The Copy Editor
WSJ style guide doyen Paul Martin answers if data are plural, or if it’s singular.
More good reads on the subject at The Guardian and The Economist.
I remember a fellow journalist telling me how her J-school professor once ordered students to write out the entire AP Stylebook by hand as part of a class project. The exercise, I was told, was designed to help the students memorize the Stylebook entries. I still wonder how these students reacted after they became professional journalists and found out that not all newsrooms use AP style. If they went to work for a magazine, they probably had to learn the Chicago Manual of Style. If they work for an online media company, they may have had to learn the Yahoo Style Guide, which covers the basics of writing for Internet and mobile audiences. In most other cases, they would have had to master the various in-house styles that most media companies have and use to ensure uniformity in their content. Do journalists really need all these style guides?
Why we need the serial comma.
- A call to arms for punctuation (weblogs.baltimoresun.com)
- Because “I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis… (copyeditor.tumblr.com)
- Love Letters to Punctuation Marks (cjr.org)
- Maxims for editors (weblogs.baltimoresun.com)
- The return of the final serial comma’s vital necessity (nielsenhayden.com)
- The Serial Comma wars (professorbainbridge.com)
![Because “I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling.” is different from “I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling.”
Punctuation Man, a leading authority on punctuation and teaching punctuation to elementary school children, today announced his decision to fully support the use of the serial comma.
Shunned by the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, the serial comma is still widely accepted by educators, grammarians, and literary circles, including Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and the Chicago Manual of Style.
There is no small debate about the serial comma (also known as the Oxford Comma). It is a comma used before a coordinating conjunction (such as “and”) before the last item in a series of three or more.
For example: The flag is red, white, and blue. »>
[Photo/MBIMOTMOG Archives]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l9d9uhnvdR1qctkspo1_500.jpg)
Because “I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling.” is different from “I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling.”
Punctuation Man, a leading authority on punctuation and teaching punctuation to elementary school children, today announced his decision to fully support the use of the serial comma.
Shunned by the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, the serial comma is still widely accepted by educators, grammarians, and literary circles, including Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and the Chicago Manual of Style.
There is no small debate about the serial comma (also known as the Oxford Comma). It is a comma used before a coordinating conjunction (such as “and”) before the last item in a series of three or more.
For example: The flag is red, white, and blue. »>
