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Grammar,
Punctuation, and Capitalization: A Handbook for Technical
Writers and Editors
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Index
- abbreviations,
- capitalization, 85, 86
periods after, 72
plural of,47
- acronyms,
- capitalization in definition of, 86
capitalization, 86
defined, 85
- active vs. passive voice, 10, 30, 97
- addresses,comma in, 59
- adjectives, 97
- articles, 13
between subject and verb, 32
comparative degree, 39, 40
misplaced, 32
modifying verbs, 16
placement of, 12, 32
superlative degree, 39, 40
- adverbs, 97
- misplaced, 16, 32
- position of, 16
squinting, 17
- and/or, verb number, 11
- antecedents, 97
- of demonstrative pronouns, 41
of relative pronouns, 5
- problems with, 3
- antithetical elements, comma with, 59
apostrophe,
- functions of, 47, 97
in contractions, 48
plurals, 47
rules for forming possessive case, 2
- appositional or, 58
- appositives, 97
- commas with, 58
dashes with, 61
nonrestrictive, 58
restrictive, 58
symbolic, 58
- argumentation, 8, 97
- articles, 97
- elliptical style, 13
omission of, 13
repeated with coordinate adjectives, 13
repeating, 43
- as... as, 42
- as follows, 49
- between... and, 63
- biological names,
- capitalization, 92
italicized, 69
- brackets, nonmathematical function of, 48, 97
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- brevity,
- achieving, 37
conciseness and, 35
emphasis and, 35
in titles, 37
- but, 52
- calendar divisions, capitalization, 91
- capitalization,
- abbreviations, 85, 86
acronyms, 86
administrative names, 90
after colon, 50, 82
after points of ellipsis, 83
biological names, 92
calendar divisions, 91
celestial bodies, 92
civil and professional titles, 88
computer programs, 93
displayed lists, 83
down style, 81
facilities, 91
figure captions, 84
figure labels, 84
fragment sentences, 82
geographic names and features, 89
geologic names, 92
headings, 84
headline style, 81, 98
historic events, 91
holidays, 91
hyphenated compound words, 84
in definition of acronyms, 86
infinitive to, 85
lists, 83
organization names, 90
personal names, 88
political divisions, 90
proper nouns and adjectives, 86
public places, 91
question within sentence, 74, 83
quotes, 82
races and tribes, 94
research missions and programs, 94
rules for headline style, 84
sentence in parentheses, 82
sentence style, 81, 100
structures and buildings, 91
table boxheads, 84
table entries, 84
table footnotes, 84
table headnotes, 84
table subtitles, 84
table titles, 84
time zones, 92
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- caplitalization (continued):
- titles, 93
trade names, 94
up style, 81
vehicles and craft, 94
- caps & lc, defined, 81, 97
- caps and small caps, defined, 81
- case, 97
- celestial bodies, captitalization, 92
- clauses, 97
- adverbial,
classified restrictive or
nonrestrictive, 57
comma with, 53, 57
colon between, 50
comma between, 52
coordinate, 33
dash,
between, 62
around, 61
dependent, 98
independent, 98
period after, 71
relative,
nonrestrictive, 5, 56
restrictive, 5
semicolon between, 20, 52, 77
semicolon vs. period vs. comma after,
78
- close style of punctuation, 47, 97
- collective subjects, 12, 97
- colon,
- after as follows, the following, 49
after complete sentences, 48, 50
after for example, that is, such as, 49
between clauses, 50
capitalization after, 50, 82
conventional uses of, 51
emphasis and, 45
functions of, 48, 97
introducing equations, 50
introducing numbered lists, 50
introducing quotes, 51
use with other marks, 51
- comma splice, 52
- comma,
- after introductory phrases and clauses,
53, 57
antithetical elements, 59
between compound predicates, 52
between coordinate adjectives, 45, 54
between independent clauses, 52
conventional uses of, 59
emphasis and, 45
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- comma (continued):
- functions of, 51, 97
in addresses, 59
in dates, 59
in elliptical constructions, 55
in geographic names, 59
in numbers, 60
in personal names, 60
in series, 53
use with other marks, 60
with internal phrases and clauses, 54
with nominative absolute, 59
with nonrestrictive modifiers, 54, 56, 57
with nonrestrictive relative clauses, 56
with phrases with common termination,
59
with questions, 55
with quotations, 55
with restrictive modifiers, 54, 56
with rhetorical adverbs, 58
- comparative degree of adjectives,
- in unit modifiers, 15
- comparative degree of modifiers, 39, 40, 97
- compare with, 41
- comparisons,
- ambiguous, 39, 40
incomplete, 7, 40
omission of standard of, 41
- compound nouns, hyphenation of, 66
- compound predicates, 97
- comma between, 52
- compound verbs, hyphenation of, 66
- compound words,
- capitalization, 84
hyphenation of, 66
prefixes applied to, 65
temporary and permanent, 65
- conciseness, 35
- conjunctions, 98
- coordinate, 19, 33
coordinating, 19, 98
correlative, 19, 98
subordinating, 19, 20, 100
- conjunctive adverbs, 20, 34, 78, 98
- coordinate adjectives,
- definition, 54, 98
emphasis, 45
tests to determine, 54
- coordinate conjunctions. See
conjunctions.
