Get ready for a new reference guide.
by Andy Scheer
Besides a dictionary and various Bibles, I keep two reference books at fingertip distance: the current edition of The Christian Writer’s Market Guide (2015–2016) and The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style.
Whatever my current editing or writing project, I find myself checking Robert Hudson’s 400-page guide to everything from Abbreviations to Zion.
The dozen-page section that lists capitalization style for various religious terms is itself worth the book’s price. But there’s so much more: virtually a university-level course in writing, editing, and publishing.
If you don’t yet own a copy, you should. But you might want to wait a few months.
A fourth edition of the manual — the first major revision in more than 10 years — will be released this July. Zondervan says they have expanded and revised the guide to keep pace with a digital environment.
Considering that the current guide’s pages on “Computer- and Internet-Related Words” include spelling and capitalization guidance for dial up and floppy disk, that new edition is probably due.
