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 Technical writing book April 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this comment useful.
Essential book for any kind of editor. My 30-year old copy needed replacing. Where else to look but Amazon? It came in less time than predicted. A treasure to me.
 apprecaite the opportunity to purchase item March 8, 2007
0 out of 2 found this comment useful.
Thank you for the opportunity to purchase. Book answers many questions and is an assest in improving my abilities.
At home on any writer's shelf December 3, 2006
0 out of 3 found this comment useful.
This is a great reference book for grammar and English rules in general.
For new writers, I recommend going through it front to back once, to familiarize yourself with what's inside - it really is of immense help if you are at all interested in writing cleanly and/or editing your own work (as far as THAT is possible!).
While certainly no substitute for a good editor, this book is one of my most-used references. It has a pretty decent index, and is organized in a useful manner that makes most "rules" easy to find.
Nearly indispensable, yet thirty years old! October 1, 2005
21 out of 21 found this comment useful.
Somebody who had read my review of Bryan A Garner's Modern American Usage, 2nd ed. (2003)--IMHO, the preeminent book on usage, per se--wrote me the other day asking about a good book on typographical style. I recommended Words into Type which I have used for many years. But as I prepared to write a review, I was amazed to learn that a new edition of this outstanding reference work is lacking.
What we have here is the Third Edition from 1974, the same book I have in front of me. Yet, so much has changed since 1974--including the invention and phenomenal growth of a little thing called the Internet--that a new and updated work is sorely needed. On the other hand, so much in terms of what is appropriate style in the publishing world has not changed, which means that this venerable and authoritative work remains a most valuable addition to anyone's library.
First, a note on "style" as used here and as understood in the publishing business. Style does not refer to what should more properly be called the writer's "mode of expression," nor does it refer to such things as elegance or flair in wordsmithing; and yet it does have something to do with "fashion" in terms of how words, numbers, and symbols appear on the pages of books, magazines, and newspapers. In this sense "style" refers to "the rules or customs of spelling, punctuation, and the like..." (from Random House Webster's College Dictionary).
Style should therefore be contrasted with and compared to usage and grammar. Indeed Words into Type includes in its pages plenty of advice on grammar and usage. Part V is devoted to "Use of Words" and Part VI to "Grammar." Still, most of the book is about how characters appear on pages and how pages should be laid out and how various sections of books--introductions, indices, appendices, footnotes, typographical style for tables and headings, etc.--should be ordered. Also included is guidance on the various responsibilities of writers, editors and copyreaders. To put it simply, I know of no book that gives anywhere near as much guidance on how words are transformed into type than this very appropriately named, Words into Type.
I have by way of comparison in front of me a copy of my old The Associated Press Stylebook, which I used when I was a newspaper reporter years ago. The AP stylebook tells us which words to capitalize for example and which words to leave lower case. It covers abbreviations, punctuation, whether numbers should be spelled out or not, conventions to follow in the reporting of sports, and various other matters related strictly to newspaper reporting.
Words into Type does all this and, as indicated above, much, much more. The AP stylebook is fifty-some pages long; Words into Type is nearly six hundred. I do not have the Chicago Manual of Style in front of me, but it is the only book that I know of that can compete with Words into Type in terms of inclusiveness. Perhaps it is a better book today. But when I compared them some years ago it wasn't even close. Words into Type was more comprehensive while being at the same time easier to use and understand. Still the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is from 2003.
Publishers, even if they use the Chicago Manual of Style, should have a copy of Words into Type at the ready. And any writer who wants to look professional and furthermore wants to understand the process of turning words into type--and indeed would like an education in "style"--should also own this book. With self-publishing and Web-based publishing growing by leaps and bounds everyday, I think it would be a good idea to update this book.
Maybe the people at Prentice-Hall or whoever now owns the copyright are working on such an edition. I hope so. Until such an edition or its equivalent comes out, I cannot recommend this book too highly as indispensable to serious writers, editors and publishers.
Recommended by the authorities April 22, 2005
19 out of 21 found this comment useful.
I recently posed a question to "The Chicago Manual of Style" Web site and received a very quick response along with the recommendation that my future grammar questions could best be answered by consulting "Words Into Type." That's the only recommendation I needed to convince me to buy a copy.
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