Manuals of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style. (14th ed.) Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993.

A comprehensive guide to the copyediting process and printing practices, the Chicago manual provides highly detailed guidelines to virtually every area of stylistic choice in writing. If you are very interested in the editorial process, you might want this manual. If you just need to use Chicago style, however, you can probably get by with Turabian.

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. (5th ed.) Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982.

This manual provides the essentials of Chicago style boiled down for practical use by student authors. A lot less expensive than the Chicago Manual, too.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (4th ed.) Washington, DC:American Psychological Association, 1994.

This manual guides you through APA style, used most often in psychology, education, and other social science fields. If you 're in afield that routinely uses APA style for citations, format of tables, etc., you really should have a copy of this manual handy while you write. This newest edition is considerably expanded from the 3rd ed.

Dodd, Janet S. (ed.) The A CS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors. Washington, DC: The American Chemical Society, 1986.

This manual is used primarily by authors in chemistry and allied fields. It is also useful for authors in other fields who want to use the numbered reference system.

Achtert, Walter S. and Joseph Gibaldi. The MIA Style Manual. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, the most current edition.

This manual is used most often by students of literature and language, and also by other fields of the humanities. It is a little more flexible than APA (it allows for either footnotes/endnotes or parenthetical references).

Manuals of style certainly exist for other fields; the above are simply the most widely used. In addition, some fields do not have book-length manuals. Instead, you might use the guidelines for manuscript preparation published in a leading journal, or in a specific journal to which you expect to submit your manuscript. However, these guidelines naturally give you less guidance in minor matters of style, so you may still wish to consult one of the handbooks above.

Bellquist, Jobn Eric. A Guide to Grammar and Usage for Psychology and Related Fields. Hillsdale; NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993.

An alphabetical guide to common problems in usage and grammar, including terms and grammatical problems speczfic to psychology and related fields.

Cone, John D. and Sharon L. Foster. Dissertations and Theses from Start to Finish: Psychology and Related Fields. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1993.

A comprehensive guide to the entire dissertation pr6cess, including choosing a topic, selecting a committee, writing a proposal, reviewing the literature, conducting the study, defending the thesis, and presenting the final document. Clear, well-organized, and useful.

Cook, Claire Kehrwald. Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

The author was a long-time editor for the Modern Language Association. She guides you through a step-by. step process designed to make your writing more clear and concise.

Ebbitt, Wilma R. and David R. Ebbitt. Writer's Guide and Index to English. (7th ed.) Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1982.

This manual sets forth very clearly basic principles of good writing. It also provides an invaluable alphabetical index to a whole host of common usage and grammar questions.

Frank, Francine Wattman and Paula A. Treichler. Language, Gender) and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1989.

Part 1 contains essays on language and sexual equality probably of interest primarily to students of language. Part 2 contains guidelines for nonsexist usage in great detail. If you have particular concerns along these lines, you might want to consult these guidelines.

Moxley, Joseph M. Publish, Don't Perish: The Scholar's Guide to Academic Writing and Publishing. Westport, CT:Greenwood Press, 1992.

A guide to the process of academic writing, both in terms of developing, submitting and marketing your writing and in the more technical aspects, providing guidelines for writing a variety of types of documents and parts of documents (introductions/conclusions, book reviews, abstracts, proposals, etc.)

Rathbone, Robert R. Communicating Technical Information: A New Guide to Current Uses and Abuses in Scientzfic and Engineering Writing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1985.

Good advice on major aspects of technical writing.

Sternberg, Robert J. The Psychologists' Companion: A Guide to Scientzfic Writing for Students and Researchers. Cambridge UP: British Psychological Society.

Good general advice about writing and style.

Strunk, William Jr. and E. B. White. The Elements of Style. (3rd ed.) New York: Macmillan, 1979.

A brief book you can read from cover to cover in under an hour. Gives valuable advice on the basic rules of usage with especially clear advice on the use of commas. Also gives good advice on keeping writing lean.

Turk, Christopher and John Kirkman. Effective Writing: Improving Scientzfic, Technical and Business Communication. New York: E. & F. N. Spon, 1982.

A useful, clear guide to making technical writing clear and informative. Particularly good sections on style for readability, informative summaries, and special sections on writing instructions, descriptions, and explanations.