Greetings communicators—
Check out this new entry in the Editorial Style Guide:
In references to the university, use this term routinely to underscore that the UO is a major research university whose work benefits society. The University of Oregon, a leading research university, is one of only two schools in the Pacific Northwest selected for membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities.
Below, a couple questions that crop up from time to time in stories and other university communications:
What are “scare quotes” and when should I use them?
According to the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the foundation for our editorial style guide, quotation marks can alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, slang, ironic, or other special sense. Such scare quotes imply “This is not my term” or “This is not how the term is usually applied.” For example: “Child protection” sometimes fails to protect.
Don’t overuse scare quotes and note that adding so-called often makes them unnecessary: So-called child protection sometimes fails to protect. But scare quotes can be helpful in calling attention to only one part of a phrase: These days, so-called “running” shoes are more likely to be seen on the feet of walkers.
Speaking of quotation marks, when do I use quote marks or italics for titles of works?
This one can be confusing and it’s best to bookmark Chicago’s entry for italics versus quotation marks for titles. A partial list:
- Italics: titles of books; genera and species; plays; periodicals, movies, newspapers; operas and other long musical compositions; ships; works of art; and titles of television and radio series
- Quotation marks: titles of research papers, dissertations, and other articles; chapters, speeches, and other shorter works; songs; and titles of individual episodes of television and radio series
An example: I read in the New York Times that Gone with the Wind is included in a UO graduate student’s dissertation, “Movies and Mood: Classic Films of the 1930s and 1940s.” The paper includes an audio track that samples “Here Comes the Sun” from the Beatles album Abbey Road.
The Chicago entry also covers book series and editions, poems, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, pamphlets and forms, unpublished works, podcasts, video games, websites, blogs, and blog posts.
Questions? Email editor Matt Cooper, University Communications.