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Part II: Layout and Formatting

Formatting refers to the way you enter paragraph and line breaks, indents, spaces, typefaces, and punctuation marks. By observing a few basic text-formatting rules, you can help us transform the pages of your manuscript into a final book that looks attractive and professional.

Paragraph Breaks and Indents

To view all of the spaces, hard returns, and tabbed areas in your manuscript as symbols, select the Show All character (¶) in your Microsoft Word toolbar. If you can't find this character in your toolbar, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and press the 8/* for the same results.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are separated with one paragraph mark (¶). This is also referred to as a hard return, usually accessed by pressing Enter on your keyboard. Lines within a paragraph must continue (or wrap) at the margin; lines should not be broken with paragraph marks or manual line breaks.

First-Line Indents

The first paragraph in each chapter or part should not be indented. However, the first line of all other paragraphs should be indented with one tab.

Indents

To indent a block of text, such as a passage from a referenced source, highlight the section of text you want indented, select Format in the toolbar, and then choose the Paragraph option in most word processors. Indent the paragraph on the left and right each by one-half of an inch (0.5").

Single-Line Indents

To indent individual lines, such as in a poem or a recipe, use two tabs.

Dashes, Hyphens, and Ellipses

Dashes, ellipses, and other special characters are found under the Insert menu of your word-processing program, under Symbol/Special Characters. (See the punctuation section of Part III to learn more about when to use these marks.)

Do Not Use Double Dashes (--) to express a pause in a thought or duration of time. Instead, use the longest dash, called an em dash (—) or an ellipsis (…) to separate thoughts or clauses within a sentence. To type an em dash, hold the Ctrl and the Alt key and type a hyphen, or hold down the Alt key while typing 0151. See instructions below for typing an ellipsis.

Use En Dashes (–) (the longer dash) to separate periods of time or numbers. To type an en dash, hold the Ctrl key and type a hyphen, or hold down the Alt key while typing 0150.

Use Hyphens (-) (on your keyboard) to separate two words that are usually linked with a hyphen.

Ellipses Hold Ctrl + Alt + the period key.

Italics

By going to the font settings in your word-processing software (under Format in the toolbar), or by holding down Ctrl + i, you may apply italic type for the following reasons:
• Titles of books, magazine articles, movies, plays, television shows, and other titles of major works
• Words with emphasis (use sparingly)
• Foreign words and phrases

Formatting to Avoid

ALL CAPS

Do not use all caps for emphasis, for titles, or for contents pages. WORDS TYPED IN ALL CAPS ARE DIFFICULT TO READ. Use italics instead.

Underlining

Underlined text usually looks old-fashioned. Use italics to express emphasis or to indicate key terms instead, but even then, use sparingly.

Centered Text

Limit the use of centered text. It looks overly formal and can be hard to read.

Manual Hyphenation

Do not manually hyphenate words that break at the end of a line. Both your word-processing software and our book-design software will automatically hyphenate words when necessary.

Quotation Marks

Straight quotation marks (") are not acceptable substitutions for traditional quotation marks (“). When straight quotes appear, please exchange them with “curly” quotes (called smart quotes). Microsoft Word may be set to display smart quotes by default through the AutoCorrect menu. Please consult the Help menu of your word-processing software for more information. Or correct individual straight quotation marks as follows: for a smart open quote, press Alt + 0147. For a smart closed quote, press Alt + 0148.

 

Part III: Editorial Style