Introduction

There are a few places that errors love to hide in documents. Unfortunately, they are often the most embarrassing and glaring spots for authors and readers, but they are also frequently missed by editors. Why?

Generally, editors focus on understanding and proofreading the main text, and tend to gloss over other sections, such as headlines, captions, margins, lists, and headings/subheadings. In the next few lessons, we’ll take a closer look at these problem areas and show how double-checking them as part of the proofreading process ensures that errors in these places do not slip through.

Style Guides

The size of a document's margins and the alignment of the lists found in that document mainly depend on the style guide that you are required to use. If a document is to be submitted to a journal for publication, it will quite often be the case that major formatting changes are unneeded, as the journal will reformat everything according to the print edition's parameters. However, as digital text becomes more prevalent, the amount of formatting for which editors are responsible will increase.

Many writers don't pay attention to the style guides and focus on the word or page count. In efforts to adhere to page counts, writers will often make the margins in their document larger or smaller. Writers, unsure of how to format lists, will often rely on their word processor defaults, especially for their works cited lists. However, these lists often end up being aligned the same as the rest of the document, indented too far, or lack separations between sources. The most important thing that a writer or an editor can do is to refer to the required style guide.

Let's take a look at three specific style guides and their general formatting requirements.

MLA Style Guide

Let's take a look at the general steps you'll need to take when proofreading a document that is generated using the MLA Style Guide. The very first thing we should mention (and the easiest thing to check) is the margins. Margins should be set to one inch on all sides of an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper. The MLA, Chicago, and APA styles all call for one inch on all sides. Most word processing programs generate documents with margins set at one inch along the top and bottom and an inch and a half on the right and left. Make sure that the margins are altered before the document is submitted. MLA documents are double spaced. The first line of every paragraph should be indented one-half inch.

Aside from the general layout of the document, the MLA Style Guide also provides specifications for the headers and footers of the document, the headings, the title and author's name, page numbering, and table and illustration layout. It also addresses typeface, although it only instructs the author to pick a typeface that is easy to read.

MLA style does not typically make use of bulleted lists, and it would be relatively out of place to include one. Instead, it is better to either reword the surrounding text to avoid the use of a bulleted list, or integrate the list into a sentence using a colon in combination with commas or semicolons.

The works cited list is at the end of the document on a new page, but it maintains the numbering from the previous pages. The title, "Works Cited" (without quotation marks, of course), should be centered an inch from the top of the page. Each entry should be in line with the left margin; if the entry is longer than one line, the following lines should be indented one-half inch from the left margin (known as a hanging indent). All entries should be double spaced as well.

Chicago Manual of Style

Similar to the MLA Style Guide, The Chicago Manual of Style states that the margins of a document must be at least one inch on all four sides of the paper. The document should also be left aligned. The Chicago Manual of Style also calls for double spacing and places particular emphasis on its importance in the editing and proofreading process. It specifically asks writers not to use hyphens in places they would not otherwise appear. It also asks that writers turn off the word processor formatting feature that automatically hyphenates words.

The Chicago Manual does provide specifications for numbered and bulleted lists. While the bibliography page (which we'll get to in a minute) makes use of hanging indentation, lists in the body of the text that run over one line require the following lines to be flush with the first. The Chicago Manual of Style uses a bibliography, rather than a works cited page, to reference the sources used throughout the document. Remember, a bibliography is different from a works cited page because it includes all materials consulted to write the essay. Works cited pages only require those specifically cited in the document.

The bibliography should be on a new page at the end of the document. The title of the bibliography should be one inch from the top of the page and centered. There should be a double space between the title and the first entry. The entries are to be in line with the left margin. If the entry is longer than one line, all the following lines are indented one-half inch from the left margin (hanging indent). There should be a single line space between entries. For further information on citing sources, please refer to The Chicago Manual of Style.

APA Style Guide

The APA Style Guide, like the two style guides already discussed, also requires one-inch margins on all four sides of the paper. APA documents are double spaced all the way through, including the works cited or references pages. Because APA style is for the sciences, it focuses on different aspects of writing than does MLA style. You'll find more specifications for abbreviations of scientific terms and measurements. APA also has its own requirements for headers, footers, and running heads. Make sure you make full use of the APA Style Guide.

The list of works cited, or the list of references, should begin on a new page. The title should be written one inch from the top of the page and centered. There should be a double space between the title and the first entry. The text (or copy) should be left-aligned. If an entry is longer than one line, all the following lines are indented one-half inch from the left margin. For more information on citing sources, please refer to the APA Style Guide.

Alphabetized Copy

Something you'll come across often when proofreading is alphabetized lists. When it comes to alphabetization, there are two methods that can be used: letter-by-letter and word-by-word. Pay close attention to which method is used because the order of the list will depend greatly on the method.

Letter-by-letter: Letter-by-letter alphabetization can be split into two methods. The all-through system requires that all letters in the word or phrase are run together. The alphabetizer is to ignore anything not a letter or a numeral. The Chicago Manual of Style has its own letter-by-letter method designed to be used with indexes in order to avoid separating a person's first name from their last. In this method, alphabetizing is done until the first occurrence of a comma or a parenthesis; all spaces and any other punctuation are ignored. This means that both hyphenated and non-hyphenated compounds are treated as one word.

Word-by-word: In this method, the initial alphabetizing continues to the end of the first word (hyphenated compounds are considered one word). If alphabetizing a short word and a long word that opens with the same short word, the short word comes first, regardless of what word follows the short word. Thus, "hard" comes before "hardly" regardless of what word follows "hard." If two phrases must be alphabetized and they start with the same short word, the second words can be used. Thus, "hard luck" would precede "hard times," while both would precede "hardboiled," as the initial word "hard" comes before "hardboiled."

There are a few general rules that should be used in both methods:

• Entries that begin with a number should be ordered as the numbers are spelled, not numerically.

• Entries that end in a number should be ordered first by letters and then numerically.

• When a person, place, and thing have the same name, they should be placed in normal alphabetical order.

• Abbreviations are listed as they appear, not by their meaning.

• Initials come before spelled out names.

Examples of Alphabetization

Summary

When proofreading formatting, such as margin size and list alignment, always refer to the appropriate style guide. While all style guides demand specifics, the specifics vary. Some have similar formatting demands, and some do not. As best you can, try to remember how the various styles differ. The better you know the differences, the easier it will be for you to find information when you need to look it up.

Last Updated: 09/09/2022