An absolute must for every Christian writer!

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Product Description

A revised edition of a handbook for Christian writers from Zondervan.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #237186 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310487715
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
This is a standard style manual coupled with material of use primarily to religious writers. The basic manual is a revision of The Zondervan Manual of Style (1980) but includes unique features not usually found in style manuals. After surveying Christian writers to determine their needs, the editors chose to include a full chapter on capitalization, spelling, and hyphenation for religious terms and charts of Greek and Hebrew transliterations. They also offer a guide to building a Scripture index and information on gaining permission to quote copyrighted hymns and biblical versions. The addition of this material to an excellent and well-indexed style manual and the reasonable price make this a good purchase even for libraries with other current manuals. Recommended. C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, Ind.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover
An essential tool for writers, editors, proofreaders, designers, copywriters, production managers, and marketers too.

The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style is an essential tool not only for writers of religious materials, but for their editors, proofreaders, designers, copywriters, production managers, and even marketers. Rather than simply repeating style information commonly available in standard references, this newly updated and expanded edition includes points of grammar, punctuation, usage, book production and design, and written style that are often overlooked in other manuals. It focuses on information relating to the unique needs and demands of religious publications, such as discussions on how to correctly quote the Bible, how to capitalize and use common religious terms, and how to abbreviate the books of the Bible and other religious words.

Also included are rarely found items such as: • an author’s guide to obtaining permissions • guidelines for using American, British, and Mid-Atlantic styles • discussions of inclusive language, profanity, and ethnic sensitivities • discussions of Internet and computer-related language style • a list of problem words • style issues regarding words from major world religions • a discussion of handling brand names in text • a list of common interjections • issues of type design, paper, copy-fit

This edition has been completely updated since the 1988 edition and contains more than twice as much information as the previous edition. This is the most detailed and comprehensive guide of its kind.

About the Author
Robert Hudson is a senior editor-at-large at Zondervan. With his wife, Shelly Townsend-Hudson, he has written Companions for the Soul, and with Duane W. H. Arnold he has written Beyond Belief: What the Martyrs Said to God. He also edits the online literary ezine Working POET,com.;Shelley Townsend has much experience in writing and editing. Shelley works as a freelance editor. She lives in Grand Rapids, MI with her husband, Bob Hudson, and three cats.

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Customer Reviews

Required resource for Christian writers
"The Christian Writer's Manual of Style" provides the most exhaustive coverage of the special writing problems in the area of Christian publications that I have ever seen. This is easily the best book available on the subject of Christian writing style. Examples of the items covered here that are unlikely to be covered anywhere else include abbreviations for Bible books including apocryphal writings, the difference between sacred writings and the bible, should the use of the word "biblical" be capitalized or not, the difference between the Anglican Church and the Church of England, Bible permissions for quoting different versions and where to write for permissions, biblical and religious terms, clerical titles, forms of Christian books, Islamic terminology, Jewish terminology, and religious jargon.

In addition to this specialized information it also includes the stuff you would expect in any manual of style including commonly misspelled words, syntax rules, punctuation, proofreading, etc. Of course in any book of this depth some items are bound to become outdated quickly. For example, there are a couple of references to Word Publishing as a division of Thomas Nelson Publishing. Word Publishing no longer exists. Still this is the only outdated information I found in the entire book, which is pretty amazing. "The Christian Writer's Manual of Style" is a highly recommended read for anyone writing for the Christian market, and especially if you are writing non-fiction.

On the Desk of Every Christian Writer
If you're even reading this, you probably felt the need for a Christian style guide. If that describes you, save your time, ignore the rest of my review, and click the "Buy Now" button :)

But if you're still unconvinced...

This style manual covers every imaginable style-related issue, particularly for religious writing; basically just about style-related issue you'll encounter as a Christian writer, whether you're writing about Internet technology and how it relates to eschatology, or a critique of Islam from a Christian perspective.

And it doesn't just cover the religious issues; the standard style issues like punctuation, capitalization, acronyms, etc. are covered in good detail. It even has a section on British English.

This is probably the most current and exhaustive style manual for Christian writers around, and every serious Christian writer concerned about style and consistency should get one.

I seldom give 5 stars, but this one deserves it.

Invaluable for the Christian writer
This book is invaluable to someone like myself who does a lot of Christian writing. I have referred to it often when writing articles for my Web site and newsletter and when working on my books and even on my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition. It provides an overview of proper punctuation, capitalization, special formatting like italics and small caps, and abbreviations.

Most any English grammars would provide such information. But what makes this book special is it focuses on the special needs of Christian writers. So the list of abbreviations, for instance, includes the proper abbreviations for all 66 canonical books, along with for the apocryphal and pseudepigrapha books. It also provides lists of proper capitalization, like if "apocryphal" and "pseudepigrapha" in my previous sentence should be capitalized (they shouldn't).

It also shows that when quoting a Scripture verse and giving the verse reference at the end of the sentence, the period should come after the parentheses, e.g., "And he called His name Jesus" (Matthew 1:25). This book also told me that I did not need to use an ellipse in this Scripture quote. Even though I only quoted a part of the verse, what I quoted was a complete sentence.

You can see that I even referred to this book in writing this review. So I highly recommend it.