- correlative conjunctions. See
conjunctions.
- countries, capitalization, 89
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- craft, names of,
- capitalization, 94
italicized, 70
- dangling verbals. See gerunds,
infinitives,
or participles.
- dash. See also en dash.
- dash,
- around independent clause interrupting
another, 61
between clauses, 62
conventional uses of, 63
emphasis and, 45
functions of, 98
in displayed lists, 62
use with other marks, 63
with appositives, 61
with nonrestrictive modifiers, 61
- dates,
- comma in, 59
en dash between, 63
- demonstrative pronouns. See pronouns.
- description (element of discourse), 8, 98
- different, 42
- discourse, elements of, 8
- elliptical constructions,
- comma in, 55
semicolon in, 79
- em dash. See dash.
- emphasis,
- brevity and, 35
colon and, 45, 49, 50
comma and, 45, 55
dash and, 45, 61, 62
dash vs. semicolon, 62
italics for, 43, 67
lists, 44
on action, 29, 31
parallelism and, 43
parentheses and, 61
positions of, 44, 62
sentence inversion, 32
- en dash,
- between dates, 63
between numbers, 63
functions of, 98
in unit modifiers, 63
- enumerations. See lists.
- equations,
- capitalization of words in, 84
colon to introduce, 50
- exposition, 8, 98
- figure captions,
- capitalization, 84
period after, 72
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- figure labels, capitalization, 84
- first person pronouns, 4, 29
- for, 52
- for example, 49, 62, 79
- foreign words, italicized, 69
- formal writing,
- colon and, 50
contractions in, 48
dash and, 62
points of ellipsis, 73
semicolon in, 78
- fragment sentences, capitalization, 82
- from...to, 63
- full caps, defined, 81, 98
- geographic features, captalization, 89
- geographic names,
- capitalization, 89
comma in, 59
- geologic names, capitalization, 92
- gerunds,
- and active writing, 31
as subjects, 22
dangling, 23, 26
defined, 22, 98
- grammar,
- defined, 98
functional concept of, 1
- headings, capitalization, 84
- headline style capitalization. See
capitalization.
- hedges, 30, 36
- homographs, hyphenating to avoid, 65
- hyphen,
- functions of, 64, 98
with prefixes, 64
with suffixes, 65
- hyphenation,
- end of line, 64
of compound words, 65
of unit modifiers, 14, 66
- idiom,
- absolute participles, 24
gerund, 22
infinitive, 22
prepositional, 18
- imperative mood, 98
- indicative mood, 98
- indirect constructions, 28
- indirect quotation, 51
- infinitive to, capitalization, 85
- infinitives,
- and active writing, 31
dangling, 23, 26
defined, 22, 99
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- infinitives (continued):
- split, 17
- introductory phrases and clauses, 53, 57
- it, 28, 36
- italics,
- conventional uses of, 69
for differentiation of words, 68
for emphasis, 67
for special terminology, 68
for symbols, 69
functions of, 67
with punctuation, 70
with typefaces other than roman, 70
- jargon, quotation marks around, 76
- lists,
- displayed,
capitalization, 83
dash in, 62
introduced by colon, 50
period in, 71
emphasis, 44
numbered,
capitalization, 83
colon to introduce, 49
parentheses in, 70
parallelism, 34
- misplaced modifiers, 16, 32, 44
- namely, 62, 79
- narration, 8, 99
- nominative absolute, 99
- comma with, 59
confused with participle, 25
- nonrestrictive,
- appositives, 58
clauses,
adverbial, 57
relative, 5, 56
modifiers,
comma with, 54
commas around, 56
dashes with, 61
definition, 56, 99
phrases,
comma with, 56
- nouns, 99
- cases, 1
common, 97
nominative case, 99
objective case, 99
possessive case, 2, 99
proper, 100
capitalization, 86
common noun in, 87
derivatives of, 87
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- nouns (continued):
- proper (continued):
plural in, 87
possessive, 2
the in, 88
verb-derived, 28, 29
- numbered lists. See lists.
