En Dashes

Posted by amastyleinsider

I didn’t know what an “en” dash was until I started working as a copy editor. Somehow I’d never even noticed them before. I knew when to use hyphens and em dashes, but the en dash was so confusing, no matter how many times I read the official description in the AMA Style Manual:

“The en dash shows relational distinction in a hyphenated or compound modifier, 1 element of which consists of 2 words or a hyphenated word, or when the word being modified is a compound.”

I understood how to use it with a hyphenated modifier, but the compound modifier tripped me up. I was overthinking it, spending too much time debating what the modifier was, and placing the en dash in the wrong place. Then someone explained to me that you use it when a group of words represents a single idea and it started to make sense:

US army–enlisted population
Geographic Information Systems–based measures
gene-dose–dependent manner
B-amyloid–negative group
apolipoprotein E–related genetic susceptibility
estrogen receptor–negative breast cancer

In all of these cases, 2 or more words together represent the single thing (eg, US army, apolipoprotein E), which is your cue to use the en dash before or after the phrase.

Some style manuals recommend using the en dash for ranges, scores, or values that are related, but the AMA Style Manual reserves them for the hyphenated or compound modifier only.—Tracy Frey

Check It Twice

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Of all the magic a word processor can perform, I find spell-check to be the most useful, especially while editing dense medical copy. But I’m not too proud to admit that it’s not even the most sinisterly complicated words that my spell-check corrects most often. While I’m focusing on making sure “dysosteogenesis” or “hemocytopoiesis” are spelled correctly, I tend to gloss over the more commonplace language. Sometimes I’ll invert letters (“otolaryngoolgy”) or repeat articles (“the the procedure”) and, thank goodness, spell-check will catch it.

But spell-check is not without its shortcomings. It’s still just a computer program, and it isn’t tuned to the nuances of language with the same attention as a human brain. Spell-check will miss that I meant “through” when I’ve typed “though,” and of course there’s a long list of homophones that spell-check will inevitably ignore (ie, “knew/new,” “waist/waste,” “aisle/isle”). The bottom line is that reading back through your work and not relying solely on spell-check (or any automated process) to do the thinking for you could save you (and has certainly saved me!) a lot embarrassment. For example…

Spell-check couldn’t have saved those eager tweeters from themselves before they released their thoughts on followers, friends, and family. But a little more attention to detail could have. Tools like spell-check are helpful, but they’re still only tools. When it comes to writing, editing, and engaging in any form of written communication, nothing will serve you better than your own brain— and one more read-through.—Sam Wilder

Advice for the AMA Style Newbie

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After several years of working as an editor using the Chicago Manual of Style almost exclusively, I found myself interviewing for a job at JAMA Network. Naturally, I wanted to prepare by learning as much as I could about AMA style. Google searches such as “Chicago vs AMA style” produced little in the way of useful information. Luckily, the AMA Manual of Style offers a free trial subscription option. Poking around here and there, I was able to glean some similarities and differences. But much of what I really needed to know I learned once I started my new job. What follows are some of my thoughts on making the switch from “Chicago style” to AMA.

First, the good news: we’re a lot more alike than we are different! All the wonderful stuff you know and love from CMOS or other guides about matters like subject-verb agreement, parallel construction, misplaced modifiers, and the like are just the same in AMA. Even our much-beloved serial comma retains its place of honor. We’re literally all speaking the same language!

Of course, there are also differences. Many of them are relatively minor, but they take a while to get used to. For example, unlike CMOS, AMA almost never uses periods after abbreviations. “Dr” still looks underdressed to me, even after several months. In a similar vein, while Chicago style advises spelling out numbers 1 to 100 (while acknowledging the alternative rule of spelling out 1-10 and using numerals for anything larger), AMA prefers the use of numerals in nearly every context, the main exception being the beginning of a sentence (CMOS concurs on this point). One habit I’ve had to break is using an en-dash to express ranges of numbers, whereas AMA prefers a hyphen or the word “to,” depending on the context (hyphens are for ranges in tables or in parenthetical expressions). While I generally do prefer a word over a symbol in formal writing, I miss seeing the en-dash around. It’s also strange not to see commas separating the digits of larger numbers—instead AMA keeps 4-digit numbers closed up, and for larger numbers opts for a thin space, a character Chicago rarely uses.

