Theres A Style Guide for That

Theres A Style Guide for That There’s A Style Guide for That There’s A Style Guide for That By Maeve Maddox Authors who specialize in one field of knowledge are sometimes unaware of style guides used in other areas. In writing for DWT, I mostly rely on these three style guides: The Chicago Manual of Style The AP Stylebook Penguin Writer’s Manual Chicago is directed at a broad audience that includes both scholars and entrepreneurs. AP is targeted specifically to journalists. CMOS and AP recommendations don’t often differ, but when they do, the differences sometimes reflect an interesting divide between scholarly and popular usage. I trust the Penguin reference guides to point me to differences between American and British usage. When wearing my academic hat, I regard the MLA Handbook (published by the Modern Language Association) as my style bible. These are my preferred guides because I write chiefly about standard usage and literature. Not all disciplines process and present information in exactly the same way. Authors who write about other subjects–sociology, science, and mathematics, for example–look to other guides. Here’s a sampling of instructions in authors’ guidelines for just four specialized journals, each recommending different guides: Journal of Aging and Physical Activity Manuscripts that do not conform to APA guidelinesmay be rejected without review. Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation References must conform to the format printed in the journal and must include titles. The article should conform to the usual ACS format. Sociological Theory In general, please refer to the ASA Style Guide (4th edition) for style and formatting guidelines. Manuscripts that do not conform to the desired format will be returned to the author for rectification. Amyloid: Journal of Protein Folding Disorders [This journal] conforms to the CSE style guidelines, using the NLM style for references. What the initials mean: APA: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association APA format  is the official style of the American Psychological Association and is generally used for writing about research in psychology, education, and social sciences. ACS: The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information Published by the American Chemical Society, ACS style is followed by writers and reviewers of scientific manuscripts. ASA: American Sociological Association Style Guide Similar to APA, ASA is also used by writers about sociology and related fields. CSE: Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers Developed by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), this guide is used by writers in all areas of the sciences. NLM: Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers This guide is published by the National Library of Medicine to provide instructions and examples for formatting citations of published and unpublished material, both printed and digital. Other guides for other areas of specialization also exist. Of the guides mentioned here, MLA and APA are probably the best known because high school students and college undergraduates are most likely to be required to use one of them for their research papers. I’ll discuss the differences between them in another post. Related: 5 Online Style Guides 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:Definitely use "the" or "a"Rules for Capitalization in TitlesPlurals of Proper Names