Style Sheet Practice Harper’s Magazine

March 2014 “What is Literature?” by Arthur Krystal

Prepared for Diane Galbo Prepared by Veronica Nargi, 18 March 2014

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Example Key The examples in this style sheet are represented by a set of numbers in the parenthesis. These correspond to the page number, the column, and the paragraph. cartoons (1.1.1) This means that the word “cartoons” can be found on the first page, in the first column, and in the first paragraph.

References The Chicago Manual of Style Merriam Webster’s Dictionary

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Table of Contents

Capitalization

Personal Names. ....................................................................................................................................... 5

Treatment of Book and Periodical Titles. .................................................................................................. 5

Ethnic and national groups and associated adjectives. ............................................................................ 5

Institutions and companies. ...................................................................................................................... 5

Numerical designations for periods. ......................................................................................................... 5

Continents, countries, cities, oceans, and such. ....................................................................................... 5

Names of awards and prizes. .................................................................................................................... 6

Traditional period names. ......................................................................................................................... 6

Days of the Week, Months, and Seasons.................................................................................................. 6

Initial Capital or Lowercase—Run-In Quotations...................................................................................... 6

Numbers

Chicago’s General Rule—Zero through One Hundred. ............................................................................. 6

Decades. .................................................................................................................................................... 7

The Year Alone. ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Month and day. ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Centuries. .................................................................................................................................................. 7

Punctuation

Using the En Dash Including Numbers. ..................................................................................................... 7

Comma Preceding Main Clause. ............................................................................................................... 7

Commas with However, Therefore, Indeed, and So Forth. ...................................................................... 7

Commas with Independent Clauses Joined by Conjunctions. .................................................................. 8

Commas with Introductory Adverbial Phrases. ........................................................................................ 8

Commas with Parenthetical Elements. ..................................................................................................... 8

Em Dashes instead of Commas, Parentheses, or Colons .......................................................................... 8

Scare Quotes. ............................................................................................................................................ 8

Serial Commas........................................................................................................................................... 8

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Use of Parentheses. .................................................................................................................................. 9

Use of the Colon. ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Use of the Semicolon. ............................................................................................................................... 9

Use of Ellipsis. ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Use of Brackets. ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Compounds and Spelling

Compound Hyphenation. ........................................................................................................................ 10

Multiple Hyphens. ................................................................................................................................... 10

Possessive of Proper Nouns. ................................................................................................................... 10

Hyphenation Guide for Compounds and Words Formed with Prefixes. ................................................ 10

Style

Italics and Parentheses for Foreign Words and Phrases......................................................................... 12

Cases or court decisions—basic elements. ............................................................................................. 12

Titles of Movies and Television and Radio Programs and Series. ........................................................... 12

Capitals for Emphasis. ............................................................................................................................. 12

Author Biography. ................................................................................................................................... 12

Choosing between Run-In and Block Quotations. .................................................................................. 12

Contractions. ........................................................................................................................................... 13

Decorative Initials (“drop caps” and raised initials). ............................................................................... 13

Footnotes. ............................................................................................................................................... 13

Inconsistencies

Commas with Dates. ............................................................................................................................... 14

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CAPITALIZATION

Personal Names. Names and initials of persons, real or fictitious, are capitalized. A space should be used between any initials except when initials are used alone.

Adjectives or nouns associated with the names are also capitalized Bob Dylan (1.2.1) Christopher Ricks (1.3.1) Chaucer (2.1.1) Marxists (2.2.3) Elizabethan drama (4.1.1)

Treatment of Book and Periodical Titles. When mentioned in text, notes, or bibliography. the titles and subtitles of books and periodicals are italicized and

capitalized headline-style.

A New Literary History of America (1.1.1) The Making of the English Literary Canon (1.3.3) How to Read a Book (3.2.2)

Ethnic and national groups and associated adjectives. Names of ethnic and national groups are capitalized. Adjectives associated with the names are also

capitalized.

Greek and Latin poets (2.1.1) Dutch classicist (2.1.2) English literature (2.1.1)

Institutions and companies. The full names of institutions, groups, and companies and the names of their departments, and often shortened forms of such names, are

capitalized.

