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tionary of the English Language" has been made in preparing the following pages.

Thanks are due to Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company for permission to quote from "A Publisher's Confession."

NEW YORK, September, 1905.

F. H. V.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

The first edition of this little book was received so favorably by a discriminating Public that the Publishers felt encouraged to issue a second edition. This, being quickly exhausted, was followed by a third and a fourth until this, the fifth edition, revised, somewhat enlarged, and brought up to date by the addition of data concerning the copyright laws recently adopted by the United States and Great Britain, is presented, with the hope that it may find the same favor as its pred

ecessors.

NEW YORK, December, 1912.

F. H. V.

I

THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

IN preparing a manuscript for the printer, care should be taken (1) to use paper of uniform size; (2) to number each sheet consecutively in the top right-hand corner; (3) to allow a margin on the left-hand side of the paper used, the width of which must depend upon the size of the paper itself; (4) to write with black ink or to manutype with a black record ribbon, as colored inks are less legible and are harmful to the sight; (5) to follow a standard guide in all matters of orthography.

All writing should be plainly legible, and be only on one side of the paper; slovenly or illwritten manuscript is more costly to set in type, as operators and compositors take more time to decipher illegible writing and to play it on the typesetting-machine or to set it up by hand.

Nothing should be left to conjecture. If the original manuscript is heavily interlined it should be rewritten, and care taken to write the interlineations in their proper places in the body of the text; then the two should be carefully compared.

This will not only save time in composition and proof-reading, but will also reduce the expense of authors' corrections in proof.

Every sentence should be punctuated correctly, so as to guard against ambiguity. Long sentences should be avoided; brevity insures lucidity. Be comprehensive, yet concise.

The author of a manuscript may save considerable expense if, besides giving attention to the subject-matter and the literary style, he edit his own copy. This last consists of preparing the manuscript practically for the printer. Editing includes (1) the securing of a uniform typographical style throughout any production; (2) the indicating of paragraphs where they should occur; (3) the adopting of a system of punctuation, that the reader may correctly interpret the meaning; (4) the systematic application of rules governing capitalization and spelling; (5) the inserting of chapter-headings; (6) the supplying of head-lines or box-heads, and many other details, such as the preparation of a preface, a table of contents, and an index. This labor, often undertaken by publishers at the request of authors, is costly, but the expense may be avoided by authors who edit their own manuscripts after having completed the creative work. Most writers who read over their manuscripts a few days

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