The formatting of references is an obvious point of difference, especially for a journal copyeditor like myself. In my job at JAMA Network, I get to use software with a reference editing component. If you’ve ever spent hours hand-styling journal references, you know what an exciting development this is. Chicago offers 2 systems of source citation, notes and bibliography and author-date references. In AMA style, references are cited in-text with superscript numerals corresponding to a reference list at the end of the article. The style of reference items is generally sparer than in Chicago, with initials for authors’ given names, lowercased article titles, and parsimonious use of punctuation and spacing. It’s a clean style that delivers the necessary information in the most efficient way possible.

My absolute favorite thing about working in AMA style is having a resource developed specifically for the type of content I’m editing. Anyone who’s ever tried to apply the more general Chicago style to a technical or scientific discipline knows that it leaves many questions unanswered. Often these topics will be covered in a house stylebook, but these aren’t always kept current and may not always have the information you’re looking for. Like CMOS, AMA has a guide to correct and preferred usage. But in addition to old standbys like effect vs affect, you’ll also find explanations of why cases are “managed” but patients are “treated.” In my experience, the discipline-specific language of medical editing and the structure of articles have been the 2 major lessons. Luckily, the AMA Manual of Style has you covered on both counts.

If you’re just starting out in the world of AMA style, there are some helpful resources you may want to check out. The quiz section of the style guide’s website has quizzes on a wide range of topics. You can test your acumen (or if you don’t mind spoilers, page through the answers in order to discern major points of the style). If you’re interested in more guided instruction, a medical editing class may be worth looking into. However you go about it, enjoy the learning process, and when in doubt, look it up!—Heather Green

A Dirty Look at the AMA Manual of Style

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Remember how much fun you had reading The Elements of Style? How about the times you yukked it up over the ambiguity examples in Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition? Here is a classic to jog your memory:

As soon as the students had left the classrooms, the custodians cleaned them.

That’s entertainment!

You can revisit those days of abandon in the quest for clear writing, even if no one seems to chuckle when they consult the AMA Manual of Style. Maybe this owes to its being a behemoth. If you wish to consult the manual with a smile instead of grim determination, the opportunities are there.

Every so often, a nonassociation style guide becomes a bestseller. Such a chartbuster assumes that usage matters, and that correct usage rules and examples entertain and inform. Authors have climbed the list with pragmatism (thanks, Susan Thurman), charm (hi, Mary Norris), innuendo (I’m talking to you, Lynne Truss), or light-heartedness (howdy, Bill Bryson).

Some even go dirty, quick and dirty, as in Mignon Fogarty’s amazing Grammar Girl. I understand this. A down and dirty read (a basic, practical review and not a backstreet editing assignation) is often called for when deadlines loom.

But pragmatic or dirty, these bestsellers put their readers in good hands. That they entertain and inform offers a springboard for a quick dive into the ways that the style manual, in addition to assuring you that you’re in good hands, can entertain as it informs. Here is a representative down and dirty look at a portion of the manual.

If you hand out Halloween candy, you have seen the proverbial “fun size,” a bite that only leaves you wanting more unless it is a Butterfinger. My idea of fun size would be a candy bar as big as my arm. However, any amount of candy is fun (except a Butterfinger), so in that spirit, small can be fun size. By my original standard, the 1010-page Manual of Style is already fun size, but chapter 11 offers the overlooked qualities of being thought-provoking and entertaining. (So do chapters 7-10, 12, and 13, but that is another post.)

The online manual can take you right to 11 without the papercuts, but the idea is to look at its alignment with the tone of popular usage books. From a certain vantage, this chapter could stand as a compact usage book alongside other usage books that sell well. A fun size AMA style guide!

The “Correct and Preferred Usage” chapter starts with 2 fun quotations, one with empathy for proofreaders and another that mentions a porcupine. The entries begin with word choice examples aplenty (similar to Bryson’s look at troublesome words), with italicized labels and directives that establish a hierarchy (Incorrect, Correct, Also Correct, Avoid, Preferred, Also, and the apotheosis of middle ground, Acceptable).

Sometimes a truth plainly spoken is in itself amusing, and that truth can orient you toward correcting descriptive language. The entry “abnormal, normal, negative, positive” indicates “Examinations and laboratory tests and studies are not in themselves abnormal, normal, negative, or positive.” If you have gone around allowing authors to describe tests as negative, it can be bracing to see such clear direction.

The entry for Jargon offers a similar plain-spokenness. “….[D]rugs are usually neither systemic nor local but are given for systemic or local effect.” Parallelism can sharpen a keen awareness of specificity.

