Annex 6 - Typography Style Guidance for catalogue records
Some «correct writing» tips
Some typographical issues
Lecture given by Anne Singer
Gateway Bremen meeting - October 2002
Introduction
When, in Lisbon, Susanna pushed me to become a member of the Gateway Editorial committee, I was not exactly knowing what I could do in the field: as I am not a scientifist I would not be able to do any correction on the content of the files, and my English isn't good enough to do some proof-reading... But this summer I find my place in this committee: when I first opened some Gateway files, and saw some errors that were not related to the content and also not to the English language.
Remember: one of our criteria to evaluate the quality of a website is the «correct and consistent writing». How can we judge websites, if we are not, ourselves, applying this quality criterion to our own work? There is a minimum to do in that field: to make our Gatewayconsistent, we need to follow the same writing and typographical rules.
There is no publishing house or journal that hasn't its writing and typographical rules and conventions, especially when many editors are writing for the same book/journal. DrugScope for example, has a style guide. The Gardian and The Economist newspapers also.
Creating a Gateway on the internet finally consist in publishing web descriptions: this is an editorial work. We are all editors and most of us are writing these descriptions in a language that is not our native language. So, we even more need rules and conventions for writing.
Exemple : in one of your descriptions, I found, in the first paragraph, the word «organization» written with a «z», and in the last paragraph, the same word written with a «s». We need conventions to enable each partner of our network to write this word - and others - the same way in all our files.
It happens that I am a typographist with a High typographical studies diploma from École Estienne, the best school in France in the matter. This is to tell you that my eye is educated to immediately see the typographical errors, to see immediately when there are two spaces instead of one between two words.
I will, in this lecture, share some tips to improve our input in the Gateway, regarding errors I noticed in your files, regarding also the special words frequently used in our domain.
We will go through:
- Inattention, typing errors and copy/past errors
- Americanisms , especially in words used in our drug/addiction domain
- Conventions in typography: acronyms, use of capitals, etc.
1 - Inattention and typing errors
I have no real tip for that! I can just tell you to proofread your own Winput Form attentively.
I found quite a lot of double spaces between words
I found commas with no space after, or with a space before
I found reversed letters like in «resaerch»
I found «Orexisis» as a name of a producer, while «Orexis» is used elsewhere
I found paragraphs created in the middle of a sentence.
I found a file where the type of organisation was missing
I found even a file where the website description field was empty.
I even saw an evaluation done in 2006!
Most frequent inattention faults are in the way to write our evaluation date:
YYYY-MM-DD: Be aware to not reverse the month with the day. Use hyphens in between and not slashes.
2 - Conventions to avoid americanisms and especially for words frequently used in our drug/addiction domain
First remark : the keywords used in our WinputForm have been discussed and fixed. So, a good way to know how to write a word such as «counselling» for example, is to look how the keyword is written in the form.
A first general convention is the use of the «ise» ending. Many English journals do so. Please write the following words this way:
- organisation (verb: organise)
- legalisation (verb: legalise)
- decriminalisation, globalisation,
- tranquillisers,
- recognise, minimise, maximise, analyse, harmonise, etc.
Americanisms: please write:
- behaviour and not «behavior»
- centre and not «center»
- counselling and not «counseling»
- programme and not «program» (but the last is correct for computers programs)
- adviser and not advisor. - See more in appendix 2
Errors frequently done:
- person and not «personne»
- layout and not «lay-out»
- long-term, short-term and not «longterm»
- traffic and not «traffick»
- mafia and not «maffia», etc.
- workplace and not «working place», etc.
Singular or plural verb?
Collective nouns take a singular verb. An exception is the police, which take a plural:
- The US government was defeated
- The population is not in favour...
- The police are concerned
Some conventions proposals for professional words:
- psychoactive and not «psycho-active»
- self-help, and not «self help»
- policy-makers
- website (can be discussed, the Guardian's guide writes it in one word)
- Please distinguish «website» from «webpage».
It is difficult to think in advance of all words that can be source of incorrect writing. I propose to complete these lists, progressively, when encountering new ambiguous cases.
Please put a special emphasise to apply our conventions in the two free text fields appearing in the result screen of the gateway: the producer and the website descriptions.
For those of you who will use a professional translator, e.g. our French partner, these two free field texts are the only ones that deserve to be translated.
