arguments why Google's Library Project might spell bad news for those concerned about the world's literary and cultural heritage. A review in the October edition of the ALA Booklist gives an intelligent summary of Jeanneney's argument:

From Europe's point of view, Google's proposal to digitize the content's of America's leading libraries raises questions beyond the copyright issues that presently beleaguer the project. This brief salvo from the president of France's Bibliothèque Nationale challenges directly Google's assertion that its venture offers a source of universal knowledge. Jeanneney finds such claims spurious and utopian. For by the very nature of the library collections that Google proposes to put online, American and British works would dominate, leaving behind that portion of the world's hundred million books not in English. Moreover the character of digital search engines necessarily ranks results according to algorithms that reflect prejudices that lack universal validity.… Google's commercial status also troubles Jeanneney, for the commoditization of information by a single corporation inevitably subjects it to sale and to control by a less benign owner.

As a leading librarian, Jeanneney remains enthusiastic about the archival potential of the Web. But he argues that the short-term thinking characterized by Google's digital repository must be countered by long-term planning on the part of cultural and governmental institutions worldwide—a serious effort to create a truly comprehensive library, one based on the politics of inclusion and multiculturalism.

Archived in History | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by TXM at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One hundred years ago, in November 1906, this press published a small book with a long title: Manual of Style: Being a Compilation of the Typographical Rules in Force at the University of Chicago Press, to Which Are Appended Specimens of Types in Use. Over the years, it grew in length and in reputation, becoming a standard reference for compositors, copyeditors, and publishers. In the later decades of the twentieth century, the audience for the Manual grew to encompass individual writers and scholars.

In its 100th anniversary year, in its fifteenth edition, the Manual has become an online reference work. The online version of the Manual offers the fully searchable text of the fifteenth edition with added features including tools for editors, a quick citation guide, and searchable access to the popular Chicago Style Q&A.

In this still-emerging world of online publishing, the look and the role of online works are not well-established. We believe that we've created an online product that is useful for editors and publishers, effectively utilizes the technology of the online medium, and has a business model that's attractive to the consumer and sustainable for the publisher. We believe that we have created innovative and user-friendly functionality and created subscription options responsive to the needs of the Manual's users. We welcome your comments on how well we have achieved these goals.

The Chicago Manual of Style is the indispensable reference for all who work with words, and now in its new online form it has never been more accessible.Try it out.

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
Posted by DB at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The online publication of The Chicago Manual of Style sparked pre-release feature stories in several publications including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education, heralding the transformation of a venerable reference work into a digital tool. From yesterday's story in the Times:

Starting tomorrow the manual—sometimes known as publishing's Miss Manners—will be available online by subscription, meaning that those who need to know, pronto, whether it is ever all right to capitalize the first letters of e. e. cumming's name will no longer have to search through the more than 956-page volume to find the answer.… And if you listen to Anita Samen, managing editor of the press's books division, having the manual online is going to revolutionize the way its users, who include writers, editors, and publishers, work. 'You can consult it on the fly,' she said, 'so you are free to do your writing and editing without having to retain huge numbers of rules in your head.'

The article in the Chronicle of Higher Education also focused on the potential of the Manual's electronic versions:

The press hopes to build a virtual community surrounding the new online version, a space in which editors can debate the finer points of style. The Q&A feature of the manual's current web site already gets 100,000 to 150,000 visitors a month, according to the press, which augers well for the online edition. … The editor-blogger who runs the site India, Ink expressed her joy in a recent post. "CMS 15 CD-ROM OMG!!!" was the headline. "Dudes!" she told her readers. "This is huge!"

OMG, huge indeed. Try the online version for yourself.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Charles Lipson demystifies the process of preparing citations in research writing in his latest book, Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles—MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More. With the humorous, no-nonsense approach he is known for, Lipson offers sound advice for citing in every major style, including Chicago; MLA; APA; CSE (biological sciences); AMA (medical sciences); ACS (chemistry, mathematics, and computer science); physics, astrophysics, and astronomy; Bluebook and ALWD (law); and AAA (anthropology and ethnography). Using simple, easy-to-understand examples from a wide range of courses in the arts, law, and medicine, Cite Right offers an unparalleled range of information on how—and why—it's so important to cite correctly. At $10 in paperback, no student or researcher can afford to write without it.

Read the press release.

Archived in Press Releases | Reference and Writing
Posted by TXM at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article in the August 4 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education quotes Susan Bielstein, our executive editor for art and architecture: “The art monograph is now seriously endangered and could well outpace the silvery minnow in its rush to extinction.”

Publishing art monographs is financially challenging, for the author and for the publisher. To obtain an image of a work of art suitable for reproduction, the author usually has to pay a permission fee to the owner of the work—a museum, say—even if the work itself is in the public domain. An author might shell out tens of thousands of dollars for such fees. Costs are high for the publisher as well, what with color illustrations, coated paper stock, and the durable binding needed for a hefty, oversized book.

The CHE article discusses the state of art-history publishing at several university presses and a forthcoming Mellon-funded report, "Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age." The article concludes: “All parties agree that it is harder than ever to navigate what Ms. Bielstein calls 'the ecosystem of rights publishing.' What's fair use? Should a museum be able to charge for a reproducible image of an out-of-copyright object in its collection? Most do. And as digital publication tempts more and more publishers and scholars, how will they protect images that appear in an electronic book or an electronic version of a journal article?”

These issues of art and copyright are the subject of Bielstein's recently-published book, Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property, an invaluable compendium of insight and advice for authors and others working in the visual arts. Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Museum News has praised Susan M. Bielstein's Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property. From the review: "[Bielstein] gives life to what could be the driest subject ever with chapters such as 'Permissions: A Love Story,' 'Privacy Woes and the Duchess of York,' and 'Doing and Saying Whatever It Takes.' And besides enjoying the tongue-in-cheek prose, readers will learn how to determine if an artwork is copyrighted, how to get a high-quality reproduction, and what 'fair use' is."

