80a. Titles. Center a title on the page. Capitalize important words. It is unnecessary to place a period after a title, but a question mark or exclamation point should be used when one is appropriate. Do not underscore the title, or unnecessarily place it in quotation marks. Leave a blank line under the title, before beginning the body of the writing.

b. Spacing. Careful spacing is as necessary as punctuation. Place writing on a page as you would frame a picture, crowding it toward neither the top nor the bottom. Leave liberal margins. Write verse as verse; do not give it equal indention or length of line with prose. Connect all the letters of a word. Leave a space after a word, and a double space after a sentence. Leave room between successive lines, and do not let the loops of letters run into the lines above or below.

c. Handwriting. Write a clear, legible hand. Form a, o, u, n, e, i, properly. Write out and horizontally. Avoid unnecessary flourishes in capitals, and curlicues at the end of words. Dot your i's and cross your t's; not with circles or long eccentric strokes, but simply and accurately. Let your originality express itself not in ornate penmanship, or unusual stationery, or literary affectations, but in the force and keenness of your ideas.

Capitals

81a. Begin with a capital a sentence, a line of poetry, or a quoted sentence. But if only a fragment of a sentence is quoted, the capital should be omitted.

• Right: He said, "The time has come."
• Right: The question is, Shall the bill pass?
• Right: They said they would "not take no for an answer."
• Right:
  "The good die first,
  And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
  Burn to the socket."—Wordsworth.
  

b. Begin proper names, and all important words used as or in proper names, with capitals. Words not so used should not begin with capitals.

• Right: Mr. George K. Rogers, the Principal of the Urbana High School, a college president, the President of the Senior Class, a senior, the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, three battalions of infantry, the Fourth of July, on the tenth of June, the House of Representatives, an assembly of delegates, a Presbyterian church, the separation of church and state, the Baptist Church, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a creek known as Black Oak Creek, the Republican Party, a party that advocates high tariff, Rocky Mountains, The Bible, God, The Christian Era, Wednesday, in the summer, living in the South, turning south after taking a few steps to the east, one morning, O dark-haired Evening! italic type, watt, pasteurize, herculean effort.

c. Begin an adjective which designates a language or a race with a capital.

• Right: A Norwegian peasant, Indian arrowheads, English literature, the study of French.

d. In the titles of books or themes capitalize the first word and all other important words. Prepositions, conjunctions, and articles are usually not important.

• Right: The English Novel in the Time of Scott, War and Peace, Travels with a Donkey, When I Slept under the Stars.

e. Miscellaneous uses. Capitalize the pronoun I, the interjection O, titles that accompany a name, and abbreviations of proper names.

• Right: Battery F, 150 F.A.; Mobile, Ala.; Dr. Stebbins.

Exercise:

1. the teacher said, "let me read you a famous soliloquy." he began: "to be, or not to be: that is the question."
2. the chinese laundry man does not write out his lists in english.
3. the la fayette tribune says that a Principal of a School has been elected to congress.
4. mr. woodson, the lecturer, said that "the title of a book may be a poem." he mentioned christmas eve on lonesome by john fox, jr.
5. i like architecture. as i approached the british museum, i noticed the ionic colonnade that runs along the front. the first room i visited was the one filled with marbles which lord elgin brought from the parthenon at athens.

Italics

82a. Quoted titles of books, periodicals, and manuscripts are usually italicized.

• Right: I admire Shakespeare's Hamlet. [The italics make the reader know that the writer means, Hamlet the play, not Hamlet the man.]
• Right: John Galsworthy's novel, The Patrician, appeared in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly.

Note 1.—When the title of a book begins with an article (a, an, or the), the article is italicized. But the before the title of a periodical is usually not italicized.Note 2.—It is correct, but not the best practice, to indicate the titles of books by quotation marks. The best method is to use italics for the title of a book, and quotation marks for chapters or subdivisions of the same book. Example: See Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. II, p. 427, "Modern Architecture".

b. Words from a foreign language, unless they have been anglicized by frequent use, are italicized.

• Right: A great noise announced the coming of the enfant terrible.
• Right: A play always begins in medias res.

c. The names of ships are usually italicized.

