Copy preparation and proof-reading

Page contents > Supplying copy to the designer | Checking and correcting proofs | LSE publications' house style

These are the guidelines the School uses in producing its corporate publications. If you have not produced many publications before, the copy and proof-reading guidelines will help you.

These guidelines cover the sort of checks we have found most helpful and - from bitter experience - some of the pitfalls to be avoided. Much of what follows is standard proof-reading practice and, although time-consuming at first, should actually save time later and avoid costly corrections at the printers.

As a general rule, check spelling, grammar, style and consistency and read for sense - there may be errors in the original copy however authoritative the source. If in doubt, check it!

The School produces many publications for different audiences. You may be asked to supply or amend text for a particular section. Please remember to follow any instructions you are given regarding setting out your copy so that style and layout will be consistent throughout the publication.

Supplying copy to the designer

Copy preparation:

• Don't use double spaces between sentences, they upset the proportional spacing
• Don't use capitals for headings - if they are part of the design they will be converted automatically during styling up
• Use specific tabs for columns of text or figures (rather than jumping several default tabs or inserting multiple spaces), but don't tab beginnings of paragraphs
• Never put in returns at the end of lines, only at the end of paragraphs
• Enclose any missing instructions in square brackets - this makes it easy to search
  and replace
• In cross-referencing contents etc, when the page number is unknown type xx within a square bracket [xx]
• Be consistent in style, use of punctuation, abbreviations and capitals etc (see house style notes)

Before submitting to the designer:

• Check back against original copy
• Spell check, read for grammar, sense, style and consistency
• Ensure that appropriate colleagues have read and approved text
• You will also need to check proofs from 'final form print'. For publications printed in-house, this means a proof produced on the printing equipment that will be used in the final production. For externally printed publications, the printer will supply proofs. See over for advice on checking proofs

Format:

• Supply final copy on disk or send as an email attachment in Word to the designer, plus styled hard copy, showing headings and italics for example

Checking and correcting proofs

However confident you are about the original copy, proofs still need very thorough checking. The copy may well have been translated from a PC to a Mac platform, it has certainly been translated to a different software package. Check in particular for incorrect character substitutions, missing copy, slipped tabs in tables, transposed figures in graphs. Has any of the information become out-of-date?

All styling will have been lost in translation to the layout package and so headings, subheadings, italics, bold, bullets etc will have been re-inserted by the designer using the hard copy supplied as a guide. Mistakes may have crept in at this stage - check for accidental deletions, styling missed, copy incorrectly broken or run on.

Mark all corrections and instructions on proofs in red, very clearly. The main requirement is that the designer is given clear and unambiguous instructions: use capital and lower case letters as appropriate, write legibly defining individual letters, write corrections in the margin in the order in which they fall on the line. Sometimes it may be clearer to spell out the correct form in full. Mark only clear instructions and corrections on the proof - discussion and comments between colleagues should be marked on post-it stickers and removed before passing on to the designer. Resolve any queries before returning the proof. The designer will make decisions about layout in accordance with the brief, but not about text content.

At second proof stage, check corrections have been made correctly and that making them has not resulted in new errors such as accidental deletions. Check through for anything you may have missed first time round.

The number of proofs will depend on the size and complexity of the job and the number of corrections being processed. When you can be sure that the page layout will not change, insert page numbers and check all cross-references.

If proofs are being signed off with some minor amendments outstanding, agree who will be responsible for checking these before the publication goes to press.

If you are proof-reading a complex publication (like the Undergraduate Prospectus), the following points are also worth bearing in mind.

