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Home > Research Help > History of Science > Student Publications > Books on Style and Usage
This guide is intended primarily as assistance for undergraduates who are contributing to The Triple Helix and to Epidemic Proportions, and is by no means complete. For professional help with writing and excellent courses in writing, please contact the Expository Writing Department.
How can you make your writing smoother? How can you make sure that it flows logically from point to point and is interesting to read from beginning to end? Is your grammar correct? How's your punctuation? Are you using words correctly?
Style and usage manuals, such as those listed below, can help. (Some of them are even really funny.) (Epidemic Proportions, here is a style guide specifically for your journal.)
| A "style manual" or "style guide" is a handbook that gives details of writing style required by a particular publishing house or organization, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA). The guide shows how to punctuate, capitalize, cite references, and do other details of writing. The Chicago Manual of Style is in General Reference and the regular shelves, at Z253.U69 2003. It's now available online, too! It's completely searchable. Most style manuals are in General Reference on M-Level, or on D-Level in the Blue Labels, in the PE1408 section. They include: - A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (also known by the author's surname of "Turabian").
Gen Ref LB 2369 .T8 1996
- MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
Gen Ref PN147.G444 1998
Perhaps the best-known style manual deals generally with the essentials of how to write "plain English"; this is the classic - The Elements of Style / by William Strunk, Jr. ; with revisions, an introduction, and a chapter on writing by E.B. White.
M-Level Gen Ref and D-Level Blue Labels, PE1408.S772 2000
(This is also available online through Bartleby.com)
| | Usage manuals are books that illustrate how to use English correctly. Most of these are on D-Level in the Blue Labels, in the PE1460 section. They include - The Careful Writer: a modern guide to English usage / Theodore Bernstein. PN1460 .B4617 1979
- Shades of meaning: reflections on the use, misuse, and abuse of English / by Samuel R. Levin. PE1460.L43 1998
- Others are available online through Bartleby.com's usage page
Several recent usage manuals have used humor in demonstrating how to avoid errors in writing. These are great fun to read. Some of these are - Between you and I: a little book of bad English / by James Cochrane.
Eisenhower D-Level Blue Labels, PE1460.C53 2004
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: a zero tolerance approach to punctuation / by Lynne Truss. Libraries Services Center, PE1450.T75 2004 [use form to request]
- Woe is I: the grammarphobe's guide to better English in plain English / Patricia T. O'Conner. Eisenhower D-Level Blue Labels, PE1112.O28 2003
Finally, this web site from Purdue University is easy to use and provides helpful examples
about how to punctuate, capitalize, and other things.
Librarian: Sue Vazakas, 410-516-4153, svazakas@jhu.edu
Last revised: March 21, 2008 |
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