• Right: The Saxonia will sail at four o'clock.

d. Words taken out of their context and made the subject of discussion are italicized or placed in quotation marks.

• Right: So is a word faded and colorless from constant use.
• Right: The t in the word often is not pronounced.

e. A word or passage requiring great emphasis is italicized. This device should not be used to excess. The proper way to secure emphasis is to have good ideas, and to use emphatic sentence structure in expressing them.

Exercise:

1. In Vanity Fair Thackeray heads one chapter How to Live Well on Nothing a Year.
2. Auf wiedersehen was his parting word. He had informed me, sub rosa of course, that he was going to Bremen.
3. The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac revolutionized naval warfare. How far back it seems to the days when Decatur set fire to the old Philadelphia!
4. Her They say's are as plenteous as rabbits in Australia.
5. A writer in the Century Magazine says the public may know better than an author what the title of his book should be. Dickens, for example, called one of his works The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.

Abbreviations

83a. In ordinary writing avoid abbreviations. The following, however, are always correct: Mr., Messrs., Dr., or St. (Saint), before proper names; B.C. or A.D., when necessary to avoid confusion, after a date; and No. or $ when followed by numerals.

In ordinary writing spell out

• All titles, except those listed above.
• Names of months, states, countries.
• Christian names, unless initials are used instead.
• Names of weights and measures, except in statistics.
• Street, Avenue, Road, Railroad, Park, Fort, Mountain, Company, Brothers, Manufacturing, etc.

In ordinary writing, instead of & write and; for viz. write namely; for i. e., write that is; for e. g. write for example; for a. m. and p. m. write in the morning, this afternoon, tomorrow evening, Saturday night. Do not use etc. (et cetera) when it can be avoided.

b. In business correspondence, technical writing, tabulations, footnotes, and bibliographies, or wherever brevity is essential, other abbreviations may be used. Even here, short words should not be abbreviated: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Samoa, Utah, March, April, May, June, July.

Exercise:

1. Mr. Gregg & Dr. Appleton were rivals.
2. Harris lacked but one of having a grade of one hundred; i. e., he had the two O's already.
3. His inheritance tax was three thousand $. In Apr. he moved from Portland, Me., to Sandusky, O.
4. Prof. Kellogg came down Beech St. at a quarter before eight every a. m.
5. A No. of old friends visited them on special occasions; e. g., on their wedding anniversaries.

Numbers

84a. It is customary to use figures for dates, for the street numbers in addresses, for reference to the pages of a book, and for statistics.

• Right: June 16, 1920. 804 Chalmers Street. See Chapter 4, especially page 79.

Note.—It is desirable not to write st, nd, or th after the day of the month if the year is designated also. Right: March 3, 1919 (not March 3rd, 1919).

b. Figures are used for numbers which cannot be expressed in a few words. The dollar sign and figures are used with complicated sums of money.

• Right: The farm comprised 3260 acres. The population of Kansas City, Missouri, was 248,381 in 1910. He earned $437 while attending school. The cost of the improvement was $1,940.25.

c. In other instances than those specified in a and b numbers as a rule should be written out. (This rule applies to numbers and to sums of money which can be expressed in a few words, to sums of money less than one dollar, and to ages and time of day.)

• Right: The box weighs two hundred pounds. Xerxes had an army of three million men. I enclose seventy-five cents. He owed twelve hundred dollars. Grandfather Toland is eighty-seven years old. The train is due at a quarter past three.

Exercise:

1. For 70 pounds of excess baggage I had to pay $1.00.
2. At 2 o'clock Rice gave him the 2nd capsule.
3. The letter was sent from twenty-one Warner St. November the eleventh, nineteen hundred and eighteen.
4. Knox earned $5 a day he said; but they paid him only $0.75.
5. At 40 he owned a 2,000 acre farm and had an income of $10,000 a year.

