Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Punctuation
Taste and common sense are more important than any rules; you
put in stops to help your readers to understand you, not to please
grammarians.
Ernest Gowers
The Complete Plain Words
Punctuation is a fundamental skill. Anyone reading this topic is familiar with the
functions of spaces, commas, stops, and capital letters. This chapter concerns stylistic
issues of punctuation and errors that are common in science writing.
Fonts and Formatting
There is no obligation to use fancy typesetting just because a word processor provides
it. Most computing or mathematical writing uses three fonts (plain, italic, and bold)
or four (if, say, a fixed-width font is used for the text of programs) but use of more is
likely to be annoying, and all but the plain font should be used sparingly. Overuse of
fonts results in messy-looking text. Some authors prefer
bold
to
italic
for emphasis,
but bold print is distracting. Use of underlining for emphasis, once common because
of the limitations of typewriters as typesetting devices, is obsolete.
Use standard fonts for the text of papers. Two standard choices are Times-Roman
and Cambria; note that these are too similar to be used in the same document. Fonts
such as Helvetica and Courier are not as easy to read. Sans-serif fonts such as Calibri
are widely used in advertising and to some readers don't seem sufficiently serious.
An elaborate or unfamiliar font is almost always inappropriate.
Visual clutter of any kind is distracting and should be eliminated unless there is
a clear need for it. Emphasis is one kind of clutter. Another is the use of graphic
devices such as boxes around important points or icons next to results. Yet another
kind of clutter is punctuation: excessive use of parentheses, quotes, italics, hyphens,
semicolons, and uppercase letters.
Indentation is an important tool of layout, used primarily to indicate the start of
a new paragraph. Some authors prefer to use a blank line instead, a decision that is
