To: Dr.

Cindy Nahrwold
From: Lauren White, Jasmine Williams, and Dawn Teer
Date: 12/1/2010
Subject: Literature and Medicine Journal Style Manual


Dr. Nahrwold:
As you have requested, here is our style manual for the Literature and Medicine Journal.

Introduction
As we mentioned in the proposal memo, our goals are to focus on usability, consistency, and
organization. Our proposal memo was very effective in that it put us all on the same page with
regards to policy and execution strategy. It also helped us manage our time efficiently with its
tentative weekly schedule. The proposal memo was a good starting point to work from, and we
would often refer back to it when we had questions about the publishing process or about what
our assigned sections covered. We were careful in creating a thorough, thoughtful, and
workable proposal memo, and we thought we had covered all of our bases.

But when we started actually working from the proposal memo, we found a few holes in the
execution strategy. We found that the proposal memo lacked specific editing skills for this
project, and because of this, we mistakenly focused on an elaborate development manual
instead of a specialized style manual. While a development manual is a helpful aid, it is not
essential to the style manual. Also, our original table of contents outline from our proposal
memo was a little too ambitious to complete in one semester. We made the original outline

broad because we wanted to please our client, Dr. Charles Anderson, who wanted a fairly
comprehensive in-house style manual and development manual that he could pass on to the
next editors of Literature and Medicine. Every time we met with our client, the project become
more elaborate, and each time afterwards, we would have to cut it down to a smaller, more
manageable size. We finally realized that we had to narrow the focus of what we needed to
include and what we needed to exclude in the style manual.

We narrowed the focus by eliminating the development manual, as well as all of the
superfluous sections of our previous table of contents. For example, we decided not to include
the following: an index, a development manual, a list of how and when to access online
resources like Sugarsync, and an online version of the manual. However, we realized that we
would still need to save all the documents on a CD so that they could later be put online as our
client requested.

Once we discussed and compiled a list of specific editing goals, the steps needed to be taken to
complete these goals became clearer, and the process went more smoothly. We decided to
focus on a few sections of great substance instead of several sections of little substance. We
decided to include the following: an overview of the publishing process of the journal, a
detailed copyediting section that will include points that are essential to the journal, a detailed
notes and bibliography section, an instructional section on how to do fact-checking, and a style
sheet. After meeting with Dr. Anderson, we all agreed on a table of contents. This table of
contents would meet both the requests of our client and the specifications of the assignment.


Once we had a workable table of contents, we divided up the sections. Dawn and Jasmine took
the Copyediting section, which makes up the bulk of the style manual, and Lauren took
several smaller sections that focus on the processes of the journal.

Jasmine and Dawns Copyediting Section
The Copyediting section, along with the rest of the style manual, is designed with
accessibility, conciseness, and clarity in mind. Copyediting consists of four sections:
punctuation, numbers, abbreviations, and document consistency. Each section includes
subsections that identify common errors in copyediting. The subsections all contain a brief,
detailed description of the rules and guidelines and how to apply them, along with relevant and
appropriate examples and a hyperlink directly to The Chicago Manual of Style online page
where the information is more elaborate.

Punctuation
The Punctuation section is essential for clarity and order. According to The Chicago Manual of
Style, Punctuation promotes ease of reading by clarifying relationships within and between
sentences. The entirety of the Punctuation section is designed to eliminate intimidation and
confusion and to allow easy access to correct uncertain situations.


The Literature and Medicine Style Manual focuses on the more common errors. For example,
the Commas section focuses on misusages such as: commas in pairs, commas with dates,
commas in a series, and commas in quotations. The Commas in a series section focuses on
the Oxford comma and explained its preference of use according to The Chicago Manual of
Style as one of the more controversial commas. Some sections, such as the Commas with
dates section, may also contain information that is located another section, such as
Numbers, however, despite similarity, each portion of information is essential to an editors
understanding of copyediting effectively.

Numbers
The Numbers section is significant because of the importance for production members of the
Literature and Medicine Journal to know when to spell out numbers and when to use the
numeral. The Chicago Manual of Style applies a general rule with many exceptions. The
Numbers section also provides specific instructions on how to appropriately record numerical
data which may cause difficulties when editing an unfamiliar text.

Some of the sections address informal text in situations where it may be more appreciated. A
prime example is the Dates section which displays how to correctly abbreviate years. The
Literature and Medicine Journal may not find this information useful on a daily basis, but for

rare situations, the information is briefly listed and provides a hyperlink to access more
information if necessary.

