Constant Content

So, my article finally got reviewed after two weeks...and the comments are not really making sense. It says that a full one third of my article must appear in the content preview space (it is -- I included pretty much half of my article there). It says I need spaces to separate the paragraphs -- this is already included. Finally, the only comment that made sense (kind of) was that the question marks should be inside quotes...which I don't agree with. Here's the one sentence I think they are referring to:

Do you often find yourself making excuses for the poor behavior of your "friends"?

Doesn't it seem wrong to include the question mark inside the quotations??

I had submitted an article a few months back as well to test the waters...and it got rejected because there weren't spaces between the paragraphs...but there were!! At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I mean, from what I hear, CC seems like a great opportunity...but my experiences so far have been frustrating. My articles don't seem to have anything wrong with them and judging from the comments, it seems like whoever's editing them is just trying to find fault? I mean, how do I even go about resubmitting this when a lot of the comments are referring to things that I can't even correct since it's already that way in my original draft??

Hi girl.

I've had the spacing thing too. They wanted "hard" returns and said I put in soft ones. I guess it has to do with how their program reads the program you did yours in.

I also had the questionable quotation mark comment. They wanted me to put They called it "President's Choice." I don't agree with that either. I changed it anyhow as my mind is too boggled to care some times. I think if it was a quote it would make sense.

Go to the upload area and see if the format has gone skewy.(sp?)

Now I'm going to post a question about the resubmission process that I can't figure out.

Weird! I hope mine don't come back like that. I included the whole thing in the summary and I definitely have spaces.

As for the thing about the question mark in the quotations, I would tend to side with you, since you were describing just the single word as "so called" and it wasn't typical dialog. I have never come across a rule for that and I just tried to do a little research now and couldn't come up with anything.

I guess they just want to stick to the general rule that punctuation should go inside the quotation marks, though the way you did it I just think it would be weird!

Hi,
The spacing between the paragraph thing gets so many new CC users it's not even funny - at least from my perspective reading posts in the forum asking about this. It has to do with Word 2007's default paragraph spacing settings. Word doesn't actually add a blank line between paragraphs; it "pads" the last line of the paragraph by adding blank space just below that line. While you see a blank line in your copy of Word and any printouts you make, that blank line doesn't really exist in terms of other computer programs. When you copy and paste the text into some Web forms, that line disappears and the text appears as one gigantic paragraph. So, yeah, your document has a blank line between paragraphs, but not really.

The solution to this is to select all of your text and then go into Word's Paragraph dialog box (it's in the Home tab of the Ribbon -- click that little semi-invisible box in the corner) and change the Before and After fields under Spacing to read 0 pt. Now, when you type, you'll need to manually add a blank line between your paragraphs by pressing enter not once but twice. You can change Word's default template or create a special template you use just for CC so that you don't have to make this adjustment all the time.

As far as one third of the article, the editor may have felt that the sample didn't give enough information to the reader/potential buyer. It doesn't hurt to include more than what's asked. In fact, many of us include the entire article in the sample section.

Whether or not to place the question mark inside or outside the quotes in this particular example is debatable but probably not worth debating. In the U.S., periods and commas generally go inside the quotation marks but question marks and exclamation points have slightly different rules. The Yahoo! Style Guide says "Tuck question marks and exclamation points within the quotation marks if they're part of the quote. Put them outside if they apply to the whole sentence." I'd make the change or change the sentence to avoid the issue.

Do you often find yourself making excuses for the poor behavior of your so-called friends?

With regards to the punctuation/quotation marks, sometimes it just seems to depend on which editor reviews your work...I've had a couple of articles sent back this week with advice that contradicted earlier advice given by (presumably) a different editor. I'm not complaining, since they made some good points, but it gets kinda confusing sometimes. I find it's best just to try to make whatever changes they suggest, then keep your fingers crossed!

When you copy and paste the text into some Web forms, that line disappears and the text appears as one gigantic paragraph. So, yeah, your document has a blank line between paragraphs, but not really.

So, if I go to preview the articles that I have under review, and the sample looks good with lines between the paragraphs and everything, does that mean I'm okay?

I think so. CC recently changed how the display is generated - it's now an image rather than text, so I'm not sure if it is an accurate display. Here's how to check on your own. Go to Word and look for the paragraph symbol icon. It looks like a backwards 'P' with a double line. In Word 2007, it's located in the Paragraph section of the Ribbon. Click that icon and your document will show all of its formatting codes.

If your settings are correct, your document will show a blank line containing the backwards 'P' between paragraphs. I'll try to post a screenshot.

