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Those who work with words know how dramatically publishing has changed in the past decade, with technology now informing and influencing every stage of the writing and publishing process. In creating the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, the renowned editorial staff of the University of Chicago Press drew on direct experience of these changes, as well as on the recommendations of the Manual's first-ever advisory board, composed of a distinguished group of scholars, authors, and professionals from a wide range of publishing and business environments.

Every aspect of coverage has been examined and brought up to date--from publishing formats to editorial style and method, from documentation of electronic sources to book design and production, and everything in between. In addition to books, The Chicago Manual of Style now also treats journals and electronic publications. All chapters are written for the electronic age, with advice on how to prepare and edit manuscripts online, handle copyright and permissions issues raised by new technologies, use the latest methods of preparing mathematical copy, and cite electronic and online sources.

A new chapter covers American English grammar and usage, outlining the grammatical structure of English, showing how to put words and phrases together to achieve clarity, and identifying common errors. The two chapters on documentation have been reorganized and updated: the first now describes the two main systems preferred by Chicago, and the second discusses specific types of sources and subject matter, with examples tailored to both systems. Coverage of design and manufacturing has been streamlined to reflect what writers and editors need to know about current procedures. And, to make it easier to search for information, each numbered paragraph throughout the Manual is now introduced by a descriptive heading.

What would become The Chicago Manual of Style began in the 1890s as a single sheet of typographic fundamentals, prepared by a proofreader at the University of Chicago Press as a guide for the University community. That sheet grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet grew into a book--the first edition of the Manual of Style, published in 1906. Nearly a century later the Manual is in use in homes and offices around the world.

Clear, concise, and replete with commonsense advice, the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style offers the wisdom of a hundred years of editorial practice while including a wealth of new topics and updated perspectives. For anyone who works with words, in any medium, this continues to be the one reference book you simply must have.

What’s New in the Fifteenth Edition of The Chicago Manual of Style:

* Updated material throughout to reflect current style, technology, and professional practice

* New coverage of journals and electronic publications

* Comprehensive new chapter on American English grammar and usage by Bryan A. Garner (author of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage)

* Updated and rewritten chapter on preparing mathematical copy

* Reorganized and updated chapters on documentation, including guidance on citing electronic sources

* Streamlined coverage of current design and production processes, with a glossary of key terms

* New diagrams of the editing and production processes for both books and journals, keyed to chapter discussions

* Descriptive headings on all numbered paragraphs for ease of reference

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.

* Easy-to-understand techniques on every aspect of plotting and structure, from brainstorming story ideas to building scenes, and from using subplots to crafting knock-out endings

* Engaging exercises, perfect for writers at any level and at any stage in their novel

* Practical and encouraging guidance from one of the most respected writers publishing today