Please, transmit our writing conventions to any translater that will work for our Gateway. .
3 - Typographical issues and conventions
Why are typographical rules existing? They exist to provide the reader with a better legibility/readability of the text and a better comprehensiveness of it.
Most of us agree that the use of correct grammar is absolutely important for a selfish reason: we want the reader think we are cultured/professional persons.
Applying typographical rules is more neglected but they are as much important than the use of a correct grammar (Ref. 1).
By being attentive to typographical rules, we will avoid a gateway user to quite our site because our texts are too hard to scan quickly by eyes. Gateway users are people that have not much time: many expect to gain time. If we present texts that are too difficult to eye-scan, he will quit.
Typographical rules, as well as fonts, are in continuous evolution and in connection with the evolution of printing/publication means.
They are also differences among cultures within Europe. English people may be surprised to learn that single quotes, en-dashes and em-dashes are not existing in the French typography. In reverse, I was surprised to discover that our French quotes «...» were not existing in the English culture and computers!
To my opinion, there is a real need to establish European typographical rules to harmonise this. In between, to harmonise our gateway work, we will adopt some rules, simple ones, a few ones (compared to all those typographists do use), but based on common sense.
On this matter, we will go through the good use of punctuation signs such as commas, dots, presentation of lists, brackets, use of capitals, acronyms, etc.
n Dots (or periods)
Each full sentence including a verb ends with a dot.
- I found many websites descriptions without a dot at the end.
There is never a dot after
- titles or chapter headings or sub-headings
- unit of measurement (min, kg, km)
- after Mr and Mrs
- name of producer
- in nowadays acronyms
- an enumeration list without a verb, but just at the end of it.
Application in our input form:
- A dot is necessary at the end of the producer descriptions and at the end of the website descriptions, as these have to be written with full sentences.
- I found descriptions that were not written with full sentences.
- There is no dot at the end of the title, of the name of producer, of the free field texts that are (in most cases) a collection of keywords which aren't available within the given keywords.
n Spaces before and after punctuation signs
- There is no space before, but a space behind: a dot, a comma, «:» «;» «!» and «?»
- No double-space after a dot, please. This is a bad habit!
- When a precision is given between hyphens, there is a space before and after the hyphen. E.g.:
Stradanove guarantees answers immediate and anonymous - to all the doubts expressed by the readers.
- Convention: no space after and before «brackets» and (parenthesis). Meanwhile this is not the real typographical rule, which says that half-a-space should be there.
n Parentheses
- Do not insert a comma before opening parentheses:
- Orexis (formerly Drugs in Deptford) seeks to...
and not: Orexis, (formerly Drugs in Deptford), seeks to...
or use hyphens: Orexis - formerly Drugs in Deptford - seeks to...
- When a phrase between parentheses is a full sentence, ensure that the end dot is before the closing parentheses. If what is within parentheses is not a full sentence, ensure that the closing parentheses is outside the closing parentheses:
- Nine cases have been identified. (Six were fatal overdoses and three were non-fatal overdoses.)
- Nine cases have been identified (six fatal overdoses and three non-fatal overdoses).
n Enumeration lists
In a list of complete sentences, start with a capital and end with a dot:
The following recommendations were given:
- Cannabis should be reclassified.
- There should be an increase of the funding for treatment of users.
- A new offence should be created of «supply for gain».
In a list of items that are not complete sentences, start with a lower-case letter and end with a comma, except for the final one, which ends with a full dot:
Databases available:
- bibliographic database on drugs and alcohol,
- drug research database,
- directory of drug addiction prevention and treatment services.
Meanwhile, no comma and final dot at all is also admitted. A single list should not mix items with a verb and items without a verb.
n Numbers
- Please write all numbers from one to ten in full. Starting at 11, write them as numerals:
- Of these 12 organisations, only three are dealing with drug issues.
n Ampersands: «&»
- Do not use ampersands - but use «and» - except in tables, figures and notes.
n Capitals
Are they capitals when writing the function of a person? The title of a publication? The name of official institutions.
Rules did change these last years: we are using much less capitals than only ten years ago. And people that are late in applying them are secretaries, researchers and librarians (difficult to change the rules of data present in a database formatted ten years ago).
A detailed answer is given in the appendix (page 6 and 8) in both English and French languages.
