Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization - A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors

NASA SP-7084 Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors Mary K. McCaskill Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia PDF created: Mon, Aug 3, 1998 - 11:47 AM Preface Page iii Preface The four chapters making up this reference publication were originally written as part of an ongoing effort to write a style manual for the Technical Editing Branch of the NASA Langley Research Center. These chapters were written for technical publishing professionals (primarily technical editors) at Langley. At the urging of my branch head, I am making this part of the style manual available to the technical publishing community. This publication is directed toward professional writers, editors, and proofreaders. Those whose profession lies in other areas (for example, research or management), but who have occasion to write or review others` writing will also find this information useful. By carefully studying the examples and revisions to these examples, you can discern most of the techniques in my editing "bag of tricks"; I hope that you editors will find these of particular interest. Being a technical editor, I drew nearly all the examples from the documents written by Langley`s research staff. I admit that these examples are highly technical and therefore harder to understand, but technical editors and other technical publishing professionals must understand grammar, punctuation, and capitalization in the context in which they work. In writing these chapters, I came to a realization that has slowly been dawning on me during my 15 years as a technical editor: authorities differ on many rules of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization; these rules are constantly changing (as is our whole language); and these rules (when they can be definitely ascertained) sometimes should be broken! Thus much of writing and editing is a matter of style, or preference. Some of the information in this publication, particularly the chapter on capitalization, is a matter of style. Langley`s editorial preferences are being presented when you see the words we prefer, "we" being Langley`s editorial staff. I do not intend to imply that Langley`s style is preferred over any other; however, if you do not have a preferred style, Langley`s editorial tradition is a long and respected one. I wish to acknowledge that editorial tradition and the people who established it and trained me in it. I am also grateful to Alberta L. Cox, NASA Ames Research Center, and to Mary Fran Buehler, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for reviewing this document. Contents Page iv Contents Preface iii 1. Grammar 1 1.1. Grammar and Effective Writing 1 1.2. Nouns 1 1.2.1. Possessive Case 1 1.2.2. Possessive of Inanimate Objects 2 1.3. Pronouns 3 1.3.1. Antecedents 3 1.3.2. Personal Pronouns 3 1.3.3. Relative Pronouns 4 1.3.4. Demonstrative Pronouns 6 1.4. Verbs 7 1.4.1. Tense 7 1.4.2. Mood 9 1.4.3. Voice 9 1.4.4. Verb Number 10 1.5. Adjectives 12 1.5.1. Articles 12 1.5.2. Unit Modifiers 13 1.6. Adverbs 14 1.6.1. Misplaced Adverbs 15 1.6.2. Squinting Adverbs 15 1.6.3. Split Infinitives 15 Contents Page v 1.7. Prepositions 16 1.7.1. Prepositional Idioms 16 1.7.2. Terminal Prepositions 17 1.7.3. Repeating Prepositions 17 1.8. Conjunctions 17 1.8.1. Coordinating Conjunctions 17 1.8.2. Subordinating Conjunction 19 1.9. Verbals 20 1.9.1. Coordinate Gerunds and Infinitives 21 1.9.2. Idiom Requiring Gerund or Infinitive 21 1.9.3. Dangling Verbals 22 2. Sentence Structure 26 2.1. Sentence Structure and Effective Writing 26 2.2. Subjects and Verbs 26 2.2.1. Clarify Subject 26 2.2.2. Make Verbs Vigorous 28 2.2.3. Improve Subject-Verb Relationship 30 2.3. Parallelism 31 2.3.1. Connectives Requiring Parallelism 32 2.3.2. Itemization 32 2.4. Brevity and Conciseness 33 2.4.1. Wordiness 33 2.4.2. Shortening Text 35 Contents Page vi 2.4.3. Shortening Titles 35 2.5. Comparisons 37 2.5.1. Comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs 37 2.5.2. Ambiguous Comparisons 38 2.5.3. Comparison Constructions 39 2.6. Emphasis 41 2.6.1. Emphasizing With Sentence Structure 41 2.6.2. Emphasizing With Punctuation 42 3. Punctuation 44 3.1. A Functional Concept of Punctuation 44 3.2. Apostrophe 44 3.3. Brackets 45 3.4. Colon 45 3.4.1. Colons That Introduce 45 3.4.2. Conventional Uses of the Colon 48 3.4.3. Use With Other Marks 48 3.5. Comma 48 3.5.1. Commas That Separate 48 3.5.2. Commas That Enclose 52 3.5.3. Conventional Uses of the Comma 55 3.5.4. Use With Other Marks 56 3.6. Em Dash 56 3.6.1. Dashes That Enclose 56 3.6.2. Dashes That Separate 57 ... - tailieumienphi.vn