The Decades section explains how a reader may easily confuse not only dates but specific
moments in history because of a lack of clarity. For example, to distinguish between when an
entire century is being referred to and when only a decade is being referred to avoids
confusion. Properly indicating a timeframe is important to a production members credibility.

Abbreviation
Another troublesome area amongst production members is the Abbreviation section. To
avoid confusion, the Abbreviation section explains how to abbreviate appropriately and how
to address punctuation accordingly.

Document Consistency
The Document Consistency section is a small notation to the production team on the
importance and duty of being consistent. Consistency is necessary for readers to locate and
comprehend information. This provides the readers easy access in managing the document.
The Types of Document Consistency chart has been pulled from chapter eight of Technical
Editing by Carolyn Rude. The chart saves time for the editors when trying to locate a quick

source on how to improve a document. The chart gives the meaning of each type of
consistency, the variations of those types, and how they are to be applied within a document.
Applying this chart will make a noticeable change in the overall quality and accessibility of a
document which determines the readers use of the document.

Laurens Sections
While Dawn and Jasmine focused on the largest section, copyediting, Lauren focused on several
smaller sections to include in the manual. Lauren had the following sections: Overview of the
Publishing Process, Outline of the Development Process, Fact-checking, Citation Style
Sheet, Composing Notes, Documenting Periodicals, Notes and Bibliography, and the
style sheet. Lauren was in a unique position to write up these documents because she had
experience working on the journal, and she had access to Dr. Anderson each week. She wrote
original text for the Overview of the Publishing Process, the Outline of the Development
Process, and the Fact-checking sections. The journal already had a working Notes and
Bibliography section and a style sheet. We, however, tweaked both of these sections so that
they would be consistent with the rest of the documents.

Overview of the Publishing Process
This section explains the intricacies of how the publishing process works at the journal. The
publishing process is very detailed and complicated. Even though Lauren had worked on the

journal before, she did not know the entire publishing process before this project. In her work
at the journal, she only saw seemingly isolated bits and pieces of the publishing process that
only applied to the work she was doing. However, by writing up this section, she got to see how
all the seemingly isolated sections fit into the process as a whole. Every Friday at her internship,
Lauren met with Dr. Anderson to go over specific questions. She wrote up drafts of how the
publishing process worked and then Dr. Anderson would review it for accuracy. By including
this section, we show how the publishing process fits together.

Outline of the Development Process
Although we abandoned working on a development manual early on, we decided to include the
Outline of the Development Process in the front matter of the style manual. We decided to
include this outline to show where the style manual fits into the publishing process. We also
included it because Dr. Anderson said he would like someone to work on creating a
development manual for him at some point in the future.

Fact-checking
Fact-checking is a very important and time-consuming process. Fact-checking is essential to the
credibility and accuracy of the journal, so it was important for us to include a section that tells
the steps one needs to take to do accurate research for fact-checking. In this section, we spell

out the steps that need to be taken to verify the accuracy of spelling and punctuation of the
information.

Citation Style Sheet, Composing Notes, Documenting Periodicals, Notes and Bibliography
All of these sections discuss how to properly attribute and format the Notes and Bibliography
sections. Getting the Notes and Bibliography sections correctly formatted is what editors
spend most of their time on at the journal. It is supremely difficult to get it right because there
are so many different ways of doing notes and bibliographies. In the past at the journal, each
author would submit his or her own unique way of doing the Notes and Bibliography sections,
which were not in accordance with The Chicago Manual of Styles guidelines. Over the summer,
Lauren helped to create this document by pulling examples from The Chicago Manual of Style,
as well as the past issues for the journal, and cutting and pasting them into the Citation Style
Sheet. This document was actually intended for the authors, but for the purposes of this
project, we wanted to focus on one audience. Our audience for the style manual is the editors
who work on the journal, so we changed the text to cater it to the editors instead of the
authors.

Style Sheet
The journal already had a working style sheet, but we added a great deal more to it as each of
us went through our sections. As we went through our sections, we began to see how essential

a style sheet is. With three people working on different sections, we realized we could save
time later on by contributing to the style sheet early on in the editing process. We would e-mail
each other questions back and forth, and usually the questions dealt with a choice we needed
to make about a point in grammar or punctuation. We would then add the word, spelling, or
formatting preference to the style sheet.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to work on this project. We believe we have created a
very usable, consistent, and organized in-house style manual for the Literature and Medicine
Journal that our client, Dr. Anderson, will be pleased with.