Meet the Candidates … Online

Well, pooh. I’ve been making mistakes, willy nilly. Properly chastened, I shall change my ways. Thank you!

Lingua Franca is one of the best features of online Chronicle.  These ongoing writing tutorials are just terrific.  Thanks!

A major problem in scholarship is that scholars often do not return to the original source for a quotation, but take it from a secondary source that may have misquoted the original. This practice leads to the recurrence of mistakes in quotations. In pre-Google days, it used to be very time-consuming for copyeditors to check quotations, but now with Google Book search available, many quotations can be checked in just a few seconds by typing a sentence from the quotation into the Google search box. I wonder how many copyeditors actually do this?—Sandy Thatcher

For those taking these points back to your classes, remember that “ellipsis” (singular) is the correct way to refer to an omission in the text.

The set of three periods/dots or other marks used to indicate an omission are NOT ellipses (plural); they are referred to by other names, such as ellipsis marks, ellipsis points, etc.

The paragraph above could eliminate possible confusion by using the title “On ellipsis” and revising a sentence to read “But here’s one tip: Ellipsis is rarely needed … .”

Also, remember that different style guides have specific rules for spacing the dots and other particulars related to ellipsis.

I’m curious about who among us tries to weed out the awkward constructions like “he stated” and “Jones et al. write.” These drive me up a wall, but I try to keep my cotton-picking editorial fingers off them, especially if I’m asked for a light edit. This happens a lot in academic books, as professors love to quote, but don’t know how to do it (unless they’re English professors). If I can’t take it anymore, I quote CMOS, 15th ed., in a query and offer a specific suggestion. (For example, “Au: CMOS recommends avoiding certain types of intros to quotes: ‘Such perfunctory phrases as “Jacqueline Jones writes:”
or “The defendant stated:” are often awkward, and sensitive writers avoid them.” Reword here to something like ‘Miller believes that setting your goals early can lead to improved academic perfomance:’?”). I’m probably too picky, right? What do you think?

Ellipses are a source of multiple kinds of abuse. One of my least favorite is when authors quote something from page 73 and then, following an ellipsis, quote something from page 72. Using an ellipsis this way is misleading, because it implies that the original author said x and then y instead of y and then x, and it can be frustrating for readers who are trying to find quote x and are looking on the wrong page for it.

If there are large gaps between two quotations or if they’re out of sequence, it’s best to quote them separately rather than stitch them together with ellipses.

Ms. Saller:
This is very helpful! I’m eagerly awaiting Part 2, and I hope you will address whether we Americans can/should change British spellings in quotes (for example, colour to color). I know the Chicago Manual of Style says no, but I always worry that the “odd” spelling may draw readers’ attention from the content of the quote toward the spelling.

Actually, Julie, it’s fine to use parenthetical source notes in addition to notes and bibliographies, especially for frequently cited texts.

Bummer! I was afraid you would say that…But thanks for the sneak preview!

I am coming back to this posting on the second day and am delighted to note that the author actually read and responded to comments. There is not a lot of that going around. Thank you again, Carol Saller!

A quibble:
“—On capitalization. Changing the case of the first word of a quotation to jibe with its surroundings is a well-accepted convention”
I suspect the author means “Changing the case of the first letter” not the first word which would mean changing a word in the nominative case (usually) to the genitive or objective.

I love the humane approach taken to the use of “sic.” How civilized.

I’d like to second the sentiment about “[sic]” (and I wish I knew how to get italics here). It’s like capital punishment: it may be justifiable on rare occasions, but its overuse says a lot more about the user than about those it’s used on.

Perhaps the obsessive need for typographic novelty that infected CMOS 15 (Scala) and then CMOS 16 (Tisa) will have been worked out, and CMOS 17 will go back to Times Roman. God knows I’m no particular fan of plain old, bland old TR for most purposes, but its utter lack of eccentricity seems to me to be exactly what’s needed in a reference work on writing, editing, and publishing books. The last thing one needs while trying to make sense of e.g. ellipses is a typeface calling attention to itself.

Thanks very much, Sylvia. And thanks also for the reminder of simpler days, when there were parentheses, brackets, and braces, and “” were left to the mathematicians.