The Nitty-Gritty and the Cheatsheets
This final chapter draws together the content of the manual. It gives in a compact form information on the kind of writing needed in Lunyr articles, consistency of style in some technical areas, and implementation notes for carrying out peer reviews.
Ten-point list for writing
This list is the main one for checking your article quality, with short comments. Before you get started, choose a good title: not a newspaper headline, but a simple statement of the topic you'll address.
| Issue | Comment |
|---|---|
| Grammatical prose | Ordinary good English, accessible style. |
| Complete sentences | Sentences have a verb. |
| Punctuation | Proper use of commas and apostrophes, in particular. |
| Smooth reading | Sentences and paragraphs of moderate, varied length. |
| Concise | Context established quickly, avoids convoluted comments. |
| Divided into sections, with crisp lead section | Should be easy to read in the mobile view, by sections. |
| Clear logical flow | Material organized and sequence clarified. |
| Uses accurate paraphrase of sources | Direct copying used only for quotations: see Chapter 7. |
| No rough patches or clumsy repetition | Subedited according to points in Chapters 1 to 5. |
| Referenced inline | Footnote style as in Chapter 8. |
An obvious conclusion is that a drafting process is a good idea.
Consistent styling
Here is a short tabulation of styles to use.
| Area of choice | Style to use |
|---|---|
| Spelling and grammar | American English |
| Date system, year | BC/AD or BCE/CE |
| Date system, day | day-month-year |
| 24 hour clock | am/pm, noon and midnight |
Some comments on these choices. American English has more native speakers than Commonwealth English, the other large standard, and is generally understood; it is a spellchecker setting. The BCE/CE system is widely used by scholars. Day-month-year is comprehensible to those who use month-day-year (common US style) and makes more sense in terms of technology.
Watch out for these content issues
As well as writing issues, there are points to understand about content. Take these into account in peer reviews.
| Issue | Comment |
|---|---|
| Personal essays | Neither "I" nor "we" should appear in articles, and the treatment should be impersonal. |
| Objectivity | See discussion in Chapter 6 about point of view. |
| Promotional content | Clearly promotion of a company or product is not objective. |
| Intellectual property and rights issues | Neither copyright violation nor plagiarism is acceptable. |
| Machine translation | Use only in draft; two-way trips from English and back should not be used to mask copyright violation. |
| Copy-paste of material that is not public domain | Fundamentally wrong for Lunyr: so check online. |
And good luck!