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it's a good bet that at least half of those words relate to the picture's copyright status. Art historians, artists, and anyone who wants to use the images of others will find themselves awash in byzantine legal terms, constantly evolving copyright law, varying interpretations by museums and estates, and despair over the complexity of the whole situation. Susan Bielstein offers her decades of experience as an editor working with illustrated books. In doing so, she unsnarls the threads of permissions that have ensnared scholars, critics, and artists for years.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Law | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Gapers Block highlights the Encyclopedia of Chicago Web site. Brush up on Chicago trivia by visiting the special features section of the site, which features essays, maps, photo galleries, indices, timelines, and tables.

If you're impressed by the Web site, be sure to check out The Encyclopedia of Chicago book. At 1152 pages, it's the definitive historical reference on metropolitan Chicago. If you think you know how Chicago got its name, if you have always wondered how the Chicago Fire actually started and how it spread, if you have ever marveled at the Sears Tower or the reversal of the Chicago River—if you have affection, admiration, and appreciation for this City of the Big Shoulders, this Wild Onion, this Urbs in Horto, then The Encyclopedia of Chicago is for you.

Archived in Chicago | History | Reference and Writing
Posted by at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Library Journal's new issue features a nice review of Dorrik Stow's Oceans: An Illustrated Reference: "This authoritative reference work presents a thorough overview of the physical, geological, chemical, and biological properties of the world's oceans.… Stow's up-to-date and well-organized volume would make a valuable introduction to a huge field of knowledge and is therefore recommended for high school, public, and academic libraries."

Although the oceans are vast, their resources are finite. Oceans clearly presents the future challenge to us all—that of ensuring that our common ocean heritage is duly respected, wisely managed, and carefully harnessed for the benefit of the whole planet. Lavishly illustrated and filled with current research, Oceans is a step in that direction: a rich, magnificent, and illuminating volume for anyone who has ever heard the siren song of the sea.

Archived in Biology | Reference and Writing | Reviews | Reviews
Posted by at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New Scientist has praised Dorrik Stow's Oceans: An Illustrated Reference. From the review by Adrian Barnett: "From sun-drenched atolls to the ice-capped Arctic, Oceans provides a photo-packed history of the seas, their geology, geochemistry and physics, their cycles and circulations. In elegant prose, Stow examines marine life in all its glorious strangeness and extreme abundance. He covers major areas of oceanographic research, including sociology, anthropology and archaeology, revealing how much we know, and the enormous amount we don't. Helped by lots of colour photographs and explanatory diagrams, charts and maps, this is a splendid, fact-packed read."

Archived in Biology | Reference and Writing | Reviews
Posted by at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, we admit to occasionally reading the blog of Mimi Smartypants. She works in Chicago, for one thing, and so we are just trying to stay hip to the blogging scene in Chicago. It's more than that though. As noted by Rebecca J. Roberts in the JournalStar of Lincoln, NE—a town whose hipness is vastly underrated—Ms. Smartypants is "unashamedly articulate and intelligent, with a twisted bent—someone you want to drink yourself silly with on dollar beers while discussing The Chicago Manual of Style and obsessive-compulsive disorder and oral sex, possibly all at the same time."

And you know how we like to talk about The Chicago Manual of Style.

Archived in Chicago | Commentary | Reference and Writing
Posted by DB at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Clear, concise, and replete with commonsense advice, the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition offers the wisdom of a hundred years of editorial practice while including a wealth of new topics and updated perspectives. For anyone who works with words, in any medium, this continues to be the one reference book you simply must have.

However, even at nearly 1,000 pages, The Chicago Manual of Style can't cover every detail. The Chicago Manual of Style Web site features a Q&A page, where the University of Chicago Press's manuscript editing department interprets the Manual's recommendations and uncoils its intricacies. Anyone can submit a question to the Q&A. Every month new questions are featured—and answered—on the site.

Here are some recent Q&As:

Q. A colleague insists that this sentence is both ungrammatical and misuses a metaphor: "One of the major benefits of cloned stem cells could be as a more accurate window on diseases." While I think the sentence is clumsy, I don't see the mistake in grammar. And, while "accurate window" also isn't elegant, a quick search on the Web turned up plenty of uses of "accurate window" on reputable academic and government agency sites. Who's right?

A. It might be technically grammatical (I'm still averting my eyes), but it's so awful that you can't take refuge there. And even if you did find some reputable sites using the phrase "accurate window" (how many pages past all the Accurate Window and Door companies did you have to scroll?), please don't let yourself be encouraged by the fact that reputable sites feature bad writing. Listen to your colleague.

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Q. How should I list an author's name when it is given in different forms in different works I am citing (e.g., John Smith, John R. Smith, J. R. Smith)? In the case of an author's name in a non-Roman script, if the name has been transliterated differently in different publications, shall I list the name as given in each publication, or choose one form? If a name in a non-Roman script is transliterated differently from the system of transliteration I am using, what shall I do? Thank you!

A. Please see CMS 17.40: "Alternative real names. When a writer has published under different forms of his or her name, the works should be listed under the name used on the title page—unless the difference is merely the use of initials versus full names (see 17.20). Cross-references are occasionally used." If a transliterated version is very different from the one used most often in the book, list it as a blind entry with a cross-reference to the more common one.

The Chicago Manual of Style Web site also includes tools for editors and an online search utility for the new edition.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition will also be published on CD-ROM; release is projected for about September 2006. The Manual will then be available in book form and on CD-ROM.

The chapter on indexing is available separately.

Archived in Books for the News | Reference and Writing
Posted by at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)