Because redundant words are always funny according to natural law, section 11.2, with its eye-opening list of redundancies, expendable words, and incomparable phrases, can supply abundant levity. You will also encounter a well-known quotation from Yogi Berra.

The legal profession once advocated plain language (ha ha!). Everyone talks about jargon, but the AMA Manual of Style does something about it. Granted, you can violate the manual’s jargon directives and still be allowed to walk around freely, vote, and drive a car, but if you see what Morris Fishbein wrote on page 408, you will never want to use jargon again. Even by accident or in an emergency.

Chapter 11 contains scores of other usage grace notes. Shakespeare’s Polonius says, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and you can verify that by looking up “describe, report” for an example. Even one of the longer entries (“because of, caused by, due to, owing to”) ends with a lovely Clue to usage (a one-off category) that brings it all home in 3 lines.

One-off labels nod toward the gray areas of usage, which are usually skillfully handled in style guides. The manual may be a behemoth, and another one-off category, Possible exception, under “adherence, compliance,” may help explain why. This example shows its accommodation of nuance. Nuance can take space.

Across its chapters, the manual draws from literature (Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison) for contextual quotations. Medical editing embraces the humanities in its quest for clarity.

For a good time, read chapter 11 of the AMA Manual of Style. It shares some of the endearing qualities of the bestselling usage guides (except, I think, innuendo). Review the material when you aren’t searching for an answer. It’s not just for reference anymore.—Timothy Gray

Yet Another Top 10 List

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It is officially the Week of Way Too Many Top-10 Lists and Year-End Wrap-ups, but maybe you can stand one more, from your pals at AMA Style Insider. Below are some links to our most popular (by number of views) posts of 2017.

In order of popularity…

The clear fan favorite: Tracy’s post on the singular “they.” (Some of you got pretty heated about this—as moderator/managing editor, I even had to “decline” a few abusive comments. Pretty sure singular “they” is the future though, so maybe try to cope?)

A post on the “death dagger” from me. I am not kidding myself; the puppy photo is the real draw here.

A post on not even remotely understanding what you’re editing, also from me.

The (in-)appropriate use of cause-and-effect language from Paul. Every editor here at JAMA Network can empathize with this one.

Amanda’s post on “people-first language.” Stay woke, editors.

A post worth revisiting, especially if you use the New Year to declutter your living space: “Discard the Rest.” Let’s get rid of junk: in our closets and in our manuscripts!

How in the world do you capitalize “per” in different contexts? What even is “per”? Tim ponders the deep questions.

Punctuation makes the news.

Sex, gender, and scientific tables.

Sara visits our old friend the forest plot.

That will do it for the year! GOODBYE 2017! GOODBYE FOREVER! We look forward to bringing you fresh new content relating to all things AMA style in 2018.—Brenda Gregoline, ELS

Magic or Medicine?

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I am a serious news junkie these days, and I am never satisfied by the stripped-down daily brief or casual perusal of the headlines. I want the digging-into-the-deep-marrow kind of in-depth reporting that seems to be in decline in our instant-gratification-obsessed culture—the kind that takes months of investigation and hard work to uncover, and real talent to produce and present cohesively. I have found that one of the most enjoyable ways to quench my thirst for this type of journalism is in the form of podcasts. For culture and politics The Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal is absolutely on point, as is Politico’s the Global Politico. If you are a health care policy wonk, the new podcast put out by vox called the Impact produces very compelling stories on how policy impacts human lives. Oh hey, and did you know that the JAMA Network also produces a podcast series where you can catch up on the research, opinion, and educational content from across all our journals while on your daily commute or during your workout?

For me though, the absolute best example of the kind of work that a podcast can do is to be found in WNYC’s Radiolab. This is a highly entertaining and effective show where culture, science, and the humanities converge in ways that are entertaining, enlightening, and often deeply moving.

It was on Radiolab that I encountered a fascinating story that encompassed some of the questions central to my own scholarly interests: ancient texts and the intersections between superstition and science, magic and modernity. The episode is called Staph Retreat, wherein we learn of 2 researchers at the University of Nottingham who make a surprising medical discovery in an enigmatic 1000-year-old text called Bald’s Leechbook.

The story centers around a bioscientist who studies history as a hobby and a historian who dabbles in bioscience in her spare time. The pair share a fascination with the medical text and decide to use their combined talents to put one of the remedies to the test in a scientific study. The remedy is for what appears to be a staph infection.