Hmmn, looks like the upload attachment feature isn't working. Here's a link to the image I just created over at Google Docs. It contains a before and after of some sample text. The top shows how the text appears in Word. The bottom shows the formatting symbols. Hopefully this will help. Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7r2Ic ... y=CPn38tAD

Celeste, I think the point regarding the quotation marks was that neither of those instances were quotes. They were what most authors would have italicized, but since we aren't to use that here (last I heard), the words in question were put into quotes instead. It is sort of like saying, the name of the magazine is "Hot Women". But the editor was requesting : The name of the magazine is "Hot Women."

Or as the poster above said, perhaps referring to something like friends on facebook:

behaviour of your "friends". But the editor wanted behaviour of your "friends." In this case, friends referring to a label we give people who aren't really friends.

So what I'm saying is I understood the part about where punctuation goes for quotes, but for words normally italicized, the editor's punctuation rule sounds off to me a Canadian.

Perhaps this is why there has been issues: I saw this on Wikipedia--notice the placements:

When dealing with words-as-words, short-form works and sentence fragments, the styles differ:
“Carefree,” in general, means “free from care or anxiety.” (American practice)
“Carefree”, in general, means “free from care or anxiety”. (British practice)

So, basically, the question is whether or not a Canadian (British) writer's article should be rejected over this rule.

CC does allow Canadian/British spellings and punctuation so I don't think that's the case here. If the entire article used Canadian conventions, this sentence wouldn't be an issue. For example, Do you often find yourself making excuses for the poor behaviour of your "friends"? with the Canadian spelling of behavior would probably be correct as far as Canada goes (though I wonder, wouldn't Canadians use single quotes rather than double?). In the U.S., we put most punctuation marks inside quotation marks (even if the words aren't quotations or dialogue) with some exceptions: some question marks, semicolons, exclamation marks, and colons. If the sentence in question ended in a period, the issue wouldn't be as complicated. It would be either Canadian (... the behaviour of your "friends".) or American (... the behavior of your "friends.") It's the question mark that's finicky as there are some exceptions to the way we punctuate in conjunction with quotation marks.

Example (U.S. conventions):

My favorite band names are "Phish," "Funky Chicken," and "Monkey Business." This is my favorite song is by "Fickle Pickle": Maybe I'm Amazed. I'm thinking of a name for my own band. What do you think of "Sharkbait?"

The inside commas in the series are correct as is the outside colon after "Fickle Pickle." But what about the question mark after the last sentence? It feels natural to put the question mark outside of the quotation marks (What do you think of "Sharkbait"?), but I'm not sure that's technically correct.

Curious, I did some more digging. Here's what I found from St. Cloud State University:

When both the whole sentence and the unit enclosed in quotation marks are questions or exclamations, the question or exclamation mark goes inside the closing quotation mark.

What does Joseph Campbell believe happens when you "Follow your bliss?"

Celeste Stewart wrote:Hmmn, looks like the upload attachment feature isn't working. Here's a link to the image I just created over at Google Docs. It contains a before and after of some sample text. The top shows how the text appears in Word. The bottom shows the formatting symbols. Hopefully this will help. Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B7r2Ic ... y=CPn38tAD

Thank you! I use word 2003 but it seems to be pretty much the same. I did what you suggested and it looks like my document has everything as it should be and I have true spaces.

Thanks again!

------edit

Now I remember that I made sure I had those settings when making e-mail submissions to publishers!

Good noticing the American vs. Canadian spelling of behavior. I agree it should all be the same.

Re: The question mark, it depends on whether the entire sentence is a question or just the word(s) in the quotes, ie:


Did she really say, “Carbon is a liquid gas”?
Where is your copy of "The Raven"?

Above entire sentences are questions.

May asked, "Do you think carbon is a liquid gas?"
"How cold is it outside?" my mother asked.

Direct quotes, question mark is inside.

Or exclamation

He is a "hottie"! The quotes mean the word "hottie" isn't in the normal dictionary.

The sign said, "Danger, keep out of there!"

We only use a single quotation mark (as I was taught), when we need to layer quotes:

"I think she said `I will try,' not `I won't try,'" explained Sandy.

"John's reading of 'Gone With the Wind' was well received."

If we could just use the italicize feature for words that are either proper book/article names or words for emphasis, it would make it easier. I do like it.

You can italicize in your CC submissions. Just don't overdo it and question yourself to make sure it's really necessary. I do it for book titles and the occasional foreign word.