Mar 1, 2021
Shift Happens: Style guide
(Work very much in progress)
Style
article titles in italics, using sentence case (sic!)
book titles in italics, using sentence case (sic!)
videogame or TV show titles — as above
key labels (inside [[]]) use title cap
Titles of people: follow CMOS: title is capitalized before a name, as “President George W. Bush,” but otherwise not capitalized: “George W. Bush was sworn in as president,” “The president stated…”
Names of people: Default to last name for repeated reference
magazine titles (Wired, Byte, The Atlantic) not italicized, not quoted: lowercase “the” for titles in most publications
Latin words that are part of English (de facto, sui generis, etc.) should be in regular type. Italicize words or phrases that are not common in English and need more explanation
italicize words in other languages if they are inside a sentence (rather than something to draw attention to), e.g. kanji or hanzi unless the word or phrase (like “en masse”) is a borrowed part of English
Italicize words that are translations into English from other languages
Italicize digits if the number if a “noun” rather than “adjective” — e.g. the calculator chapter
after colon — capitalize first letter if a proper sentence, don’t capitalize if not
yes Oxford commas!
refer to people by their last name with the optional honorific, e.g. “prof. Rempel”
image captions — full stop at the end of proper sentence only
keys held together (keyboard shortcuts) to use a plus, so [Ctrl]+[A], with no spaces around the plus
Are all footnotes complete sentences? Yes. Full stop at the end.
Image captions don’t have to be complete sentences they don’t have a full stop
Adverbs don’t take a hyphen in a phrase: “A badly designed machine”
A person’s initials: Use a full space in manuscript, as the typesetting algorithm will reduce inter-initial spacing (as in J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis)
Name formatting: Junior, senior, numbers:
- John Cadwell III (no comma)
- Felicity Gates Sr. (no comma, abbreviated, capital)
Company names: singular nouns (“Smith-Corona ate many bananas; it got very sick.”)
Put a space after an ellipsis! So, live long… an prosper rather than live long…and prosper
A comma or a full stop or a semicolon after italics is also italicized
States: spell out in full
Quotations
Use […] for omissions in quotes
Call out errors in quote text as [sic]
first level of quotation: “double smart quotes”
second level of quotation: “use «guillemets» inside double smart quotes”
commas and full stops inside smart quotes, and so on
Words
A person “types”, but a typewriter “writes” (a typewriter cannot “type” since typing is the human act of using fingers to press keys).
Dates
Avoid (1984) in image captions, but use “, 1984” — or if not possible, standardize on the former
Precise dates as “21 January 2014”
Format month and date as “January 2014” not “January of 2014”
Numbers
Spell out numbers that start sentences: Rework if it’s an awkward start, like “Eighteen thirty-six”
Spell out numbers from 1–100 and others that are easily expressed in words (e.g. two hundred but 250, eighteen hundred but 1,823.)
Currency: Write out currency in numerals (don’t spell out, even for single-digit numbers) and concisely. “Five million dollars” should be written $5 million. Same with, say, £10,000 or €50 billion.
Use vulgar fractions rather than .25 or .5
Units:
8am, 5pm, and so on — no dots, no space
50wpm (words per minute) — no dots, no space
30apm (actions per minute) — no dots, no space
Spelling:
1970s, not 1970’s
5" drive rather than 5-inch drive
aesthetically vs. esthetically
after-market vs. aftermarket
a.k.a.
alphabetical not alphabetic
AppleWriter not Apple Writer
ARPANET not Arpanet (will use small caps)
banks when talking about keyboard rows
Baudôt and not Baudot
black-and-white vs. black and white when an adjective (and so on)
Black people, not black people
braille rather than Braille when talking about the concept (adjective)
Cerebral Palsy (capitalized)
Chiclet, not chiclet
comptometer if a generic reference, Comptometer if the specific machine
Displaywriter, not DisplayWriter
emoji, not Emoji
emoji (plural), not emojis
fianceé, not fiancé
Fitts’s Law, and generally this way to construct a possessive out of a name ending with “s”
floor, not storey
Hall effect
Hall-effect switch
harken vs. hark (or hearken)
inputted vs. input
(the) internet rather than Internet
Keyboardio, not keyboard.io
keycap, not key cap
keylogging, not key logging
key punch, not keypunch
keystrokes vs. key strokes
key switch, not keyswitch
Key Tronic and not KeyTronic
L.C. Smith rather than LC Smith
µTRON not Microtron
mass-produced, not mass produced
Ming Kwai, not MingKwai
monospace not monospaced
mother of all demos (don’t capitalize)
motor memory rather than muscle memory (after and before talking about it)
multi-shift (don’t make Shift a key style)
№: use rather than No., and no space between that and a number (e.g. №2)
passersby, not passers-by
predefined, not pre-defined
punch cards not punched cards (and always as two words, not punchcard)
QWERTY not Qwerty (will use small caps)
re-create vs recreate
retype vs. re-type
sci-fi — do not italicize
Smith-Corona rather than Smith Corona
spacebar, not space bar
space-cadet keyboard rather than Space Cadet keyboard
Speak & Spell
Stockholm syndrome
thumb shift, not thumb
TRON
typebar and not type bar
U.K.
UNIVAC not Univac (will use small caps)
U.S. rather than US (will use small caps?)
USA — avoid
VariTyper not Vari-Typer or Varityper
videogame and not video game
Website not site
western rather than Western
wi-fi in the generic style
world fairs rather than world’s fairs or World’s Fairs when talking about a generic concept
The World Wide Web
World War I / WWI — use either depending on context
World War II / WWII — see above
ZX80, not ZX-80
ZX81, not ZX-81
ZX Spectrum
Articles
I’m generally struggling with these as my native tongue doesn’t have articles. I think all of the above need a definite article:
Selectric or the Selectric
Model M or the Model M
Shift Wars or the Shift Wars
the internet