Syllabication

85a. When a word is broken at the end of a line, use a hyphen there. Do not place a hyphen at the beginning of the second line.

b. Words are divided only between syllables: depart-ment, dis-charge, ab-surd, univer-sity, pro-fessor (not depa-rtment, disc-harge, abs-urd, unive-rsity, prof-essor).

c. Monosyllabic words are never divided: which, through, dipped, speak (not wh-ich, thr-ough, dip-ped, spe-ak).

d. A consonant at the junction of two syllables usually goes with the second: recipro-cate, ordi-nance, inti-mate (not reciproc-ate, ordin-ance, intim-ate). Sometimes two consonants are equivalent to a single letter: falli-ble, photo-graph (not fallib-le, photog-raph).

e. Two or more consonants at the junction of syllables are themselves divided: en-ter-prise, com-mis-sary, in-car-nate (not ent-erpr-ise, comm-iss-ary, inc-arn-ate).

f. A prefix or a suffix is usually set off from the rest of the word regardless of the rule for consonants between syllables: ex-empt, dis-appoint, sing-ing, pro-gress-ive. But when a final consonant is doubled before a suffix the additional consonant goes with the suffix: trip-ping, permit-ted, omis-sion.

g. The best usage avoids separating one or two letters (unless in prefixes like un or suffixes like ly) from the rest of the word: achieve-ment, enor-mous, remem-bered, dyspep-sia (not a-chievement, e-normous, remember-ed, dyspepsi-a).

h. The first part of a divided word should not be ludicrous or misleading: dogma-tize, croco-dile, de-cadence, metri-cal, goril-la (not dog-matize, croc-odile, deca-dence, met-rical, go-rilla).

Exercise:

Place a hyphen between each pair of syllables in each word of more than one syllable: thoughtful, burrowing, thorough, chimney, brought, helped, harshnesses, which, murmur, superstition, ground, symmetry, ripped, compartment, disallow, obey, opinion, opportune, aggressive, intellectually, complicated, encyclopedia, wrought, electricity, abstraction, syllabication, punctuation, frustrate, except, substituting, distressful.

Outlines

86a. A topic outline consists of headings (nouns or phrases containing nouns) which indicate the important ideas in a composition, and their relation to each other. Conform to the following model:

b. A sentence outline is expressed in complete sentences. Conform to the following model:

c. A paragraph outline is a series of sentences summarizing the thought of successive paragraphs in a composition. Conform to the following model:

d. Mechanical details. Indent headings that are coÖrdinate (that is, of equal value) an equal distance from the margin. One inch to the right is a good distance for successive subordinate headings. Use Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals, and small letters to indicate the comparative rank of ideas. When a heading runs over one line, use hanging indention; that is, do not allow the second line to run back to the left-hand margin, but indent it. Make the numerals and letters (1, A, etc.) stand out prominently. The title of a theme should not be given a numeral or letter.

• Faulty indention:

  Sources of energy which may be utilized when the coal supply is exhausted are
  I Rivers and streams, especially in mountain districts
  II The tides
  III The heat of the sun
  

• Correct hanging indention:

  Sources of energy which may be utilized when the coal supply is exhausted are

  1. Rivers and streams, especially in mountain districts
  2. The tides
  3. The heat of the sun

e. Ideas parallel in thought should be expressed in parallel form. Nouns and phrases including nouns are ordinarily used.

• Faulty parallelism:

  Advantages of a garden:

  1. Profitable
  2. It affords good exercise
  3. Gives pleasure
• Right:

  Advantages of a garden:

  1. Profit
  2. Exercise
  3. Pleasure

f. Avoid faulty coÖrdination (giving two ideas equal rank, when one should be subordinated to the other) and vice versa, avoid faulty subordination.

• Faulty coÖrdination:

  How Seeds Scatter

  1. By Wind
  2. Some Seeds provided with parachutes
  3. Others light, and easily blown about
  4. By Water
  5. By Animals
• Right:

  How Seeds Scatter

  1. By Wind
     1. Some seeds provided with parachutes
     2. Others light, and easily blown about
  2. By Water
  3. By Animals

g. Avoid detailed subordination. Especially avoid a single subheading when it can be joined to the preceding line, or omitted.

