You’ve Got the Power: For Good or Evil

 Photo courtesy Frédéric Bisson

Time and again, copyeditors ask me questions that leave me scratching my head. The question always amounts to something like this: “If I follow all the rules, nonsense and chaos will result. What should I do?”

What is it about American culture, or education, or religion, that prevents an otherwise normal, intelligent person from concluding without my help that in cases like this you should break one of the rules?

A researcher writing endnotes wonders about including the name of the state where a book was published in addition to the city. He wants everything to be consistent (rule 1), and his style guide says not to add the state if it’s obvious already (University of Virginia Press) (rule 2). But if he leaves out all state names for consistency, readers will assume that a book published in London, Ohio, was published in the UK. What to do?

An editor working on a bibliography encounters a source who signs all work with an initial instead of a full first name. The rest of the bibliography includes full names. The style manual says to use all full names. What should she do? Well, I want to say, what are our choices here? Make up a name? Delete that source? Change all 437 author names to initials only?

Why do they even have to ask?

I’ll tell you why: It’s because for many writers and editors, our work is all about the rules. It’s what we do: we take a chunk of writing and we grind it through the style-guide mill, and we never once stop to ask whether logic and reason and the reader are served. The first question is always “What’s the rule?” instead of “What is helpful?” or “What makes sense?” or—the unthinkable—“Can I break this rule?”

We have the power to break the rule.

Of course it’s fine for “What’s the rule?” to be the first question—as long as it’s not the only question. After all, an understanding of the rules is our best tool for getting writers out of tight spots. And note that I said an “understanding” of the rules, which is not the same as an ability to cite them. Understanding the thinking behind a style choice gives you the power both to discard it when better thinking should prevail and to argue for it more convincingly when the reasoning applies.

I recently spoke to a classroom of new copyeditors, and I took this “knowledge is power” idea one step further. Copyeditors have a choice as to what kind of power they wield. They can wave about the rule book and try to assume the power of saying “No, you can’t” to writers, or they can acquire the power of knowing when to break a rule in order to help writers achieve great writing.

My regular readers know that I like to call that second choice “subversive,” but they also know that it truly isn’t. Choose the second kind of power: it’s a better way of life.

 

Comments

[Jonathon Owen]

Great post, Carol. Notes and bibliographies are a frequent problem, because they're often quite messy when authors turn them in, and Chicago, as detailed as it is, simply can't cover everything. I try to remind my coworkers that the overriding concern is citing references adequately so that they're clearly attributed to their respective authors and so that readers can track them down if they're so inclined.

[Patricia Boyd]

Well said, Carol! I love your "What should she do? ... Make up a name? Delete that source? Change all 437 author names to initials only?" You crack me up!

Anyway, perhaps viewing style manuals' prescriptions as guidelines and not as rules would help. After all, we Americans don't have an Académie française.

You're right, Jonathan, in that notes and bibliographies are the main "problem" for rule-followers. As you say, a focus on the real function of references would help editors make the right decisions on styling problems.

As I learned when doing scientific research, the more you know, the less dogmatic you become.

[Anita]

In the bibliography example, I would look up the the reference and find the missing name. Wouldn't everybody?

[Mdevaney]

With matters like what to do with state names, I find it's simpler just to have a basic approach that you can apply to any ms., because very often authors are not consistent on this front. You may get some way through a bibliography in which an author has left state names off in, e.g., Durham: Duke University Press, only then to find he or she starts including them. So rather than waste a lot of time trying to figure out if there is a pattern, I just insert state names for UPs whose name does not indicate the state.

[Patricia Boyd]

I don't know, Anita. What if the author always uses his or her initials only? A style guide that says always use the first name seems pretty rigid to me, anyway. Change J. D. Salinger? T. S. Elliot? But I guess if looked up the author name and found both the spelled-out version and initials for various publications, I would spell out the first name in the bibliog.

Regarding state names, etc.: Many authors omit the place of publishing when preparing their manuscripts, and many of my clients still want this information. Amazon.com doesn't include it. But thank goodness, the Library of Congress Online Catalog does.

[Cathy Miller]

Hallelujah-some common sense! Feel the power. ☺

[Apps 55753818692 1673506752 E7d0f159c4adc94fb72d8b2b51ed79c0]

This is so true! Copyeditors are hired to implement rules and consistency through out a manuscript, and sometimes those editors get so bogged down in the rules that they forget to use common sense. Myself included sometimes!

[Torasrealfood.blogspot.com]

Great post! The rules of a style guide are similar to rules of etiquette in that they have a purpose, whether that be greater clarity for readers or social lubrication and civilization. If we lose sight of the reason for things, we get bogged down in pointless minutiae. Excellent reminder of that. (I too have freaked out over an inconsistency in the references when I have lost sight of the point.)