As a freelance copyeditor–I’ve done most of my editing for A) a major textbook publisher and B) medical journals–my practice is to italicize standalone titles, and en-quote most other titles. I also tend to italicize wholes and en-quote parts (. . . the “Hush” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer . . .).
When in doubt, my bible tends to be Chicago before AP. But I’ve rarely edited for teletype, which seems to be the nit that’s getting way too much emphasis in this thread.
What’s the old saw? Extreme cases make bad law, or some such thing? If we all agree that italics are used unless you’re stuck in the jungle with a teletype, then I’d say the question’s been answered, no?
Just for the record, Stratocaster and lissener, that’s not what we’ve all agreed upon.
First, I’ve been talking about what I write, not what finally appears in print. Those are quite different things. When I send an article in to a trade journal I write for, I italicize book titles. When I send an article in to the local newspaper, I use quotes. In both cases, the final product has italics. Files sent to the newspaper are imported into a page layout program, and italics are lost in the process. Quotes show them what they need to italicize in final layout.
Second, I’m not talking about being stuck in the jungle with a teletype. I’m talking about publications today in this technosavvy United States that lose formatting information from what their writers submit. In some cases, it’s software incompatibility, but in some cases, it’s intentional. They want to make the decisions on formatting, not the writers.
So we’re back to the practical approach. If you want to make money as a writer, then you submit your work in precisely the format the editor requests. Period.
Hm. Well, as a published writer and a sometime editor, I submit my manuscripts consistently and correctly. I usually submit hardcopy along with electronic. In any case, I suspect that if the non-me editor wants to alter my formatting, he can do so whether I submit italics or quotes. I’ve never submitted to any publication that required me to format incorrectly to simplify their editing process.
I’ve never submitted copy from a battlefield, however, so I’m sure my experience is not universal.
In any case, I stand by the old saw. I say submit your stuff correctly, unless specifically instructed otherwise by your publisher’s format rules.
InvisibleWombat, your clarification leaves me confused. If what you write ultimately is turned into the standard usage–i.e., italics–then the submission’s conventions aren’t relevant, correct? Not from the reader’s perspective. It’s simply as I described: a way for your work to be flagged so it can be translated into the proper usage (through no fault or preference of yours).
The format it’s submitted in is irrelevant (even if it’s interesting to know how this works) if it’s ultimately turned into a different “look” when the reader finally sees it–irrelevant in the sense we’re discussing it. I don’t think anyone, including the editors who insist on it, would describe this as a departure from standard usage; it’s simply a means of translation. Correct?
I think I get the picture. To move from Windows or Mac based application word processing to the proprietary “typesetting” software used for newspaper page layout, the text must be converted to a less-than-rich format, which would remove coding for italicization (or underscoring either, for that matter). Therefore, it needs to be in a format which will enable the guy at the typesetting machine to know where to plug in italicization after it’s gone through the stripping process. That means it needs to be coded in the “before” format prepared by the writer in a way that will survive the stripping process, i.e., quotation marks.
It’s not the newspaper’s printing conventions that are at issue, but the conventions it calls for in submitting manuscript. If their writers’ stylesheet says, “Enclose titles you want to appear in italics in curly braces” then that’s what you should do as a writer for them – not because “standalone titles in curly braces” is anybody’s idea of good style, but because it’s a signal to the typesetter-operator to set text set off by them in italics in the finished product.
Stratocaster and Polycarp pegged what I was saying exactly.
Like Lissener, I’m a writer who sometimes does editing and layout work. When my mind is in writing mode, I write to the submission guidelines of whatever publication I’m working for at the moment. If they want italics to be indicated by TeX codes, then by golly they’ll get TeX codes. If they want book titles to be in all caps with a little picture of a rabid gerbil gnawing on the first letter, I’ll figure out a way to give it to them (assuming they pay well).
When I’m doing my own layout (e.g., one of my publishers subcontracts the indexing and page design for my books back to me), then I switch hats and put the text in the final form the reader will see.
As a side note to Polycarp, sometimes the software used for typesetting is standard Mac, Windows, or *nix software, but the publication runs it through proprietary filters of one sort or another. In one case, I write for a magazine that requires all submissions to be plain text in the body of an email message–they have an irrational fear of viruses in attachments. In such cases, putting book titles in quotes is just the easiest way to set aside titles. If they miss one of them and the quotes survive into the printed work, it’s non-catastrophic. Quotes may not be the prefered usage, but they are acceptable as an alternative.
The effort being put into this hijack seems way out of proportion to the issue, but let me try one more time to make my point.
Both lissener and Polycarp have set forth very reasonable standards based on a particular context, that is, taking into consideration the needs of a publisher when submitting works to someone else for publication. The original suggestion of the use of a composition title by Invisible Wombat, which was the post that Stratocaster responded to with his statement that using quotation marks instead of italics for titles is wrong gives absolutely no sense of context (which is fine).
I have said repeatedly that when submitting something to someone else for publication, you must do things the way they want it. If you are submitting to an American publisher, for example, you might be required to follow the rule that commas and periods always go inside quotation marks regardless of the context of the sentence in question. You might be asked to use the spellings “labor” and “judgment” and “center” instead of “labour” and “judgement” and “centre.” Outside of this context in which you are being told what to do, it makes no sense to label one or the other option as wrong outside the context.