I will here emphasise that for book titles, we should only capitalise the first letter of the first word, and any proper name:
- Annual report on the state of the drugs problem in Europe
Use lower-case for the seasons, but not for months: summer, October.
Use lower case for compass points (unless they form part of a proper name:
- northern France,
- south-east Germany,
- South Africa, North Korea.
n Acronyms
Although it is still written in the style guidance side of the WinputForm, most of you did not follow the guidance saying that acronyms:
- are no more written with dots between the letters
e.g. «D.A.R.E.», «C.N.E. » No! No! No! No!
- are in lower-case when pronounceable:
- Archido and not ARCHIDO
- Restim and not RESTIM
- Aids and not AIDS
- Fad, and not FAD
- Kilen, and not KILEN
- Tacade and not TACADE
- Cesames and not CESAMES
and that is not only valuable for the acronym free field text: it is even more necessary in the producer and website descriptions. Capitals in a text disturb the reader in scanning the text, look non-professional, and are graphically ugly!
- Only remain entirly in capitals the acronyms we pronounce letter by letter:
- HIV, EMCDDA, NACD, CNRS, IPDT, etc.
- I would here precise that, in printed publications, the new rule is to use little capitals: HIV, EMCDDA, NACD, CNRS, IPDT, etc. for the same reason: no distract the eye of the reader.
- Meanwhile, when the producer has a special way to write his acronym, we should use it: e.g.: BZgA, SuPro, CeSDa, etc.
Both, the Economist and the Guardian are using these rules. See the references pages in English and in French.
- I would add that the same way to write an acronym should be used all along the same document. I saw in many of your files, that it was well written at the begining of a website description, and not at the end of if... This is really non-professional!
n Hyphens and rules (or dashes)
In French typography, we only know the simple hyphen: -
I totally ignored, until I worked at the European level, the existence of the en dash: , and of the em dash: . They are even not present on our keyboard, although we can find them among the special characters. I wonder if they exist in the Italian and Spanish traditions.
So, my proposition here is to use only the simple hyphen for all cases.
E.g.: - drug-prevention initiative
- up-to-date
- five-year-old children
- non-judgemental
- two-thirds
- 1994-99
- Note that we should use «one-quarter», not «one-fourth»
- Use the same hyphen for enumeration lists (we have no choice)
- Use the same hyphen parenthetically within sentences:
Orexis - formerly Drugs in Deptford - seeks to...
- Note that hyphens are not used when an adverb qualifies:
- the website is well known
- the data are up to date
- Note that hyphens are not used with adverbs ending in «ly»:
- newly published report
n Quotations
In the style guidance of the WinputForm, it is written to:
«Avoid " " and use « » (for technical reasons)»
Single quotes "... " (same sign at the opening and at the ending) have never been used in any typographical traditions, neither in France, nor in England.
The bad habit to use them originated in the fact that typing machines, limited in the possible number of characters, created them to avoid a difference between an opening quote and an ending quote. Meanwhile, during the typing machine years, professional printed papers continued the traditionally different opening and ending quotes.
Nowadays, computers allow to come back to the printers' tradition, and this for a major reason: better legibility and comprehensiveness of the text.
AND more, these quotes "... " are now used in editing function scripts, and their use is to ban as it can bug the online database system.
So, please, definitively ban this quote "... " that looks the same at the opening and at the ending.
When Bernd, our technician, proposed to use these quotes « », I was very happy as it was meeting the traditional rules.
I must recognise that this advice ended in a catastrophe!
In your files I saw everything but no « ». I got << >>. I got {{ }}... And thanks to the partners who were trying to follow the advice.
Many others just did not care and used " "...
When I suddenly learned, by Jackie Buckle that these « » were not existing in the UK. No wonder that it was difficult to obtain! The funny thing is that Stephan totally agreed to use « », without reacting, maybe because of his German origin. So I stated that only half of European countries were using « ».
My conclusion on quotations:
- Please definitively avoid the use of quotes that are similar at the opening and ending.
- In countries were « » are traditional, use these.
- In other countries such as the UK, the traditional/correct use is " ".
n Bold and Italics
Experts state that italics and bolds are increasing the legibility of a text. If you want to obtain italics and bolds in the result screen, the only way is using html signs. E.g.