Remarkably, they found that the remedy was efficacious in treating Staphylococcus aureus in an in vitro model of soft tissue infection and even killed methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA) in a mouse wound model. You can find the peer reviewed findings of their study published under an open access license in mBio here.

At a time when the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are becoming more apparent and urgent, is it possible that ancient texts may hold novel approaches to keeping our armamentarium apace with the evolution of these resistant infections? That may be a stretch, but it does open up a whole new area of study, ancientbiotics, which could theoretically yield new treatment options for increasingly resistant bacterial infections.

Perhaps equally important, this scholarship has implications that pertain to our modern conceptions of premodern physicians and caregivers. These researchers discovered that the efficacy of the remedy was decreased if any one of the ingredients was removed, implying a synergistic activity of the entire combination. This highlights a level of rational methodology that is often denied to premodern medical professionals by modern medical historians.—Gabriel Dietz

Dial “A” for Author

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It’s a cold winter day, and the wind is howling. You are at your computer quietly editing a manuscript while sipping your coffee. Maybe you are in a cube at an office surrounded by matching cubes occupied by your colleagues. Maybe you are in your home office with your cat snoozing on your lap. Suddenly, you are startled by a noise. Brring, brring…brrring, brrring. Your cat springs off your lap; you spill your coffee on the keyboard. Gasp, it’s the phone! You look at the caller ID, and it’s an author to whom you recently sent an edited manuscript with many queries. Your heart races. What should you do? Should you answer? Should you pretend you’re not there, curl up in a ball with the cat under your desk, and wait for a voicemail?

I think that many of us at some point in our careers have felt dread when the phone rings. We may fear that an author is going call us to express disapproval or even anger about our edits and want to fight about style. And some of us are so introverted, we don’t like talking on the phone in general. The author call can be daunting, but remember that copy editors and authors have the same goal–to communicate the authors’ research accurately, consistently, clearly, and according to AMA style.

I find that most author phone calls are simply for clarity about the edits or for questions about publication information. However, in some instances, authors will insist on providing their comments on all of the edits over the phone. Communicating more than a few changes over the phone leaves a lot of room for error, can be time consuming, and relies on good note-taking. To avoid this situation, I usually suggest to the author that they provide their edits in an email or a marked-up version of their manuscript to ensure that their edits are accurately incorporated into the document.

On (hopefully) rare occasions, authors will call to express distaste with the edits. My strategy is to be calm, listen, and wait for the author’s exasperation to pass. We may need to negotiate with authors. If they insist on using a term that is contrary to style that I can’t budge on, I offer them a style variation that they want elswehere in the manuscript for which the rules are less strict. But if the author is really disrespectful, I let the appropriate person know. It’s not fair to be belittled for doing our job.

Then there are the authors who enjoy a personal connection and just like to chat. I recently had an author call me and tell me about his chihuahua. I am always up to talk about pets in the midst of reading about medical conditions all day. Even though the call required some time out of my busy day, the author was appreciative of my willingness to chat.

It’s always possible that you will work with an author again in the future, so it’s never a bad idea to establish a cordial, trusting relationship through open communication. So we must take a deep breath, answer that phone, put on our best nice voice, and be ready to cite the AMA Manual of Style.—Sara M. Billings

Living With Style

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Did you know that the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry doesn’t follow AMA style? Here’s proof:

There are a few things I would change if I could edit that. Amanda, author of “People-First Language,” texted this to me and a few other JAMA Network editors a few weeks ago. It got me thinking about some stuff. Namely: am I becoming a style snob?

I know I’m not a grammar snob. I’m a lazy talker who don’t always speak good. No matter how many times I’m corrected, “my friends and I” never hang out, but “me and my friends” do. I don’t really care about parallel structure or flat adverbs when talking because—when it comes to speech—I think communication is more important than talking proper.

But that’s grammar. Like Amanda, I’m noticing style in everyday life, and I can’t not want to correct it. Whenever my girlfriend talks about side effects, I mutter “adverse” under my breath. I joke with a friend that she isn’t “suffering” through the day but simply “experiencing” it. I’m starting to change “compared to”s to “compared with”s on the fly when reading children’s books aloud. Seriously: I’m starting to change children’s books to style.