For example, if you are writing a business letter to a publisher to request delivery of a book, it is not wrong to use quotation marks instead of italics for the title. No one who is reading that letter is going to look at that and think wrong-o, Moron. Every week I read judicial opinions in the area of copyright law and, obviously, a composition title is often implicated.
The judges writing these opinions sometimes use quotation marks and sometimes use italics for composition titles. I don’t know whether they base these decisions on personal preference or technical limitations or in-house style manuals or merely ape the practice of the litigants to the case. Whatever the reason, in none of these cases is it “wrong.”
It is a stylistic choice, one that most formal book publishers make differently, but a choice nevertheless. Furthermore, it’s a choice that most readers are not even going to notice, because either option is common.
acsenray, but no one has yet provided any support for italics not being standard usage in anything other than how certain documents are submitted (then subsequently translated into standard usage). So, while using quotations purely as a stylistic choice (as opposed to using them because, say, the AP computers won’t recognize italics) isn’t the crime of the century, it is “wrong” in the sense that it isn’t standard usage, your anecdotes notwithstanding. It is not, from the evidence prevented, simply a matter of style. Departures from this usage are for a very practical reason.
If you think there is evidence that contradicts this, please point it out. I don’t see it, and I’m including the cites you provided.
Right. Because it would be so difficult to point to a single phrase or sentence that supports your position. But that’s OK, I’ll try to bravely soldier on without your explanation.
Well, you couldn’t let it go without a snarky last word then? How many times do I have to point out the functions and usages of style manuals in order to make it plain? How many times to I have to refer to definitions of words such as “usually” and “preferably”?
If I quote from Strunk’s Elements of Style will it help?
I will point out the use of the word “prefers” and the indication that “usage varies,” including use of quotation marks. Are you going to point out that Strunk has a recommendation and say that means that quotation marks is wrong because it is not standard? These are cites to style manuals, which means that it is a matter of style. None of these style manuals says quotation marks are wrong.
If I cite to an actual judicial opinion will it help? Or is this another anecdote? Okay, fine. Paramount Pictures Corp v. Davis, No. 05-0316 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 2, 2005): Judge Thomas N. O’Neill’s written opinion uses quotation marks for the title of “Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
Shall I go on? How many such cites will be satisfactory? Should I start collecting cites from correspondence and billboards and television commercials? Do you really need the full weight of scholarly research to persuade you on this, a rather minor commonsensical point? It’s absurd to protest against anecdote here, because we’re talking about a matter of style, in which authority has no particular superiority over anecdote, especially when none of the authorities cited say what you’re saying, which is the use of quotation marks is wrong, others suggest explicitly or implicitly the existence of variance, and at least one (the A.P. Stylebook) explicitly endorses it.
Hey, I thought you were through with me. Great to see you back.
This seems to be a point of ongoing disagreement between us. “Usually” and “preferably” are reasonably good approximations of “standard usage,” which does not mean, “Anyone who doesn’t follow this practice will be summarily executed.” It just means it’s standard usage.
What they appear to say to me is that italics are standard usage, which you can deviate from if there is a publisher who has unwisely abandoned this virtuous convention (okay, maybe it doesn’t say it exactly that way).
What point do you think this makes? If I provide you with a thousand examples of sentences where the subjects and verbs don’t agree in number, will that make it just a stylistic deviation? Are you suggesting that Judge O’Neill has some special grammar authority? Seriously, why shouldn’t I just assume he’s ignorant?
You keep saying this last one, when the cites in this very thread say that the AP’s computers can’t accommodate italics. It does not endorse the use of quotation marks for any reason other than a very practical one! Or at least no one has introduced a cite suggesting otherwise.
And it can be a lot of fun finding errors in advertising. I wouldn’t use billboards as an appeal to authority if I were you. “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” doesn’t become grammatically correct by virtue of being pasted on the side on the interstate.
Anyway, I have long since amended my position to, “quotation marks are not standard usage.” You may consider yourself the scholarly influence that pushed me in that direction. I stand by everything else I’ve stated. If you really want the last word, fire away. If it’s not snarky and doesn’t imply I’m missing an obvious point, I promise I won’t respond.
Since acsenray is trying to bring us back to the OP’s question, let me point out that logic has to win out over convention for professional writers, and it’s not just in italics vs. quotes.
For example, convention in the U.S. says that periods and commas go inside the quotation marks, question marks go outside. In technical works, I frequently violate those rules. Take this sentence:
If you don’t think people would type the comma after “add” or the period after “edit”, then you’ve never worked in computer technical support or training! If you want folks to understand it and do it right, you violate the punctuation rules and write:
Legibility and clarity trump convention every time.
I agree with the “comma inside the quotes” rule as it relates to computer instructions. Again, I’d suggest this is an instance where standard usage must give way to a practical consideration. If I want to be able to provide precise instructions, there’s no other obvious alternative (e.g., suppose I do want the user to type an end comma at the prompt, then what?–At the prompt, type “add,” “del,” or “edit,.”). It’s similar to stating, “Don’t send italics to the AP. Their computer system can’t read it.”
The response to the practical issue may become so widespread that standard usage becomes “commas and periods outside the quotes, just like their cousins, the colons and semi-colons.” But until that point, it is an understandable departure from standard usage. And if someone outside the province of computer instructions writes this…
…it is still accurate to point out that it is “wrong” in the sense I’ve been asserting: it serves no practical purpose; it is a departure for departure’s sake. Even if our friend William Strunk comes back from the dead to update Elements of Style to allow for exceptions to the rule for computer manuals, that would not be a contradiction of this, IMO.