- <b>Forum Droghe</b> has also set up a legal observatory...
will become: Forum Droghe has also set up a legal observatory...
- <i>Forum Droghe</i> has also set up a legal observatory...
will become: Forum Droghe has also set up a legal observatory...
As a general conclusion of this lecture, and after a discussion with the group, it was decided that I will be, as part in the Editorial Committee, be the typographical proofreader, as many partners didn't want to spend time in using the html signs when doing their input in the Gateway database.
Typography references
1. George Yefchak, Typography for scientific and business documents
Most of us agree that the use of correct grammar - or at least something approaching it - is important in our printed documents. Of course "printed documents" refers not just to words printed on paper these days, but also to things distributed by slide and overhead projection, electronic broadcasting, the web, etc.
When we write something down, we usually make our words conform to accepted rules of grammar for a selfish reason: we want the reader to think we know what were doing! But grammar has a more fundamental purpose.
By following the accepted rules, we help assure that the reader understands our message. (...)
Good typography helps us in two ways:
1. It helps the reader understand our message.
2. It makes our documents (and hence, us) look more professional.
(...) Spaces between sentences
You might want to sit down for this one. Type just one space after periods, etc., at the end of sentences. The practice of typing two spaces that so many of us learned long ago was taught for typewriters, which use a monospaced font.
(...) Don't underline!
Oh, typewriters again& Since typewriters didnt easily make italic type, typists used underlining to simulate it. Heres a good rule: Dont underline anything, ever! Programmers were slow to learn this rule, so keyboard and toolbar shortcuts for underlining are often just as convenient in many programmes as those for italic and bold type. Recent versions of some page-layout programmes now have these shortcuts removed.
(...) Serif and sans serif
The two most common font classifications are serif fonts, for designs having extra little lines at the ends of the strokes (e.g. F ) and sans serif fonts, for designs that dont (e.g. F ).
A common and very reasonable practice is to use serif fonts for body text and sans serif fonts for headings.
(...) Two fonts are enough!
A difficult lesson to learn - believe me, I know! - is that just two fonts are sufficient for most types of documents. Of course this doesnt count specialised things like symbol fonts for Greek letters in equations, various dingbat fonts for special bullets, etc. For long documents, we dont usually count italic and bold versions within a given font family as separate fonts.
(...) Title line breaks
Line breaks usually take care of themselves in prose text. But in titles, lists, etc., try to put breaks at logical points in the phrase. Quiz: Which of the following is better?
" Low-power subspace
field absorbs inertial forces
" Low-power subspace field
absorbs inertial forces
(The second one is better!)
Also, never allow a line break to occur between a number and its corresponding unit (e.g. dont allow 6.17252 " 10 3 N . m 2 /kg 2 ). Use your word-processors non-breaking space to avoid this.
In slide presentations and other forums where the audience has limited time to grasp your message, careful attention to line breaks is especially important. For example,
Line breaks
can be used correctly,
to aid comprehension
Or they can be
used like
this, which has
the opposite
effect
Occasionally, youll have to take drastic measures - hyphenation, adjusting the kerning (the tiny spaces used between characters), or, as a last resort, rewriting the text - to fix line breaks. Usually, however, its not so hard.
(...) Got it?
OK, so does this seem like too much work? Is it really that important? As with many other skills, the application of careful typographical decisions is often a thankless task, since typography is usually noticed only when its bad. But remember our two goals: to make the document look professional (or, from the thankless-task viewpoint, at least to avoid making it look non-professional), and to help the reader obtain the desired information without distraction.
Every author wants his/her documents to be read. So lets help those readers! If the typography is taken care of, our readers can concentrate entirely on our message. Of course we still have the content to worry about&
2. The Economist style guide
http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673931
n Americanisms (extracts)
Many American words and expressions have passed into the language; others have vigour, particularly if used sparingly. Some are short and to the point (so prefer lay off to make redundant).
But many are unnecessarily long (so use and not additionally, car not automobile, company not corporation, court not courtroom or courthouse, transport not transportation, district not neighbourhood.
Other Americanisms are euphemistic or obscure (so avoid affirmative action, end runs, stand-offs, point men, ball games and almost all other American sporting terms).
Do not write meet with or outside of: outside America, nowadays, you just meet people.
Do not figure out if you can work out.