• Too detailed:
  1. The McClellan Orchard
     1. Situation
        1. On a northern slope
     2. Nature of soil
        1. Sandy
     3. Kind of fruit
        1. Apple
        2. Cherry
• Right:
  1. The McClellan Orchard
     1. Situation: a northern slope
     2. Nature of soil: sandy
     3. Kind of fruit: apple and cherry

Exercise:

1. Give a title to an outline which shall include the following topics. Group the topics under two main headings, and give the headings names.
   • Uses of the grape
   • The Vine
   • The Fruit Itself
   • How Marketed
   • How Cultivated
2. Place in order the sentences of the following outline on "Why Keep a Diary?" Subordinate some of the headings to others.
   • A diary affords great satisfaction in future years.
   • We sometimes record in a diary information which proves useful.
   • A few lines a day will suffice.
   • A diary is not hard to keep.
   • We may find time for writing in our diary if we do not waste time at the table or on newspapers.
   • We may write in our diary just before we go to bed.
   • A diary will bring back the past.
   • We all have some moments to kill.
   • A diary gives us pleasure even in the present.
3. Place in order the headings of the following outline on "Ulysses S. Grant." Subordinate some of the headings to others.
   • Obscurity in 1861
   • Prominence in 1865
   • Patience
   • President
   • General
   • Perseverance and Resolution
   • Character
   • The Turning Point in His Career

Letters

87a. The heading of a letter should give the full address of the writer and the date of writing. Do not abbreviate short words, or omit Street or Avenue.

• Objectionable: #15 Hickory, Omaha.
• Right: 15 Hickory Street, Omaha, Nebraska.
• Objectionable: 4/12/19; 10-28-'16; May 2nd, 1910.
• Right: April 12, 1919; October 28, 1916; May 2, 1910.
• The following headings are correct:
  • 106 East Race Street,
    Red Oak, Iowa,
    August 4, 1916.
  • 423 Michigan Avenue
    Chicago, Illinois
    May 20, 1918
  • Prescott, Arizona, June 1, 1920.

Note.—In personal letters the heading may be transferred to the end, below the signature, at the left-hand side. But it must not be so divided that the street address will appear in one place and the town and state in another.

The "closed" form of punctuation (the use of punctuation at the ends of the lines) is best until the student learns what is correct. Afterward, the adoption of the "open" form becomes purely a matter of individual taste and not a matter of carelessness or ignorance.

b. An inside address and a greeting are required in business letters. Personal letters contain the greeting, but may omit the inside address, or may supply it at the end of the letter.

• The Jeffrey Chemical Works,
  510 Marion Street,
  Norfolk, Virginia.
  Gentlemen:
• Mr. Joseph N. Kellogg
  1411 Lake Street
  Cleveland, Ohio
  Dear Mr. Kellogg:
• Secretary of Rice Institute,
  Houston, Texas.
  
  My dear Sir:

Greetings used in business letters are:

• My dear Sir:
• My dear Madam:
• My dear Mr. Fisher:
• Dear Sir:
• Sir:
• Sirs:
• Gentlemen:
• Ladies:

Greetings used in personal letters are:

• My dear Miss Brown:
• Dear Professor Ward:
• Dear Jones,
• Dear Mrs. Vincent,
• Dear Robert,
• Dear Olive,

"My dear Miss Brown" is more ceremonious than "Dear Miss Brown". As a rule, the more familiar the letter, the shorter the greeting.

A colon follows the greeting if the letter is formal or long; a comma, if the letter is familiar or in the nature of a note.

Both inside address and greeting begin at the left-hand margin. The body of the letter begins on the line below the greeting, and is indented as much as an ordinary paragraph (about an inch).

c. The body of a letter should be written in correct style.

1. Do not omit pronouns, or write a "telegraphic style".

• Wrong: Just received yours of the 21st, and in reply would say your order has been filled and shipped.
• Right: I have your letter of March twenty-first. Your order was promptly filled and shipped.

2. The idea that it is immodest to use I is a superstition. Undue repetition of I is of course awkward; but entire avoidance of it is silly.

3. Use simple language. Say "your letter"; not "your kind favor", or "yours duly received", or "yours of the 21st is at hand".

