Manuscript Preparation, Copyediting, and Proofreading

Q. We are editing a scientific book. We have to follow UK spelling. Per the dictionary, sulfur is the US spelling and sulphur is the UK spelling. But in one chapter the author has used sulfur and in another chapter sulphur. Since we are following UK spelling, can we change sulfur to sulphur? Or, per CMOS, since the IUPAC recommended spelling is sulfur irrespective of UK or US spelling, can we change sulphur to sulfur?

Q. For a book manuscript, does one indent the beginning of a new paragraph?

Q. I thought at one point it was considered bad taste to include an author’s title on the front cover of a book (Steve Smith, PhD). But now I am wondering if that is the case. Any input? Is it just an individual decision?

Q. I am editing a festschrift, and the authors have asked to include a dedication to the person whom the festschrift is honoring. However, there is already a preface that discusses the person being honored (as well as a foreword), and I’m wondering if this may be overkill.

Q. Microsoft Word says that I need to put an apostrophe in the word students in the following sentence. Why? Where is the possessive? “We will be enrolling new students right up to the day school starts.”

Q. I use Microsoft Word and it has a “reference” feature that does part of the work of endnotes/footnotes for the author. The reference feature uses a smaller font than regular and doesn’t indent the information in the endnote. Should I use the reference feature, or should I do this manually, keyboarding in the information the same way I do the rest of the manuscript?

Q. In unpublished scholarly works, which are of course double-spaced according to Chicago style, should block quotations be double-spaced also, or should (or can) they be single-spaced?

Q. My author’s manuscript has already been stamped with page numbers and she’d like to insert a seven-page comment without renumbering the rest of the pages. She’d like to just number the insertion 116a–116g, or something similar. Do you think this will be acceptable?

Q. In a document of two or more volumes, where should the index go? At the end of each volume or at the end of the last volume?

Q. Hello—I’m wondering if you might provide a little guidance with respect to book indexing. A colleague of mine has been asked by the author to do indexing for a coffee-table physics book to be published by a major publisher. As she has never done this before, and graphic arts is actually her field, I’ve advised her to defer to a professional, as indexing is actually quite a complex art form. Do you agree? I’m hoping to provide her with some expert advice that can back up her stance.