![]() This means, however, that PerfectIt may miss a term like well-edited that’s been consistently (but incorrectly) hyphenated both before and after a noun. ![]() Chicago and other styles usually take precedence over Merriam-Webster, leaving phrasal adjectives open when they follow a noun.įor those terms, PerfectIt’s regular consistency checks still apply. But even if it were-like the similar adjectives well-read and well-known-hyphenation would still depend on context. For starters, well‑edited isn’t in Merriam-Webster. Terms like well-edited, on the other hand, have not been added to Chicago Style for PerfectIt. Then you’ll want to use PerfectIt to create a new style based on Chicago but edited to reflect your preferences and to add terms not included in Chicago Style for PerfectIt. ![]() Maybe your publisher’s house style departs from Merriam-Webster for certain terms, or maybe you’re editing a book that has a specialized vocabulary. Sometimes, however, your preferences will conflict with Chicago’s. If you need more than that, the red numbers link directly to the corresponding sections in CMOS Online. If you need more guidance, clicking on “See more from CMOS 7.89” will display an excerpt from the hyphenation guide in CMOS: For example, Chicago Style for PerfectIt will find any instances of “onsite,” “on-line,” “onscreen,” and “offline” and suggest the preferred forms: Many of these preferences have been built into Chicago Style for PerfectIt, saving you the time of looking them up. For terms not found there, the recommendations in The Chicago Manual of Style, starting with the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.89, take precedence. on site: How do you know which one of the three is Chicago style? The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectItįor matters of spelling, including hyphenation, Chicago usually defers to the first-listed entries in Merriam-Webster. ![]() For example, you would generally want to preserve “onsite” or “on site” if either occurs in a direct quotation or in the title of a work-assuming it has been transcribed correctly from the original source.Īs with spelling and grammar checkers, the final decision in each case is yours.īut back to onsite v. Keep in mind also that your preferences aren’t the only ones that matter. Make sure, for example, that you don’t add a hyphen to something like this: “The research focused on site management.” If, on the other hand, PerfectIt finds both “on-site” and “onsite” (one word), you could choose “on-site” as your preferred spelling and go through PerfectIt’s list to add a hyphen to fix each instance of “onsite.” Ditto for “on-site” versus “on site” (two words). That’s where your editorial judgment comes in: Does the term modify and precede a noun? Then it should have a hyphen. However, it won’t know which of them, if any, need fixing. As with Word’s spelling and grammar checker, PerfectIt gives you a chance to review each item one by one and decide what to fix and what to skip.įor example, if PerfectIt finds “well-edited” in five places and “well edited” in three, it will list all eight and show you the surrounding context for each. PerfectIt is a proofreading add-in for Microsoft Word that scans your documents for inconsistencies and other potential problems in several categories, including hyphenation, spelling, capitalization, italics, abbreviations, numbers, and lists. So how can proofreading software help you sort it all out? PerfectIt’s Hyphenation Check Dictionaries don’t necessarily agree, and spelling and grammar checkers tend to ignore such variations. These terms are generally invariable-unless you prefer onscreen and offline. When we work on-site or online or on-screen, our on-site and online and on-screen activities might be set aside whenever we decide to go off-line. A well-edited document would be described as well edited, and a long-term plan would play out in the long term. That’s because hyphenation depends not only on accepted usage but also on context-and sometimes on both.įor example, many terms that are hyphenated as adjectives before a noun are not hyphenated when they follow the noun. Editors spend a lot of time making decisions related to hyphens.
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