All of this is pretty harmless, and I’d imagine my manager is happy that some style changes are becoming automatic. But outside of work? I don’t want to be so automatic that I change, for example, “Alzheimer’s” to “Alzheimer,” shifting the focus of the conversation from illness to eponyms and the nonvirtue of ’s. I don’t want to derail trains of thought because I keep mumbling corrections when listening to people talk. I don’t want to be a style snob.

I’ve only been editing exclusively to AMA style for 2 years. For those with more time dedicated to one style guide: how bad have you gotten? Leave us a comment!—Kevin Brown

Get to the Point!

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Here comes Hank. Too late, he’s spotted you, and now you’re in for another story—or rather, a litany of unnecessary details. “I said this, and she said that, and then I said, ‘Really!’” Hank never edits himself; he simply tells you E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G until you’re screaming inwardly, “Get to the point!”

While editing manuscripts, I periodically encounter a “Hank” author. Every tidbit of information is important and, in his view, absolutely necessary. Along with his manuscript, which includes the maximum-allowed 5 tables and/or figures, he provides a Supplement that comprises 3 eMethods sections, an eResults, 14 eTables, and 9 eFigures. Data, data, and more data, until the Supplement resembles a closet stuffed by an 8-year-old who was told to clean her room. Everything. It’s all in there.

Consider the busy physician-reader. After perusing the array of freshly published articles in the journal website’s New Online section, she may click on Hank’s title and see that long list of supplemental material populating the scholar’s margin. However transparent the author endeavored to be by providing so much information, she doesn’t have time to read it all now; she needs summaries.

AMA style advocates that “tables and figures demonstrate relationships among data and other types of information” and that “a figure should be used if the relationships are complex….Like a paragraph, each…figure should be cohesive and focused.”

With that reader in mind, the manuscript editor reformats the author’s originally supplied figures to journal style and hones each one to present the material clearly. No chartjunk, no extraneous elements, no distracting line treatments.

Flow diagrams show the numerical progression of patients through the study: the number screened for inclusion, the number excluded for these reasons, the number enrolled, and the number at each stage, with those excluded or lost to follow-up at each stage also accounted for. The last box shows how many patients made it to the end of the study or were included in the primary analysis. From top to bottom, the progression of numbers makes perfect arithmetic sense.

Figures of multiple clinical, radiologic, or histologic images are labeled to guide the reader: before surgery, 6 months after surgery, 2 years later; magnetic resonance images of brains from patients 1 and 4; or specimens from a healthy individual and a patient with disease preceding another from the patient 1 year after treatment.

Graphs are appropriate to the data presented: bars for frequencies, data markers and error bars for summary data, forest plots for meta-analyses. All axes and ticks are clearly labeled, curves are identified by direct labeling or by the inclusion of concise figure keys, and bars and data markers are a solid color for the patients who received treatment and without color for those who received placebo. The numbers of patients at risk at each time point lend additional meaning to Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Forest plots include numerical data in addition to the illustrated plot points, with labels on either side of the graph’s vertical line at 1.0 to indicate whether each data marker’s location favored treatment or no treatment.

Back to our reader. Time is short, so she starts with the abstract. Words are read quickly, their meaning filtered through her years of accumulated knowledge and absorbed. She takes in the tables next. Row upon row of data; numbers represent baseline characteristics, laboratory results, and statistical analysis. Again, the numbers are filtered for meaning and digested for information that can help the reader treat her own patients. She studies the figures, and their meaning is immediately apparent: the bar for affected patients from one age group is taller, a survival curve is higher and longer for patients who received the lower dosage, the difference between 2 clinical images before and after treatment is obvious. No filter needed. Instantly clear. Results from years of the author’s research are visually summarized, seen by the reader, grasped, and understood.

The Supplement stands ready for closer investigation, but first the point must not be obscured. State it—illustrate it—clearly.—Connie Manno, ELS

Quoth the Raven

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The word impact as a verb comes up pretty often in the course of my work. I am not a fan (and neither is the AMA Manual of Style). I prefer to use affect instead, and when it comes to nouns I like effect better than impact, but I always had to stop and think about it and be sure that I was correctly using these words. I just could not remember. Then, a few weeks ago, I was poking around the internet and came across this useful mnemonic device, RAVEN.

“Remember: Affect is a Verb and Effect is a Noun.”

It’s not a new thing, but I hadn’t heard it before. It stuck in my mind because crows and ravens, those smart, handsome birds, are very interesting to me. Since then, I’ve noticed that the phrase popped into my head right away when I was confronted with the effect/affect question.

Happy Halloween!—Karen Boyd