4. Avoid "begging" expressions which you obviously do not mean, especially the hackneyed "beg to advise".

• Wrong: Received yours of the 3rd instant, and beg to advise we are out of stock.
• Right: We received your order of March 3. We find that we have no more dining-room chairs B 2-4-6 in stock.
• Wrong: I beg to enclose a booklet.
• Right: I enclose a booklet.
• Wrong: Permit us to say that prices have been advanced.
• Right: The prices on our goods have been advanced.

5. Avoid the formula "please find enclosed". The reader will find what is enclosed; if you use "please", let it refer to what the reader shall do with what is enclosed.

• Wrong: Enclosed please find 10 cents, for which send me Bulletin 58.
• Right: I enclose ten cents, for which please send me Bulletin 58.

6. Avoid unnecessary commercial slang: On the job, A-1 service, O.K., your ad, popular-priced line, this party, as per schedule.

7. Get to the important idea quickly. In applying for a position, do not beat around the bush, or say you "wish to apply" or "would apply". Begin, "I make application for ...", "kindly consider my application for ...", or "I apply ..."

8. Group your ideas logically. Do not scatter information. A letter applying for a position might consist of three paragraphs: Personal qualifications (age, health, education, etc.); Experience (nature of positions, dates, etc.); References (names, business or profession, exact street address). Finish one group of ideas before passing to the next.

9. Do not monotonously close all letters with a sentence beginning with a participle: Hoping to hear from you ..., Asking your coÖperation ..., Awaiting your further favors ..., Trusting this will be satisfactory ..., Wishing you ..., Thanking you .... The independent form of the verb is more emphatic (see 42); I hope to hear from you ..., We await further orders ..., We ask coÖperation ....

d. The close should be consistent in tone with the greeting. It is written on a separate line, beginning near the middle of the page, and is followed by a comma. Only the first word is capitalized. Preceding expressions like "I am", "I remain", "As ever", (if they are used at all) belong in the body of the letter.

• Right: I thank you for your courtesy, and remain
  
  Yours sincerely,
  Robert Blair
  
• Right: I shall be grateful for any further information you can give me.
  
  Yours truly,
  Florence Mitchell

In business letters the following forms are used:

• Yours truly,
• Very truly yours,
• Yours respectfully,

In personal letters the following are used:

• Yours truly,
• Yours sincerely,
• Sincerely yours,
• Cordially yours,

e. The outside address should follow one of the forms given below:

Note.—An abbreviation in an address is followed by a period. Punctuation is also correct, but not necessary, after every line (a period after the last line, and a comma after the others).

A married woman is ordinarily addressed thus: Mrs. George H. Turner. But a title belonging to the husband should not be transferred to the wife. Wrong: Mrs. Dr. Jenkins, Mrs. Professor Ward. Right: Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Ward. Reverend Mr. Beecher is a correct address for a minister; not "Rev. Beecher". If a title of respect is placed before a name (Professor, Dr., Honorable), it is undesirable to place another title after the name (Secretary, M.D., Ph.D., Principal, Esq.).

f. Miscellaneous directions. Writing should be centered on the page, not crowded against the top, or against one side. Letter paper so folded that each sheet is a little book of four pages is best for personal correspondence. Both sides of such paper may be written on. The pages may be written on in any order which will be convenient to the reader. An order like that of the pages in a printed book (1, 2, 3, 4) is best.

Business letters are usually written on one side only of flat sheets 8-1/2 by 11 inches in size. The sheet is folded once horizontally in the middle, and twice in the other direction, for insertion in the envelope.

g. A business letter should have, in general, the following form:

h. Formal notes and replies are written in the third person (avoiding I, my, me, you, your) and permit no abbreviations except Mr., Mrs., Dr.

In accepting an invitation, the writer should repeat the day and hour mentioned, in order to avoid a misunderstanding; in declining an invitation, only the day need be mentioned. The verb used in the reply should be in the present tense; not "will be pleased to accept", or "regrets that he will be unable to accept"; but "is pleased to accept", or "regrets that circumstances prevent his accepting".

