JTS English Style and Writing References
This document started out as a list of references I could present to JTS’s customers to show them that the conventions we follow and recommend are not off the cuff or arbitrary, but grounded in accepted practice.
(New entries in navy blue. Updated: 4 September 2008).
Style Manuals
The Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition (2003; also visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.html)
F This is the grand-daddy of style manuals in the American publishing industry, and in general you can’t go wrong by following the conventions this book sets. An absolute must.
Merriam-Webster’s
Manual for Writers & Editors. Merriam Webster, Inc., 1998.
F This is a revised version of Webster’s Standard
American Style Manual (1985). It contains lots of
good advice and is a good complement to
Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Business Correspondence. Merriam Webster, Inc., 1985.
F This is an excellent reference for a variety of situations: It even points out differences is style required by specific types of document. In this sense, the title is almost a misnomer. This book also contains a lot of information on forms of address and the like, which can be very helpful if you find yourself translating correspondence. If you have limited financial resources at the moment, I recommend that you buy this reference first.
The Economist Style Guide. 1998; also visit http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/
F This is more of a fun read than a useful reference. It’s also good if you want to learn more about differences between BrE and AmE.
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (1999)
The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (2002)
The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Style and Usage (2002)
Good English Guides
Garner’s Modern
American Usage. Garner,
The Gregg
Reference Manual: A manual of style, grammar, usage, and formatting (10th ed.). Sabin,
William A. McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0-07-293653-7
The Business
Writer’s Handbook (7th ed.). Brusaw, C., Alred, G. & Oliu, W.
F Note that this book is republished almost
annually, so be sure to hunt down the latest edition.
Handbook of
Technical Writing (7th ed.). Brusaw, C., Alred, G. & Oliu, W.
F Note that this book is republished almost
annually, so be sure to hunt down the latest edition.
Strategic Writing—Multimedia writing for public relations,
advertising, sales and marketing, and business communication. Marsh, C., Guth, D.
and Short, B. Pearson, Allyn and Bacon, 2005. ISBN
0-205-40573-8
Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy. Usborne, Nick.
McGraw-Hill, 2002. ISBN 0-07-138039-6
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grammar and Style, Second Edition. Rozakis,
L. Alpha Books, 2003. ISBN 1-59257-115-8.
F Don’t be fooled by the title: this is a
serious book.
The Handbook of Good English. Johnson, 1991.
F My favorite for just reading about effective punctuation and the like.
Eats, Shoots
& Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Truss, Lynne, 2003.
F An
entertaining little book about a panda who reacts to misplaced commas by
shooting up cafés and leaving them in a huff.
Sin & Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose. Hale, 1999.
The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook. Barbara G. Ellis, 2001.
F Very helpful if you translate (or write) magazine articles, press releases, pamphlets, and other such documents where you want to hook browsers into reading something.
The Writer’s Handbook of Editing & Revision. Wilber, 1997.
Elements of Article Writing Series: Structure & Flow. Fryxell, 1996.
The
Older works
The
The ABC of Style: A Guide to Plain English. Flesch, Rudolf. 1964.
F So outdated and opinionated that it’s hackneyed, but many people consider it a classic.
Classical works
The Elements of Grammar (Shertzer)
The Elements of Style (White)
The
Design and typesetting
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers,
Editors, & Students. Lupton, Ellen.
Dictionaries (chiefly for spelling, hyphenation, and italicization of foreign words)
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary & Thesaurus, electronic edition of the Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition and Collegiate Thesaurus. Merriam-Webster, 2000.
F This is more-or-less an abridged version of American publishers’ standard spelling and hyphenation dictionary, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, which also is now available on CD-ROM. Even more convenient if you have a always-on internet connection is the Merriam-Webster Unabridged at the same URL.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition （アメリカン・ヘリテイジ英英辞典 第３版）. Houghton Mifflin Company (electronic version)
Dictionaries (current jargon)
Buzzwords: The Jargon of the 1990s
The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (humor, but nonetheless useful)
BusinessSpeak (Schaaf & Kaeter, 1993)
American Slang (Chapman, 1987)
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Allusions (Webber and Feinsilber, 1999)
American Slang, 2nd Edition: The Abridged Edition of the Dictionary of American Slang (Chapman and Kipfer, 1998)
NTC’s Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs and Other Idiomatic Verbal Phrases (Spears, 1993)
NTC’s American Idioms Dictionary (Spears, 2000)
現代英米情報辞典 (Kenkyusha’s Dictionary of Contemporary British & American Life and Culture) (飛田重雄, 2000)
Magazine subscriptions
The
Economist (business, economics, and political
weekly;
Scientific American
New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardianなど各紙の Web 版も必要に応じて参照する。
日本関係の英語基準
Japan Style Sheet: The SWET guide
for writers, editors and translators, Revised Edition. Society of Writers, Editors and Translators,
F If you do work that deals with
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japan (講談社, 1993; and electronic version, 1999)
対訳・日本辞典 (講談社)
A History of
A History of
The
The
Japan-Specific Economic Terms
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Japanese Economy, Second Edition. Hsu, Robert C. The MIT Press, 1999