To deliver on a promise means to keep it. A parking lot is a car park. Use senior rather than ranking.
Put adverbs where you would put them in normal speech, which is usually after the verb (not before it, which usually is where Americans put them).
Choose tenses according to British usage, too. In particular, do not fight shy - as Americans often do - of the perfect tense, especially where no date or time is given. Thus Mr Clinton has woken up to the danger is preferable to Mr Clinton woke up to the danger, unless you can add last week or when he heard the explosion.
Prefer doctors to physicians and lawyers to attorneys. They are to be found in Harley Street, not on it. And they rest from their labours at weekends, not on them. During the week children are at school, not in it.
In an American context, your car may sometimes run on gasoline instead of petrol.
Trains run from railway stations, not train stations. The people in them, and on buses, are passengers, not riders.
Cars are hired, not rented. City centres are not central cities.
London is the country's capital, not the nation's.
In Britain, though cattle and pigs may be raised, children are brought up.
Make a deep study or even a study in depth, but not an in-depth study.
Regular is not a synonym for ordinary or normal: Mussolini brought in the regular train, All-Bran the regular man; it is quite normal to be without either.
Vegetables, not teenagers, should be fresh.
The speechless are dumb, the well-dressed smart and the insane mad.
Grow a beard or a tomato but not a company.
By all means call for a record profit if you wish to exhort the workers, but not if you merely predict one. And do not post it if it has been achieved. If it has not, look for someone new to head the company, not to head it up.
You may program a computer but in all other contexts the word is programme.
Try not to verb nouns or to adjective them. So do not access files, let one event impact another, author books (still less co-author them), critique style sheets, host parties or loan money.
Gunned down means shot.
And though it is sometimes necessary to use nouns as adjectives, there is no need to call an attempted coup a coup attempt or the Californian legislature the California legislature.
Vilest of all is the habit of throwing together several nouns into one ghastly adjectival reticule: Texas millionaire real-estate developer and failed thrift entrepreneur Hiram Turnipseed...
Do not feel obliged to follow American fashion in overusing such words as constituency (try supporters), perception (try belief or view) and rhetoric (of which there is too little, not too much - try language or speeches or exaggeration if that is what you mean).
n Use short words
Use them. They are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin. They are easy to spell and easy to understand. Thus prefer:
about to approximately,
after to following,
let to permit,
but to however,
use to utilise,
make to manufacture,
take part to participate,
set up to establish,
enough to sufficient,
show to demonstrate and so on.
Underdeveloped countries are often better described as poor. Substantive often means real or big. "Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all." (Winston Churchill)
n Unnecessary words
Some words add nothing but length to your prose.
Use adjectives to make your meaning more precise and be cautious of those you find yourself using to make it more emphatic.
The word very is a case in point. If it occurs in a sentence you have written, try leaving it out and see whether the meaning is changed. The content is good may have more force than The content is very good.
Avoid strike action (strike will do), track record (record), wilderness area (usually either a wilderness or a wild area), large-scale (use big), weather conditions (use weather), etc.
Shoot as many prepositions after verbs as possible. Thus:
- People can meet rather than meet with;
- Companies can be bought and sold rather than bought up and sold off;
- Budgets can be cut rather than cut back;
- Plots can be hatched but not hatched up;
- Organisations should be headed by rather than headed up by chairmen,
- Children can be sent to bed rather than sent off to bed - though if they are to sit up they must first sit down.
- This advice you are given free, or for nothing, but not for free.
Certain words are often redundant. The leader of the so-called Front for a Free Freedonia is the leader of the Front for a Free Freedonia. A top politician or top priority is usually just a politician or a priority. Most probably and most especially are probably and especially. The fact that can often be shortened to That. Loans to the industrial and agricultural sectors are just loans to industry and farming.
Community is another word often best cut out. Not only is it usually unnecessary, it purports to convey a sense of togetherness that may well not exist. The black community means blacks, the business community means businessmen, the homosexual community means homosexuals, the intelligence community means spies, the international community, if it means anything, means other countries, aid agencies or, just occasionally, the family of nations.
Use words with care. Positive thoughts presumably means optimism, just as a negative report (eg, from the Department of Health on the side-effects of drugs) is probably a critical report.
