Category: Style

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The Technical Stylist on the Battle of the Usage Guides

Kathy Underwood

In the Technical Editing Department at SAS Institute Inc. (a worldwide software company), one of the questions we often get from around the company staffers is about which is the best grammar and usage guide. We do have a standard list of style references, which includes the Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition), the Microsoft Manual of Style (3rd edition now—4th edition coming in January), the Global English Style Guide (by our own staffer, John Kohl), and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th Edition).
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The Technical Stylist: The Subjunctive Is Dead! Long Live the Subjunctive!

Kathy Underwood

If you read what most pundits have to say about the subjunctive mood, you would be convinced that this little verb mood will soon pass into history along with “thee” and “thou.” Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage (2002) provides this perspective:
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The Technical Stylist Reviews

Kathy Underwood

The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (Or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) by Carol Fisher Saller (University of Chicago Press, 2009)

For several years, I taught technical editing (among other courses) at the University of Washington. If I were still teaching that course, I would include this book as required reading. Although almost all textbooks on technical editing cover the weighty matter of

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