P. F. Collier & Son (3.1.3) University of Chicago (3.2.1)

Numerical designations for periods. A numerical designation of a period is lowercased unless it is a part of a proper name.

eighteenth century (1.3.2)

Continents, countries, cities, oceans, and such. Entities that appear on maps are always capitalized, as are adjectives and nouns derived from them. AN initial the as

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part of a name is lowercased in running text, except in the rare case of an initial

the in the name of a city. England (2.2.2) France (2.2.2)

Names of awards and prizes. Names of awards and prizes are capitalized, but some generic terms used with the names are lowercased.

Nobel Prize in Literature (1.3.1)

Traditional period names. Some names of periods are capitalized either by tradition or to avoid ambiguity.

the canon of Great Books (2.2.3)

Days of the Week, Months, and Seasons. Names of days and months are capitalized. The four seasons are lowercased (except when used to denote an issue of a journal.

February (2.1.1)

Initial Capital or Lowercase—Run-In Quotations. When a quotation introduced midsentence forms a syntactical part of the sentence, it begins with a lowercase

letter even if the original capitalization begins with a capital. When the quotation

has a more remote syntactic relation to the rest of the sentence, the initial letter

remains capitalized. questioning whether “something called literature actually exists,” (4.1.3)

NUMBERS

Chicago’s General Rule—Zero through One Hundred. In nontechnical contexts, Chicago advises spelling out whole numbers from zero through one hundred and certain

round multiples of those numbers. (But see section on inconsistencies.)

137 authors (4.1.1) 350,000 sets (3.1.3) two centuries (2.2.3) fifty-two of them (2.2.1) age of ninety-eight (4.1.1)

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Decades. Decades are either spelled out (as long as the century is clear) and lowercased or expressed in numerals. Chicago calls for no apostrophe to appear

between the year and the s.

1970s and 1980s (2.2.3) 1800s (3.1.2)

The Year Alone. Years are expressed in numerals unless they stand at the beginning of a sentence, in which case rewording may be a better option.

2004 (1.2.1) 1595 (2.1.3) 1909 (3.1.3)

Month and day. When specific dates are expressed, cardinal numbers are used, although these may be pronounced as ordinals.

February 22, 1774 (2.1.1)

Centuries. Particular centuries are spelled out and lowercased. eighteenth century (1.3.2) 1800s (3.1.2)

PUNCTUATION

Using the En Dash Including Numbers. An en dash used between two numbers implies up to including, or through.

1830-52 (3.1.2)

Comma Preceding Main Clause. A dependent clause that precedes a main clause should be followed by a comma.

Although exclusionary by nature, it was originally intended to impart a sense of unity (2.2.2)

Commas with However, Therefore, Indeed, and So Forth. Commas—sometimes paired with semicolons—are traditionally used to set off adverbs such as however, therefore,

and indeed. When the adverb is essential to the meaning of the clause, or if no pause

is intended or desired, commas are not needed.

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More than anyone else, however, it was Erskine's student (3.2.2)

Commas with Independent Clauses Joined by Conjunctions. When independent clauses are joined by and, but, or, so, yet, or any other conjunction, a comma

usually precedes the conjunction. If the clauses are very short and closely connected,

the comma may be omitted unless the clauses are part of a series.

there is nothing verbally peculiar to a literary work, and no single feature is shared by all literary theories. (4.1.3) titles that Adler must have bristled at, including those by women and minority writers (4.1.1)

Commas with Introductory Adverbial Phrases. An introductory adverbial phrase is often set off by a comma but need not be unless misreading is unlikely.

Apparently, “literary means not only...” (1.1.1) In time, the canon, formerly the province of reviews and magazines (3.1.3) By the early 1800s, according to Thomas Bonnell (3.1.2)

Commas with Parenthetical Elements. If only a slight break is intended, commas should be used to set off a parenthetical element inserted into a sentence as an

explanation or comment.

to differentiate genuine, or canonical, books of the Bible (2.1.2) The shelf, as it turned out, held exactly fifty-one books (3.1.3)

Em Dashes instead of Commas, Parentheses, or Colons. The em dash, often simply called the dash, is the most commonly used and most versatile of the dashes.

