About Chris Roerden Information About Editing Honors and Awards When You Are Ready for Editing
Home Page

Definitions, Abbreviations, Symbols

You may see some of the following written on your edited manuscript:
 
|| align
^ insert whatever is shown with this symbol
v insert at the top of the line, such as a quotation mark or apostrophe

start a new paragraph

no ¶ make part of previous paragraph
] indent
[ remove indent
# space (usually means add a space or a line, unless the delete sign is also shown)
§
section
-- two hyphens, which is how typed manuscripts should show a dash
/ or lc lower case whatever capital letter has a slash through it
1/M a one-em dash — the typical dash in typesetting (written like a fraction)
1/N a one-en dash, half the length of a 1/M; used for ranges, as in 3–5 years
BB

bad break, meaning that a hyphen is breaking a word in an undesirable place; used for typeset material only
BF
bold face whatever is underscored with wavy lines
ch
abbreviation for chapter
graf
shorthand for paragraph
ital

underscore the word shown — do not type it in italics; both editor and typesetter must see the underscore so the word will be set in an actual italics typeface
L & sc large and small caps
LF
light face; used to indicate that whatever is underscored with wavy lines should not be in bold face
ms manuscript
mss manuscripts
pp pages
rom change the underscored word from italics to roman
sp spell out; don't use a numeral or abbreviation
stet

let stand; leave as it was before the handwritten edit was made; usually, a series of dots are written under the word to be stetted
~ or tr transpose letters, words, or sentences
uc upper case; also shown as 2 or 3 lines under the letter to be upper-cased
wf wrong font