- numbers,
- comma in, 60
en dash between, 63
plural of, 47
space to replace comma in, 60
- only, 16
- open style of punctuation, 47, 51, 99
- or, appositional, 58
- parallelism, 99
- emphasis and, 43
when to use, 33
with conjunctive adverbs, 19, 34
with coordinate conjunctions, 19, 33
with correlative conjunctions, 19
with lists, 34
- parentheses,
- functions of, 70, 99
use with other marks, 71
- participles,
- absolute,
idiomatic, 24
nonidiomatic, 24
and active writing, 31
dangling, 23, 25, 26
defined, 22, 99
- pathetic fallacy, 31
- period,
- after abbreviations, 72
after figure captions, 72
conventional uses of, 72
functions of, 71, 99
in displayed lists, 71
use with other marks, 73
- personal names,
- capitalization, 88
comma in, 60
- personification, 31
- phrases,
- adverbial, comma with, 53
with common termination, commas
with, 59
- points of ellipsis,
- capitalization after, 83
functions of, 99
in quotes, 73
use with other marks, 73, 74
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- possessive,
- of inanimate nouns, 2
of pronouns, 3
of proper nouns, 2
rules for forming, 2
- prefixes,
- applied to compound words, 65
hyphens with, 64
- prepositions, 100
- idiom, 18
repeating, 18,22, 43
terminal, 18
- pronouns, 100
- antecedents, 3, 5, 41
demonstrative, 98
broad reference, 7, 29, 97
incomplete comparison, 7, 40
first person, 4, 29
personal, 99
possessive, 3
relative, 100
antecedents, 5
which vs. that, 5
who vs.whom, 6
third person, gender of, 4
- proper nouns. See nouns.
- punctuation,
- close style, 47
functional concept of, 47
open style, 47, 51
- question mark,
- after direct questions, 74
functions of, 74, 100
use with other marks, 75
- questions,
- comma with, 55
direct, question mark after, 74
indirect, 74, 83, 99
within sentence, capitalization, 74, 83
- quotation marks,
- around quotes, 75
around titles, 77
double vs. single, 75
for differentiation, 76
functions of, 75, 100
use with other marks, 77
with slang and jargon, 76
- quotes,
- capitalization, 82
colon to introduce, 51
comma with, 55
direct, 98
editorial insertions in, 48
indirect, 99
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- quotes (continued):
- points of ellipsis in, 73
quotation marks, 75
- reference citations, editorial insertions in,
48
- relative clauses. See clauses.
- relative pronouns. See pronouns.
- restrictive,
- appositives, 58
clauses,
adverbial, 57
relative, 5
modifiers, 45, 54, 100
phrases, internal, 56
- rhetorical adverbs,
- comma with, 44, 58
- semicolon,
- before conjunctive adverbs, 78
between clauses, 52, 77
functions of, 77, 100
in elliptical constructions, 79
in series, 78
use with other marks, 79
vs. comma or period, 78
- sentence style capitalization. See
capitalization.
- sequence of tenses, 9
- serial comma, comma misread as, 61
- series. See also lists.
- series,
- commas in, 53
semicolon in, 78
- sexist language, 4
- since, 20
- slang, quotation marks around, 76
- slash, correct uses for, 80, 100
- solidus. See slash.
- split infinitives, 17
- subjects, 100
- collective, 12
relationship with verbs, 31
strong, 27
verb-derived, 28, 29
- subjunctive mood, 10, 100
- subordinating conjunctions. See
conjuctions.
- such as, 49
- suffixes, hyphen with, 65
- superlative degree of adjectives,
- in unit modifiers, 15
- superlative degree of modifiers, 39, 40, 100
- symbolic appositives, 58
- symbols,
- italics for, 69
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- symbols (continued):
- plural of, 47
- tables,
- capitalization of boxheads, entries,
footnotes, etc., 84
capitalization of titles, 84
- that,
- incorrectly repeated, 22
omission of, 6, 21
- that is, 49, 62, 79
- the..., the, 43
- the following:, 49
- there, 28, 35
- titles,
- capitalization, 93
concise, 37
italicized, 69
quotation marks around, 77
- trade names, capitalization, 94
- unit modifiers, 100
- en dash in, 63
hyphenation of, 14, 66
slash in, 80
- verbals, 100
- verbs, 100
- active voice, 27, 97
auxiliary,
defined, 97
omitted, 12
between subject and adjective, 32
linking, 27, 31
mood, 9, 99
number,
collective subjects, 12
gerund subjects, 22
subjects joined by coordinate
conjunctions, 11
subjects with intervening phrases, 11
subjects with irregular singular or
plural forms, 11
passive voice, 27, 99
relationship with subjects, 31
sequence of tenses, 9
tense, 8, 100
elements of discourse and, 8
in sections of report, 8
voice, 10, 30, 100
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virgule. See slash.
where, 21
whereas, 21
whether, 21
which vs. that, 5
while, 20, 21
word division, rules for, 64
wordiness, 35
words, plural of, 47
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