[MISCELLANEOUS]
[Manuscript]
[80a.] Titles. Center a title on the page. Capitalize important words. It is unnecessary to place a period after a title, but a question mark or exclamation point should be used when one is appropriate. Do not underscore the title, or unnecessarily place it in quotation marks. Leave a blank line under the title, before beginning the body of the writing.
[b.] Spacing. Careful spacing is as necessary as punctuation. Place writing on a page as you would frame a picture, crowding it toward neither the top nor the bottom. Leave liberal margins. Write verse as verse; do not give it equal indention or length of line with prose. Connect all the letters of a word. Leave a space after a word, and a double space after a sentence. Leave room between successive lines, and do not let the loops of letters run into the lines above or below.
[c.] Handwriting. Write a clear, legible hand. Form a, o, u, n, e, i, properly. Write out and horizontally. Avoid unnecessary flourishes in capitals, and curlicues at the end of words. Dot your i's and cross your t's; not with circles or long eccentric strokes, but simply and accurately. Let your originality express itself not in ornate penmanship, or unusual stationery, or literary affectations, but in the force and keenness of your ideas.
[Capitals]
[81a.] Begin with a capital a sentence, a line of poetry, or a quoted sentence. But if only a fragment of a sentence is quoted, the capital should be omitted.
- Right: He said, "The time has come."
- Right: The question is, Shall the bill pass?
- Right: They said they would "not take no for an answer."
- Right:
- "The good die first,
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket."—Wordsworth.
[b.] Begin proper names, and all important words used as or in proper names, with capitals. Words not so used should not begin with capitals.
- Right: Mr. George K. Rogers, the Principal of the Urbana High School, a college president, the President of the Senior Class, a senior, the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, three battalions of infantry, the Fourth of July, on the tenth of June, the House of Representatives, an assembly of delegates, a Presbyterian church, the separation of church and state, the Baptist Church, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a creek known as Black Oak Creek, the Republican Party, a party that advocates high tariff, Rocky Mountains, The Bible, God, The Christian Era, Wednesday, in the summer, living in the South, turning south after taking a few steps to the east, one morning, O dark-haired Evening! italic type, watt, pasteurize, herculean effort.