Industrial action is usually industrial inaction, industrial disruption or a strike. Someone with high name-recognition is well known. Something with reliability problems probably does not work.
In general, be concise. Try to be economical in your account or argument ("The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out"-Voltaire). Similarly, try to be economical with words. "As a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigour it will give to your style." (Sydney Smith)
n Active, not passive
Be direct. A hit B describes the event more concisely than B was hit by A.
n Abbreviations and acronyms
Abbreviations that can be pronounced and are composed of bits of words rather than just initials should be spelt out in upper and lower case: Cocom, Frelimo, Legco, Mercosur, Renamo, Unicef, Unisom, Unprofor. There is generally no need for more than one initial capital letter, unless the word is a company or a trade name:
Eg: DrugScope, SuPro
Most upper-case abbreviations take upper-case initial letters when written in full (eg, the LSO is the London Symphony Orchestra), but there are exceptions: CAP but common agricultural policy, EMU but economic and monetary union, GDP but gross domestic product, PSBR but public-sector borrowing requirement, VLSI but very large-scale integration.
Initials in people's names, or in companies named after them, take points (with a space between initials and name, but not between initials). Thus F.W. de Klerk, V.P. Singh, F.W. Woolworth..
3. The Guardian style guide
n Abbreviations and acronyms
http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184844,00.html
Do not use full points in abbreviations, or spaces between initials: BBC, US, eg, 4am, lbw, PJ O'Rourke, WH Smith, etc.
Spell out less well known abbreviations on first mention; it is not necessary to spell out well known ones, such as EU, UN, US, BBC, CIA, FBI, Aids, Nasa.
Use all caps only if the abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters; otherwise spell the word out: the BBC, ICI, VAT, but Isa, Nato, Cafcass (children and family court advisory and support service).
Beware of overusing less well known acronyms and abbreviations; they can look clunky and clutter up text, especially those explained in brackets but then only referred to once or twice again. It is usually simpler to use another word, or even to write out the name in full a second time.
n Capitals
Times have changed since the days of medieval manuscripts with elaborate hand-illuminated capital letters, or Victorian documents in which not just proper names, but virtually all nouns, were given initial caps. A glance at the Guardian of, say, 1990, 1970 and 1950 would show greater use of capitals the further back you go. The tendency towards lower case, which in part reflects a less formal, less deferential society, has been accelerated by the explosion of the internet: some net companies, and many email users, have dispensed with capitals altogether.
Our style reflects these developments. We aim for coherence and consistency, but not at the expense of clarity. Here are the main principles:
Jobs: all in lower case
eg prime minister, US secretary of state, editor of the Guardian.
Titles
Differentiate between title and job description
eg President Bush (but the US president George Bush); the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey (Dr Carey, or the archbishop, on subsequent mentions); the Duke of Westminster (the duke at second mention); the Pope, the Queen
Departments of state
UK government ministries (but not ministers) take initial caps as follows:
Cabinet Office
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Department for Education and Skills
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Department of Health
Department for International Development
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI, second mention)
Department of Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
Foreign Office
Home Office
Lord Chancellor's Department
Ministry of Defence (MoD, second mention)
Northern Ireland Office
Scotland Office (not Scottish Office)
Wales Office (not Welsh Office)
Treasury
But lower case when departments are abbreviated, eg environment department, transport department
Lower case for departments and ministries of other countries, eg US state department, Iraqi foreign ministry
Parliamentary committees, reports and inquiries: all in lowercase
eg trade and industry select committee, Lawrence report, royal commission on electoral reform
Government agencies, commissions, public bodies: mostly lower case
eg benefits agency, crown prosecution service (CPS at second mention), customs and excise, but there are exceptions.
Acts of parliament: initial caps (but bills lower case)
eg Official Secrets Act, Criminal Justice Act 1992
Churches, hospitals, schools: cap up the proper or placename, lc the rest
eg Great Ormond Street children's hospital, Vernon county primary school, Ripon grammar school, St Peter's church
Universities and colleges of further and higher education:
caps for institution, lc for departments
eg Sheffield University department of medieval and modern history, Oregon State University, University of Queensland school of journalism;
4. French references
a) Petites leçons de typographie
http://www.citi2.fr/typo/
Ce document est une version provisoire et incomplète d'un manuel de rédaction de textes scientifiques en cours de préparation.