Em dashes are used to set off an amplifying or explanatory element and in that sense

can function as an alternative to parentheses, commas, or a colon—especially when an

abrupt break in thought is called for.

Because a canon of vastly superior ancient writers—Homer, Virgil, Cicero—already existed (2.1.1) the postmodernists were against—well, essentialism (2.2.3) our definition of it has changed—as has our definition of literature (4.3.2)

Scare Quotes. Quotation marks are often used to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard (or slang), ironic, or other special sense. Nicknamed scare quotes,

they imply, “This is not my term,” or “This is not how the term is usually

applied.”

now issuing a series of “modern classics” (4.2.2) they occasioned “great movies” or constitute “pure classic escapism” (4.2.2)

Serial Commas. Items in a series are normally separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series of three or more, a comma—known

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as the serial or series comma or the Oxford comma—should appear before the

conjunction.

maps, sermons, comic strips, cartoons, speeches, photographs, movies, war memorials, and music (1.1.1) the joy of love, the sorrow of death, the pain of duty, the horror of war, and the recognition of self and soul (2.3.2)

Use of Parentheses. Parentheses—stronger than a comma and similar to the dash—are used to set off material from the surrounding text. Like dashes but unlike commas,

parentheses can set off text that has no grammatical relationship to the rest of the

sentence.

(all of it “over most people’s heads”) (3.2.2) (including Newton, Poincaré, and Einstein) (4.1.1)

Use of the Colon. A colon introduces an element or a series of elements illustrating or amplifying what has preceded the colon.

The implication could not be plainer: If books simply reinforced the cultural values (2.2.3) its contents were an expression of the human condition: the joy of love, the sorrow of death, the pain of sorrow (2.3.2)

Use of the Semicolon. In regular prose, a semicolon is most commonly used between two independent clauses not joined by a conjunction to signal a closer connection

between them than a period would.

appealed on some primitive storytelling level; they expressed our need for myth and archetype (4.1.2) Dryden not only made Chaucer’s work a classic; he helped canonize English literature itself. (2.1.1) it was originally intended to impart a sense of unity; critics hoped that a tradition of great writers would create a national literature. (2.2.2)

Use of Ellipsis. Three dots are used at the end of a quoted sentence that is deliberately left grammatically incomplete.

“not every bold ballader… may pass current with a Poet’s name.” (2.1.3) “almost all critical judgement… is in the main built on prejudice” (4.2.3)

Use of Brackets. In quoting verbatim, writers need to integrate tenses and pronouns into the new context. Occasional adjustments to the original may be bracketed. This

device should be used sparingly, however.

“Take the course to canonize [their] owne writers…” (2.1.3)

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COMPOUNDS & SPELLING

Compound Hyphenation. Far and away the most common spelling questions for writers and editors concern compound terms—whether to spell as two words, hyphenate,

or close up as a single word. Prefixes (and occasionally suffixes) can be troublesome

also. The first place to look for answers is the dictionary.

theory-happy (2.2.3) fine-tuned (2.2.1) small-minded (3.1.2) deep-seated (4.2.3) copyrights (3.1.1) booksellers (3.1.1)

Multiple Hyphens. Multiple hyphens are usually appropriate for such phrases as an over-the-counter drug or a winner-take-all contest.

a song-and-dance man (1.2.1) fifty-four-volume series (3.2.2)

Possessive of Proper Nouns. The general rule extends to proper nouns, including names ending in s, x, or z, in both their singular and plural forms.

Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge (4.2.2) Joseph Spence’s plan for a dictionary of British poets (2.1.3)

Hyphenation Guide for Compounds and Words Formed with Prefixes. Ingeneral, Chicago prefers a spare hyphenation style: if no suitable example or analogy can be

found either in this section or in the dictionary, hyphenate only if doing so will

aid readability.

