Gregg Reference Manual?

Has anyone used this book, and for those that have, do you consider it useful to you?

I came across it on amazon.com, and it has good reviews, but in light of the EoS discussion, I wonder if it is worth its cover price.

Comments welcome!

Hm. i did a search, this was what came up. Hope it is somehow useful. (There seemed to be a format problem though, there are random hyphens scattered through the review.)

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Gregg Reference Manual
Ninth Edition
William A. Sabine
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001
610 pages
$30

Review By Neil Holdway
metro news editor on the copy desk of Chicago's Daily Herald

Over the years my go-to reference for grammar questions has been a book that I have-n't seen on copy desk authorities' recommended lists but that somehow got into my newsroom years ago: "The Gregg Reference Manual." ...

Cited from, and continued at:
www.copydesk.org/books/holdway1.htm

Thanks Crusader!

Hearing this review from a news editor that actually uses the book does help. I think I may put it on my "to buy" list for when I get some money. Either that, or wander over to the bookstore and see if it's in stock.

But that could be dangerous, as it leads to me seeing yet more books to buy...my "to be read" pile fell over long ago...

It's a decent enough manual, but some of its guidelines simply don't apply, or are dead wrong, for formatting ordinary manuscripts. If you're going the desktop publishing route, or writing strictly for businesses, it's a very good manual. If you're formatting manuscripts to submit to average publishers, it's not a very good manual at all.

Allion, I own a copy of this, but only because a regional magazine I once submitted to regularly used it. Actually, the publisher preferred it while the editor preferred the Chicago Manual of Style, but that was their conflict.

It really is geared more towards secretaries and assistants doing internal business writing and correspondence. For that market, it is a decent reference book, but I've never heard of any other publication using it other than the one I encountered.

James & Lori,

I was wondering about that when I read the description of it - I had the feeling it was more geared to business writing, as opposed to what I may use it for.

I'll have a look at it if I can find it in the store. May have to go to the World's Biggest Bookstore to locate it, though (inserting obvious Toronto plug here).

@Lori Basiewicz:
Actually, the publisher preferred it while the editor preferred the Chicago Manual of Style, but that was their conflict.

Odd, and disturbing, for a writer caught between two sides of such a conflict. How does the writer best proceed--use both books, perhaps? (Is that possible?)

I had a relationship with the editor and she was the one assigning the work, so I tried to please her. That was just my decision based on my take of the situation.

If the situation were to arise again, would I do the same thing? Can't say. I'd have to make that decision if and when it happens again.

The Gregg manual grew out of a basic usage and style guide that accompanied the Gregg shorthand and business/secretarial courses.

It's used still in some business writing services; I know of a wire service that uses it, for instance.

Unless you get a full time gig for a publishing house, skip it. Most libraries will have it, and the MLA (used by humanists), the Chicago (favored by most book publishers) and the APA.

These are all expensive tomes; get one used, if you see a good price, but they're easily found at libraries. They are also in multiple editions, so you might as well post pone buying until you really have to have your own.

If you want a review of English grammar and usage, go to the local campus book store and look in the lower numbered English and English composition classes for books by Diana Hacker, or the Little Brown Reference, or any number of similar guides; they're pretty much the same in terms of content, but structured differently. There's a solid fifty year industry in producing these, so a used book store is a good bet as well.

Hi Lisa,

Funny you should mention the MLA - I'm having flashbacks to my days of Honours English and three essays due in two days right before mid-terms...I'm ok now...

I have my own Chicago, but it's a few editions old. Not that I think THAT much will have changed, but there is always the online edition for help. I agree, it's a worthwhile investment, but not all that portable.

When I saw the name Gregg I thought it rang a bell - now I remember back in high school when my friends all took shorthand and had those funny squigglies all over their books. Greek to me.

Good idea about the used books - I had totally forgotten the university bookstore, mostly because I've moved a city away from mine. Thankfully, I live in a place with 2 universities now, so I will have to wander up that way and check out their bookstores (another hobby of mine, along with buying pens, blank books, and books I may never get around to reading).

Thanks for the advice! And I love the sig line.

The Chicago Manual of Style is far and away the most widely used book in publishing, but writers really don't need it. Neither do editors, when it comes to grammar and ordinary style questions. Editors already know grammar and ordinary style inside out, and don't have to look it up in any manual. And, in fact, many editors simply don't follow Chicago where these are concerned. (THough, heaven help us, America is getting a terrible reputation where editors are concerned. Conglomerates tend to hire based on how cheaply they can get a new editor, rather than on how knowledgeable that editor is.)

Chicago is used because publishers publish a huge variety of books, and this means needing a standard for things other than grammar and ordinary style. Headers or all sorts, how to insert quotes or letters, etc., all play a part in putting a book together. So do photos, kerning, and a dozen other things.

Chicago is a great book, if you're dealing with more than grammar and style, where it gets terribly wishy-washy and politically correct in newer editions, but it's not the best choice for a writer who simply wants grammar and style.

At one time, Words Into Type was the best and most used book, but when it stopped being updated, Chicago took over. But it's really far better for publishers than for writers.

I subscribe to Merriam Webster Online, and part of that service provides a style guide. From what I can see, it's not much different from the ten dozen other style guides out there.

The guide is prefaced with a page of disclaimers explaining that they tried their best to assess the base-line of the industry, while taking into account both the conservatives and the liberals. Generous astarisks and examples are offered for the reader's discretion.

My grandmother was a grade-school English teacher, and the "style guide" she impressed into my brain beats out all the classics when it comes to the real sticky wickets of grammar and punctuation, yet she surely enjoyed many a novel that according to the curriculum, were fairly slang.

On the radio today, I chanced to hear an interview with a lexicographer, who insisted that the admonition against split-infinitives was a linguistic myth. According to her, the myth was born when grammarians of old attempted to fit English into the template of Latin.

You cannot split an infinitive in the dead language of Latin, and if you believe English to be the modern incarnation of any dead or other language, then such myth's apply.

but the fact is...

"To boldy go..."

is a unique statement of English which we modify much to our detriment.

What's my point?

Any guide is as good as the next, and none are anything more than guides. Happy New Year. Enjoy your free will.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say any guide is as good as the next. Some are good, some give horrible advice that will cause most editors to scream.

They are just guides, but there are areas where you get it right, meaning the way the better guides say to do it, or editors turn into rejection machines.

The simple truth is that if you use and follow Strunk & White there isn't an editor in the world who will not love you to death, even if she disagrees with a minor point here and there.

For more detail on grammar, the best book by far for the average fiction write is a 7th or 8th grade English textbook, available to anyone. Such a book covers all the grammar a fiction writer will ever need, and does so in an easy to understand manner.