Small Maneuvers Copyediting Style Sheet Editor(s): Alexandra Haehnert, Ellie Piper, Stephanie Podmore, Katey Trnka
Last Updated: 04/01/15
A-C ● ●
D-F ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
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a couple of (years), not a couple (years) a while (as in "once in a while") vs. awhile (adv., can be replaced with "for a while")! arm's length (n., "she held me at arm's length") arm's-length (adj.) backpaddle (v.) breathe (v.) breath (n.) Bull Sluice (rapid) butt end (not butt-end) cell phone (not cellphone)
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Gila (river) gray
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G-I
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Dad (standing in for his name), but "my dad" Dewey, Arizona drive-through (not drive-thru) drop-off (n.) eddy line (two words) Emma Wilson farther for a physical distance; further for a figurative distance first aid first-aid kit first-aid classes flowerbed
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life jacket
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Parker Wilson (dad's name) parents' (plural possessive) partway, not part way pocketknife (one word) put-in (n.) (but takeout) resoak (not re-soak) Robyn Wilson (mom's name) safety vest seatback side canyon side to side (no hyphens) spring break
J-L
M-O ● ● ● ● ● ●
T-V ● ● ● ●
P-S makeup (not make-up) McDonald’s (but “Old MacDonald”) Mom (standing in for her name), but "my mom" Oh my god (not Oh, my god) once in a while (not "awhile") onetime (adj.)
W-Z T-shirt (not t-shirt) takeout (n.) (but put-in) thumbs-up (not thumbs up or other) call for a time-out (not time out or timeout)
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toward underway vs. under way upside-down boat but the boat was upside down.
Style Notes: ● look out for superfluous commas between modifiers: "thick, black hair,” “long, dirt driveway,” “old, flatbed truck,” etc. ● Watch for misformatted ellipses ● italicized direct speech: quotation marks are NOT italicized ● watch out for plural possessives of family names (the Johnsons', not the Johnson's) ● also look out for adjectives preceded by adverbs (overly exuberant, not overly-exuberant, capitalistically-slanted) ● Japanese Americans, African Americans, etc.: should have no hyphens ● Refer to our in-house style guide; query if author shows purposeful straying from it. Italics ● hypothetical/interior dialogue ("what I should have said, XX" "as if to say, XX" "I wish she would have said, XX"): italics fine, but no quotation marks ○ dialogue that takes place in the past is not automatically hypothetical → roman, quotation marks ● somebody calls somebody something (e.g., In a news conference, the sheriff would call me "alive and well."): roman, quotation marks. The quotation marks convey enough irony/distance from the quoted material; italics are redundant. ● a sign/a billboard/a shirt/the TV/a bottle, etc. says XX: roman, quotation marks ● quotations from letters/phone conversations: roman, quotation marks ● descriptions of sounds: italics fine ● emphasis/foreign words/drawing attention to a word-as-a-word (in dialogue, too): italics fine ● for titles of bibliographical works, CMoS applies as usual