Paragraphs

88a. The first lines of paragraphs are uniformly indented, in manuscript, about an inch; in print, somewhat less. After a sentence, the remainder of a line should not be left blank, except at the end of a paragraph.

b. The length of a paragraph is ordinarily from fifty to three hundred words, depending on the importance or complexity of the thought. In exposition, the paragraphs should be long enough to develop every idea thoroughly. Scrappy expository paragraphs arouse the suspicion that the writer is incoherent, or that he has not given sufficient thought to the subject. Short paragraphs are permissible, and even desirable, in the following cases:

1. In a formal introduction to the main body of a discourse, or in the formal conclusion. (In some instances the paragraph may consist of a single sentence.)

2. In the body of a composition, when a brief logical transition between two longer paragraphs is necessary.

3. In short compositions on complex subjects, where space forbids the development of each thought on a proper scale. (But, as a rule, the student should limit his subject to a few simple ideas, each of which can be developed fully.)

4. In newspapers, where brevity and emphasis are required. (But the student should not take the journalistic style as a model.)

5. In description or narration meant to be vivid, vigorous, or rapid.

6. In dialogue.

c. In representing dialogue, each speech, no matter how short, is placed in a separate paragraph.

• Right:

  "Listen!" he said. "There was a noise outside. Didn't you hear it?"

  "No," I whispered. It was dark in the room, except for a faint light at the window, and I felt my way cautiously to his side. "What is it? Burglars?"

  "I believe it is."

  "I can't hear anything."

  "Listen! There it is again."

  "Pshaw!" I had to laugh aloud. "Thompson's cow has got into the garden again."

Note that a slight amount of descriptive matter may be included in a paragraph with the direct discourse, the only requirement being that a change of speaker shall be indicated by a new paragraph.

When special emphasis is desired, a quotation may be detached from a preceding introductory statement.

• Right:

  The speaker turned gravely about, and facing the front row, he said slowly and solemnly:

  "Small boys should be seen and not heard."

In exceptional cases a long, rapid-fire dialogue may, for purposes of compression, be placed in one paragraph. Dashes should then be used before successive quotations to indicate a change of speaker.

Omissions from a dialogue (as when only one side of a telephone conversation is reported), long pauses, and the unfinished part of interrupted statements, may be represented by a short row of dots.

Exercise:

1. Help! I cried, rolling over in the narrow crevasse, and wondering dazedly how far I had fallen through the snow. A muffled voice came from above: We'll have a rope down to you in a minute. Tie that bottle of brandy on the end of it, I suggested, and it'll come faster. [The student will here insert a sentence of his own to complete the dialogue.]
2. Good morning, James, said the deacon, suspiciously. How are you? and where are you going? I'm all right, answered the boy, and I'm goin' down to the creek. As he spoke, he tried to hide something bulky underneath his coat. You oughtn't to go fishing on Sunday. [Add another sentence to finish the dialogue.]

89. MISCELLANEOUS EXERCISE

1. I met him at kansas city at a dinner of the commercial club.
2. The senate and the house of representatives are the two branches of congress.
3. In today's chicago herald the union pacific railroad advertises reduced rates to yellowstone park and the northwest.
4. There are 30 men in each section in chemistry, but only 25 in each section in french.
5. Early in pres. wilson's administration troops crossed the rio grande river. Pres. Carranza protested.
6. In nineteen ten the population of new york city (including suburbs) was 4,766,883.
7. Send the moving van to thirty walnut street at eight o'clock.
8. I like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice better than George Eliot's Adam Bede.
9. May I call for you about 7:30 p. m., Miss Reynolds?
10. The note draws 6 per cent interest, and is payable Jan. 1st, 1921.
11. He will remain in town until Apr. 20th, and will then go away for the Summer. He is going abroad to study the spanish and italian languages.
12. Grays elegy in a country churchyard is perhaps the best known poem in english literature.
13. Enclosed please find $4, for which send me the New Republic for one year.
14. In reply to yours of 3-7-18 wish to advise that we are out of stock.
15. I enclose $0.10 for a copy of bulletin #314 of the dept. of Agriculture. Thanking you, I remain ... yours Respectively....

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