• Check the wording of the headings and sections are the same as those listed in the contents
• Check brackets and quotes always open/close
• Add up percentages - they should always total 100 per cent
• Make sure any charts look like their percentages ie that ten per cent doesn't look smaller than eight per cent
• Check names of departments and institutes in the contents with an authoritative source - like the most recent publication produced by LSE: names change and new centres start up
• Read to identify any inconsistencies between the sections

Specifically for the prospectuses:

• Make sure there are no missing blocks of text eg first year, second year
• Keep remembering the information relates to the year of entry
• Check quality assessments of LSE - make sure the latest ones are in, and that we haven't arrived at a date without introducing the new QA rating
• Student accommodation - worth checking as the number of residences is expanding

LSE publications' house style

Abbreviations

Do not use full points in abbreviations such as Mr, Dr, eg, ie, etc and for degree titles such as BA, BSc.

Capitals

Use initial capitals sparingly. They are used in the following instances:

• When referring to LSE as the School
• For all proper nouns - place names, countries, languages/nationalities (English, French, European), names, etc
• For historical periods - Victorian, Tudor, Renaissance, Medieval
• For months and days of the week but not for seasons of the year: autumn, spring, summer, winter
• For very specific job titles of individuals eg Professor of International Relations, and for titles used in conjunction with the name eg Professor Smith, but not for more general titles such as: a professor in the Economics Department, chairman, chief executive, partner, editor, governor, director (apart from Howard Davies who, when referred to just by his title without his name, is the Director). Titles commonly used in business, such as finance director, do not need initial capitals. If in doubt, use lower case unless it looks unduly odd
• When referring to the Department ie one particular department, but not when referring generally to departments eg there are 18 departments, if any department...
• For titles of LSE programmes (eg MSc Economics), and courses (eg AC100 Elements of Accounting and Finance)
• North, South etc are capitalised only if part of a commonly used title of an area - eg South Africa, Western Australia - otherwise they are lower case - eg southern England, the west of Scotland, etc
• For the main title of a book, but not for subheadings which are separated by a colon and then lower case eg Environmental Economics: an elementary introduction

Do not use initial capitals:

• When referring to higher education, honours degrees, joint, single, major/minor, master's, diplomas etc
• For references to subjects when not part of a programme or course title
• When referring to the year of study (ie the third year of the course)

Dates and time

Number, month, year eg 25 December 2000

In 2000-01

From 2000 to 2001

1990s (with no apostrophe)

21st century, 20th-century ideas

Don't use the 24-hour clock, it's confusing. Use 11am, 2.30pm (not 11.00am or 11 am); use noon and midnight.

Italics

Foreign words or phrases should be italicised, unless they are so familiar that they have become anglicised eg status quo.

Book titles, newspaper and journal names should be in italics.

Numbers

In body copy, spell out numbers from one to ten, and numbers at the start of a sentence. Use figures for numbers from 11 upwards. However, in a paragraph listing several numbers relating to the same topic, eg comparing numbers of votes cast, use all figures.

Use a comma for numbers over 999: 1,670.

Telephone numbers: where relevant, give the international code: +44 (0)20 7955 xxxx; do not use hyphens.

Publication titles

Books and journal titles are set in italics. Use initial capitals for the main title, but not for subheadings which are separated by a colon and then lower case
eg Environmental Economics: an elementary introduction.

Academic papers within journals should be in single quotation marks (not in italics) with all but the first letter of the title in lower case (see under Capitals above for exceptions to this rule).

Quotation marks

Use single quotation marks except for quotes within quotes, where double quotation marks are used.

Spelling and style preferences

When referring to LSE as an institution, do not use 'the' in front of it (eg they visited LSE, not they visited the LSE), 'the' is however necessary if it refers to a particular office eg further information is available from the LSE Financial Support Office.

Word endings: use '-ise' in preference to '-ize', except in the case of book or report titles which are spelled as published.

Postgraduate and undergraduate are both spelled as one word.

A level is two words, no hyphen, with lower case 'l'.

Course work is two words.

The word 'course' is used for units/modules.

Use email without a hyphen, and lower case letters. Similarly web is lower case, and for web addresses which contain www. there is no need to mention http.

% is written out in full as two words: per cent.

& is only used within body copy for company names.

Subheading styles

Subheadings take a capital as the first letter of the line, but lower case thereafter. They do not take a full stop.

From LSE Style Guide January 2001

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