A style sheet's purpose is to give the copyeditor information on unique features of a book's manuscript.

In part one of our article on this topic we covered problems in editing a book without a style sheet and how to prepare a style sheet. We specifically addressed how abbreviations and numbers and dates sections are applied. We will now continue in this article with the remaining sections of a style sheet.

Punctuation:

What unusual punctuation does the author use and what does the editor think should be done about it? For example, does the editor prefer that the copyeditor delete the author's frequent commas when unnecessary, or that the copyeditor allow the author to use interrobangs (?!)?

Sample style sheet comments:

"The author used a lot of hyphens when she meant to use an em dash. I think I found and fixed all of these, but keep your eyes open for them, just in case I missed one."

"The author is enthusiastic, and in order to keep the manuscript true to her voice, I allowed her to use three exclamation points (!!!) in a row when she was really excited about something. So, please don't delete the two extra exclamation points."

Capitalization, Hyphenation, Spelling, and Italics

What specialized vocabulary does the manuscript use, and what should the copyeditor do with it? For example, in one manuscript on foreign politics I copyedited, the names of political parties were sometimes capitalized and sometimes not; sometimes, because I was not familiar with the politics of that nation, I didn't know if a word was the name of a political party or not. The editor could have helped me out immensely in that case. Was isolationist just an adjective, or the name of the Isolationist Party?

Preferred spellings: For example, Merriam-Webster prefers the spellings OK and good-bye, but I have copyedited books whose authors preferred the spellings okay and goodbye.

Does the author prefer to italicize all foreign words or italicize only the first usage of a foreign word that is used multiple times? This depends on the category of literature the manuscript falls into, as well as on how many foreign words occur.

Sample style sheet comments:

"German nouns are capitalized, e.g., Gesellschaft. I think I have remembered to capitalize all the nouns, but if you see one you think should be capitalized, please mark it with a comment. Also, all the German words should be italicized, regardless of how many times they occur."

"There are two characters with hyphenated names: Ely Ran-to-the-River and Karen Smith-Johnson. In the narrative, the author calls Ely by his last name, which should be written out: 'Ran-to-the-River telephoned his sister.' But the author most often calls Karen by her first name."

"The author prefers to use Qur'an rather than Koran."�

Of course, no standard style sheet could possibly cover every contingency. Here are some other issues an editor might consider including in a style sheet:

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