Style Book

Sage Style Book

This page is a working document on evolving the conventions used for the writing style adopted by Sage.

Administrative Links

1. Click here to visit the Course Home Page

2. Editorial Board

3. Content Ideas

4. Article Wiki

5. Style Book

6. Class Agendas

Vocabulary

1. Bryn Mawr, or BMC: For Bryn Mawr College.

Do not use B.M.C. Where possible use Bryn Mawr College rather than Bryn Mawr. Locally, Bryn Mawr is understood by many to refer to Bryn Mawr Hospital, however, at a global level, Bryn Mawr generally refers to the college. Use BMC only in secondary uses of Bryn Mawr College in the same article.

2. Mawrter/Mawrtyr: A Bryn Mawr College student.

What is the correct spelling for this word? Is it always capitalized? Or not?

The shirts that are sold at the Bookshop are spelled "Mawrtyr," which is most closely related to its play on words -- martyr. -- Samara

3. Sage is a "web magazine." Decided 10/8/02 during class.

Proof reader comments

1. Parentheses: less is more, they can be distracting

2. Watch run-on sentences

3. Watch changing pronouns

4. Subject verb agreement

From Karen in an e-mail, December 3, 2002: Here are some tips I generally follow to determine if a comma is needed or not:

1) If it's a list using "and" or "or", use commas ONLY if there are three items or more.

Right: "We saw the cat, dog, and mouse." Wrong: "We saw the cat, and dog."

2) Generally, the clause that follows a comma and the words "and", "but", or "so" MUST BE AN INDEPENDENT CLAUSE. This means this clause should be able to make sense on its own as a sentence.

Correct: "We need to figure out how we are going to continue Sage, and we

need to find new editors."

Wrong: "We need to figure out how we are going to continue Sage, and how we

will find new editors."

Reason: "how we will find new editors" is not a full sentence.

Also how to determine whether you should use "its" or "it's": -- Take out the "its" or "it's" and read the sentence out loud with "it is" in place. If "it is" makes sense in its place, then use "it's". If not, use "its" Example: 1) "We need to figure out if it's an error." AND "We need to figure out if 'it is' an error."

Immutable page (last modified 2005-05-23 02:47:06)

Or try one of these actions: LikePages, LocalSiteMap, SpellCheck