[Artemisia] Format

[Stephanae Baker]

I don't know why I'm writing this, except that I can't resist. I  
don't know the answer to your question about the SCA, Arwen.

As a professional technical/business/marketing writer and  
instructional designer, I know that I use Chicago most often. I have  
the occasional client who prefers AP, which makes me shudder and ask  
myself, "Why?" I've edited one or two articles for medical or dental  
journals where I had to use APA. But, in business, I have never (that  
was never) had to use MLA; I haven't used it since I graduated  
college. Even when I designed an online Introduction to Literature  
course for McGraw-Hill, I used Chicago. All that aside, if the SCA  
has an official style reference, I'd think MLA would be a good  
choice. The MLA's home is liberal arts academia, which I'd say fits  
us. I don't think you could go wrong if you use it for style choices.

On the other hand, if you're specifically asking about formatting vs.  
style choices for punctuation, usage, and reference formatting, I'd  
say it would depend on what you're doing with your document. MLA  
dictates 1-inch margins and a legible serif font--good advice for  
almost any purpose (although I'd personally avoid courier unless I  
were writing an RFC for the IETF--scary to think that that's a dream  
of mine)--but it also dictates double spacing with half-inch  
paragraph indents. If you're submitting something to a journal or  
other publisher where they may have an editor who wants to print a  
hard copy of your document and have room to write between the lines,  
then double spacing is a great idea (or if you're handing your  
research paper in to your prof, which was what MLA is most frequently  
used for). If you're formatting the final version, well, no modern  
eye wants to read double spacing--and no period eye, as far as I  
know. The hard and fast rule in most business and instructional texts  
these days is ragged right block paragraphs (no indent), with an  
amount of space between the paragraphs equal to the point size of  
your font (i.e., 12-pt. font equals 12 points between paragraphs). In  
literature and various other types of book publishing, I think it's  
likely that single spacing with no space between paragraphs,  
paragraph indents, and justification has been the rule since  
Gutenberg, no matter what you learned in type class.

For the little it's worth,
Lady Belladonna


On May 4, 2007, at 8:52 AM, morgan wolf wrote:

> I don't think we have an "official" format, but I know I've seen  
> both APA and MLA format on documentation.  I personally use MLA  
> more often.
>
> Morgan
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Reuben and Arwen <reuben_arwen at yahoo.com>
> To: artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org
> Sent: Thursday, May 3, 2007 11:58:28 PM
> Subject: [Artemisia] Format
>
>
> We use MLA format in the SCA, yes?  Arwen
>
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