Style Mechanics Punctuation++

Mechanics “Taste and common sense are more important than any rules: you put in [periods] to help your readers understand you, not to please grammarians.” Ernest Gowers The Complete Plain Words

Mechanics … Fonts and formatting  Use sparingly and purposefully.  Don’t be fancy; remove visual clutter. Periods = Stops Commas = Pauses  Minimize use, but …  Introductory phrases When using disk, tree algorithms … Short prepositional phrases may need no comma.  Parenthetical remarks and appositives We allocate nine nodes, one for each state, and process them … The algorithm, XJ2, processes …  Independent statements—before “and”, “but”, “or”  Lists Prefer commas before the “and” For breakfast John ate ham and eggs, milk, and juice.

Mechanics … Colons and semicolons  Colons join implicational statements with their consequence, e.g. The algorithm reduces the running time by an order of magnitude: the worst case is O(n).  Colons introduce lists.  Semicolons separate independent statements (usually short independent statements).  Semicolons separate items in complex lists. Apostrophes (tough issues, even tougher issues)tough issueseven tougher issues  Possessives Possessives that end in “s” Possessive plurals that end in “s”—students’, children’s  To form plurals of non-words used as words LAN’s is proper, but LANs is acceptable (and becoming more so) “the 2’s”, not “the 2s” (?); but certainly: “the A’s”, not “the As”  Contractions “its” is possessive; “it’s” is a contraction and means “it is” Avoid contractions in technical writing.

Mechanics … Exclamations  Avoid! Never use more than one!!  Let your remarkable results speak for themselves. Hyphenation  web site, web-site, website  Noun-noun adjectives also word-word adjectives, but not adverb-adjective adjectives e.g. Carter-Jones algorithm, high-level code, higher level code,  -, ,  Hyphen (-): hyphenates words En-dash (  ): ranges, e.g. pgs. 104  117; subtraction Em-dash (  ): punctuation mark: sets off a phrase (example)example Capitalization  Numbered items (?): in Figure 2.1, according to Theorem 3, …  Titles and headings: “First word only” or “All Important Words”

Mechanics … Quotations  Punctuation: inside or outside?  No need to quote dull or common phrases, even if taken from another publication. Parentheses  Don’t over use; don’t nest.  Period; inside or outside final parenthesis? Citations  (?) “Never treat a [citation] … as a word.” (Zobel)  Poor placement of citations can cause ambiguity— make it clear who said or did what.

Mechanics … Authorities?  Who makes up the rules?  Who follows the rules, religiously?  Is the Chicago Manual of Style the authority?Chicago Manual of Style Let’s end where we began: “Taste and common sense are more important than any rules: you put in [periods] to help your readers understand you, not to please grammarians.” Ernest Gowers The Complete Plain Words