Paragon House Style Manual

Paragon House Style Guide

Table of contents
1 Style Guide
1.1 Punctuation
1.2 Numbers and Dates
1.3 Roman and Italics
1.4 Abbreviations
1.5 Ancient Persons
1.6 Ancient Places
1.7 Bibliography
1.8 Footnotes

Style Guide

The Chicago Manual of Style is the basic guide to style that Paragon House uses. However, there are several areas left optional in the Chicago Manual of Style. The following specific style conventions are used by Paragon House:

Punctuation

Add serial comma, except where not included in quoted text (e.g., green, red, and yellow
Comma and period inside double quotation marks (e.g., “Encyclopedia Project,”)
Comma and period outside single quotation marks (e.g., ‘Encyclopedia Project’,)
Semi-colon, colon, and question mark outside all quotation marks (e.g., “Encyclopedia Project”;)
Comma follows date and year in text (e.g., February 10, 2008,)
No comma for month and year only (e.g., February 2008)
Comma follows city and state in text (e.g.,New York, New York,)
Bracket author-added parenthetical text inside a direct quote (e.g., [Hemingway])
En dash between 1-word & 2-word modifier in compound adjective (e.g., Christmas–New Year's)
Em dash, no spaces, to set off phrases or afterthoughts
Initial cap in independent clause after colon (e.g., passionate about: She wanted to take time)
Add space between three-letter initials (e.g., C. N. B. Wheeler)
No hyphen between modifier & color (e.g., golden brown)
Lowercase "to" as part of infinitive in titles, otherwise initial cap (e.g., "How to Live on $36,000 a Year")
One space between sentences, or after a colon.

Numbers and Dates

Spell out fractions in text (e.g., three-quarters)
No apostrophe after decade (e.g., 1920s)
a.m. or p.m. small caps w/periods (e.g., 3:45 p.m.)
Spell out centuries; open as noun, hyphenated as adjective (e.g. the twentieth century, the twentieth-century artist)
Spell out "percent," use numeral (e.g., 60 percent)
Spell out streets numbered First through Ninety-ninth (e.g.,West Fifty-ninth Street)
Spell out even hundreds, thousands (e.g., forty thousand)
But, use numerals for groups of like numbers (e.g. 75,000 to 80,000 copies)
Spell out numbers one to ten
Use numeral for numbers 11 and higher
Use numeral with million, billion or trillion (e.g., 3 million readers)
Common era terminology, use small caps w/periods (e.g., 872 b.c.e.)
Trademark, follow original (e.g., 20th Century Fox (tm))
Numbers of four or more digits, except four-digit page numbers and four-digit years, require commas (e.g.,

3,795 pages

148,397 words

page 1021

1296 b.c.e.

10,000 b.c.e.)

All digits are used for ranges of years (e.g. 1856-1857 [not 1856-57])
Dates should be presented in the following format:

February 20, 2008

February 2008

February 1357 c.e.

February 1357 b.c.e.

Roman and Italics

Romanize song titles (e.g., "A Cheer for Princeton")
Italicize magazine name, except for preceding "the" or following "magazine" (e.g., the Saturday Evening Post, Metropolitan magazine )
Italicize magazine name, except for preceding "the" (e.g., the New York Times)
Romanize the possessive of italicized term (e.g.,Post's)
Italicize titles of plays (e.g.,Assorted Spirits )
Romanize foreign terms listed in Webster's Dictionary (e.g., elan vital)
Italicize names of ships (e.g., Celtic)
Italicize names of paintings (e.g.,Cocktail)
Italicize parentheses when entire word or phrase is italicized (e.g.,(Tender) )

Abbreviations

General Ryan (spell out rank/title with last name only)
Gen. J. A. Ryan (abbreviate rank/title with last name only)
aka (no periods)
U.S. or U.N. (use periods)

Ancient Persons

The first occurrence of an ancient personal name should be accompanied by the dates of that person's life.

Ancient Places

The first occurrence of a place with different Ancient and Modern names should list one in parentheses (e.g., Mari (modern Tell Hariri), Laish (biblical Dan)).

Bibliography

Gray, Kenneth, et. al., Corporate Scandals: The Many Faces of Greed,St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005. (use postal abbreviation for states)