De plus en plus, les chercheurs saisissent leurs articles ou rapports eux-mêmes. Or, ils ont rarement reçu une formation et ignorent donc souvent les règles usuelles de typographie. D'où des documents appa- remment bien présentés mais qu'il faut, en fait, corriger profondément avant de les diffuser : à titre d'exemple, il y avait, en 1989, une moyenne de six fautes par page dans le rapport d'activité de l'Irisa !
L'abus de majuscules
Cette rubrique commence par ce qui me semble le plus frappant dans les documents scientifiques saisis par les auteurs : l'abus de majuscules.
Voici typiquement le genre de phrase que l'on trouve:
Jean Transen, Maître de Conférence en Analyse des Données à l'Université de Nancy (Bien connue de la Communauté Scientifique Internationale) a donné, lors du séminaire de Biologie Informatique du Mardi 23 Juin, une conférence sur les Applications de l'Intelligence Artiticielle à l'emploi de la Télévision Haute Défnition en Robotique Avancée.
Dans cette phrase, il y a 23 majuscules. Il ne devrait y en avoir que trois (Jean, Transen et Nancy). Si si... Retapez-là sans toutes ces majuscules et comparez la lisibilité!
Les règles régissant l'emploi des majuscules sont pleines de cas particuliers, mais on peut classer les principales règles comme dans les sections à venir. Rappelons, auparavant, que majuscules et petites capitales doivent porter les accents (contrairement à ce que l'on apprend encore à l'école primaire). On écrit donc : «É. Lebret» et, dans une bibliographie, «J.P. BANÂTRE».
b) François Richaudeau
Manuel de typographie et de mise en page, éditions Retz, Paris, 1989. Non disponible sur le web.
c) Orthotypographie
http://www.orthotypographie.fr.st/
consacré aux miniscules et majuscules.
Extrait:
Les noms des services dÉtat, des administrations ou des organismes à caractère unique au niveau national ou international prennent la majuscule:
LAcadémie française, lAssemblée nationale, la Cour de cassation, la Cour des comptes, la Haute Cour de justice, le Sénat, le Trésor public ;
Les Nations unies (on écrit lOrganisation des Nations unies), lOrganisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole (OPEP), la Cour internationale de justice, la Cour européenne des droits de lhomme, le Fonds monétaire international ; LInstitut Pasteur (linstitution, le siège parisien), mais : linstitut Pasteur de Lyon (lune des multiples filiales) ; lAgence nationale pour lemploi, mais : lagence pour lemploi dArras ; la Poste (la société), mais la poste de Lamure-sur-Azergues (lun des nombreux bureaux) ; LÉcole des chartes, lÉcole nationale dadministration (ENA).
Sil ny a pas unicité - cest généralement le cas sil est besoin de préciser un lieu -, lexpression ne peut pas être considérée comme un nom propre. Elle ne prend donc pas la majuscule:
Le tribunal de grande instance (dAgen, de Béthune, etc.), la cour dappel (dAmiens, de Rouen, etc.), le conseil général (des Bouches-du-Rhône, de Corrèze, etc.), le conseil régional (de Bretagne, de Franche-Comté, etc.), le conseil municipal (de Dampierre-lès-Conflans, de Gournay-sur-Aronde, etc.), lécole élémentaire (Jules-Ferry dAire-sur-la-Lys, Jacques-Prévert de Marseille, etc.).
Les domaines dactivité des ministères et des secrétariats dÉtat prennent la majuscule: Le ministère de lÉducation nationale, le ministère de lEmploi et de la Solidarité.
d) Quelques règles de typographie française
http://www.cylibris.com/cgi-bin/frame.cgi?page=conseil
e) Citi 2
http://www.citi2.fr/typo/
Extraits
Sigles et acronymes: Les sigles ou acronymes ne comportent ni séparations ni points : EDF, RATP, SNCF, USA.
S'ils se prononcent aisément : Assedic, Euratom, Inserm, Unesco.
Organismes d'État
* l'académie de Reims mais l'Académie de médecine
* l'université René Descartes, l'université de Toulouse
* la préfecture de Haute-Savoie
* le Muséum d'histoire naturelle
* le Collège de France
* la Commission européenne
* les Nations unies
Titres
* le ministre de l'Éducation nationale
* M. le professeur Morel