Adverbs ending in “ly.” Compounds formed by an adverb ending in ly plus an

adjective or participle (such as largely irrelevant or smartly dressed, are not

hyphenated either before or after a noun, since ambiguity is virtually impossible. officially (1.1.1) originally (2.2.2) vastly superior (2.1.1)

Number + Noun seventeenth-century authors (2.1.1) nineteenth-century novels (4.1.1) fifty-four-volume series (3.2.2) five-foot shelf (3.1.3)

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Numbers Spelled Out fifty-one books (3.1.3) fifteen minutes a day (3.1.3)

Adjective + Noun

highbrow (4.2.2) deep-seated (4.2.3) short stories (4.1.1) creative work (1.3.2) middle class (2.3.3) modern canon (2.1.1) best-selling (3.2.2)

Adverb ending in ly + participle or adjective not necessarily seeing (2.2.3) simply reinforced (2.2.3) amply documented (2.3.4)

Adverb not ending in ly + participle or gerund alongside essays (1.1.1)

Gerund + noun cutting-edge (2.1.1) circulating libraries (2.3.3)

Noun + adjective theory-happy (2.2.3)

Noun + gerund storytelling (4.1.2) brainwashed (4.1.2) shoehorned (4.2.2)

Noun + Noun, single function (first noun modifies the second noun) comic strips (1.1.1) war memorials (1.1.1) canon formation (3.1.2) gatekeepers (3.1.3) science fiction (4.1.1) coffee shops (2.3.3)

Phrases, noun

eye to eye (2.2.3) in point of fact (1.3.1) song-and-dance (1.2.1)

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STYLE

Italics and Parentheses for Foreign Words and Phrases. Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar

to readers. A translation following a foreign word, phrase, or title is enclosed in

parentheses.

la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (2.1.1) li(t)teratura (1.3.2)

Cases or court decisions—basic elements. Case names, including the abbreviation v., are set roman in notes; short forms in subsequent citations are italicized. Donaldson v. Beckett (2.1.1)

Titles of Movies and Television and Radio Programs and Series. Titles of movies and television and radio programs and series are italicized. Charles Willeford’s Miami Blues and Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch (4.2.2)

Capitals for Emphasis. Capitalizing an entire word or phrase for emphasis is rarely appropriate. If capitals are wanted—in dialogue or in representing newspaper

headlines, for example—small caps rather than full capitals look more graceful.

WHAT IS LITERATURE? In defense of the canon

By Arthur Krystal

In this article, the title is completely capitalized whereas the first letter of each

consecutive line is capitalized. The author’s name is italicized.

Author Biography. An author biography is included as a footnote in the bottom left hand corner after the first column on the title page. The biography is set in italics.

Choosing between Run-In and Block Quotations. In deciding whether to run in or set off a quotation, length is usually the deciding factor. In general, a short

quotation, especially one that is not a full sentence, should be run in. Harper’s

Magazine follows this practice in its articles.

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The adept critic Desmond MacCarthy once observed that

one cannot get away from one’s tem- perament any more than one can jump away from one’s shadow, but one can discount the emphasis which it produces. I snub my own temperament when I think it is not leading me straight to the spot where (4.2.3)

Contractions. Most types of writing benefit from the use of contractions. If used thoughtfully, contractions in prose sound natural and relaxed and make reading more

enjoyable. Harper’s Magazine allows the use of contractions.

wasn’t a novelist (1.2.1) it’s pretty to think (2.3.3)

Running header include:

1. On recto on the title page [journal section]

Running feet include:

1. On verso: [page number] [journal title in small caps] [forward slash] [month]

[year]

2. On recto: [journal section in small caps] [page number]

3. If a picture appears on the page in question, a citation set in italics appears on

the side of the page

opposite the running foot.

recto: “Two Tall Books,” by Abelardo Morell. Courtesy the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York City

Decorative Initials (“drop caps” and raised initials). When the first word of a chapter or section opens with a large raised or dropped initial letter, and the

first of the chapter or section of a run-in quotation, the opening quotation mark

is often omitted.

n time, the canon, formerly the province of reviews and magazines, was annexed by institutions of high-

er learning, which cultivated emi-

Footnotes. Footnotes are placed at the bottom of each column in which they are referenced.

I

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INCONSISTENCIES

Commas with Dates. In the month-day-year style of dates, commas must be used to set off the year. Where a month and year only are given, or a specific day (such as a

holiday) or season with a year, no comma is used. Harper’s Magazine deviates from

this rule in one instance:

February 22, 1774 (2.1.1)