APA Style Blog

APA for example says the following: "... a reference is not necessary for standard software... Examples are Microsoft Word, Java, and Adobe Photoshop." https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/01/how-to-cite-software-in-apa…

I don't think that it's clear at all, but I suppose that's subjective. To me it's much more difficult to parse and got in the way of my enjoyment of an otherwise excellent book. I'd have much preferred "new" pronouns like xe/xer/xem. I've read thousands of books, and changing an old word to mean new things (but only under specific circumstances) is much more difficult for me than learning a new word. I Googled it, and for what it's worth, the APA recommends against the singular "they" because they also think it can be confusing (except in cases of gender diversity): https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/11/the-use-of-singular-they-in… The Chicago Style guide is much the same. I don't think either mean's to say that it automatically becomes less confusing when gender diversity is involved, it's just that we don't have better options. It's sci-fi. If we're imaging a better future, can't we also imagine some new pronouns that don't confuse people?

It’s possessive, but represents a grey zone in how apostrophes work in modern English. A trailing apostrophe is for a possessive following a plural “s”. But “Sonos” is just a made up name, meant to evoke the Latin “sonus” I’d guess. Regardless, it’s a singular name, the fact that it has a trailing “s” doesn’t mean it’s plural. So in this argument, a possessive should be spelled “Sonos’s”. BUT! There’s a longstanding (but eroding) tradition that there’s a specific exception for classical or biblical names that end in an s. Is Sonos a classical or biblical name? I don’t think so, but I suppose people could decide it ought to be treated like one. Finally, recent advice on this is to let pronunciation guide the presence of a final “s”. So if you pronounce Sonos’ as “soh-nohs” and not “soh-noh-ses”, the APA thinks Sonos’ is reasonable [0]. [0] https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessives-with-si…

There is this [1]. Maybe it applies here > When an animal name is part of a journal article title, it is conventional to provide the animal’s scientific name (genus and species). Genus is always capitalized and species is not. Notice that the scientific names are also italicized [1] https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/02/-how-to-format-scientific-n…

Usually publishing organizations have house rules and the copy hews to these rules. NPR uses the spellings in Webster’s New World College Dictionary Fifth Edition, and then has a few rules of their own. A more algorithmic rule is found in APA style: https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/10/hyphenation-station-the-hyp… Edit: NPR also uses the Associated Press Stylebook and related resources.

It depends how you pronounce "H". If you pronounce it aitch instead of haitch then using "an" in this context is totally correct. https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/04/using-a-or-an-with-acronyms…

It's just how formal US English requires quite a bit of punctuation to be inside the quotes, even if the punctuation isn't being quoted. https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotatio… This rule is obvs not super composable, and leads to a lot of confusion when punctuation (or lack thereof) is part of what you're trying to quote.

There's not exactly a consensus these days on what is correct. Either is valid, but I generally prefer _Brooks' Law_ to _Brooks's Law_ since it looks more clean. Of course, Brook's Law is incorrect, as there is no "Brook" Here's an example of the lack of consensus: Either is acceptable: https://data.grammarbook.com/blog/apostrophes/apostrophes-with-names-e… https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/apostrophe_intr… Chicago vs AP style: https://apvschicago.com/2011/06/apostrophe-s-vs-apostrophe-forming.htm… APA style suggests appending the extra 's': https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessives-with-si…

Thank you. I think that is good practice to introduce abbreviations correctly. Even that it is easy to forget when you work with them all the time. "How do I introduce an abbreviation in the text? The first time you use an abbreviation in the text, present both the spelled-out version and the short form." https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/abbreviations/

Others have already made the point about PEP8 being a guideline, so I just wanted to also point out that not all style guides would agress with you on Bayes'/'s theorem. Case in point, the APA style guide: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessives-with-sin…

American style (Chicago, APA, and MLA) specifies that a period goes inside the quotations. British style, on the other hand, specifies that a period goes outside the quotations. http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation…

I upvoted you, but the comma after 'pidgin English' should really go inside the quote. i.e. It's 'pidgin English,' not 'pigeon'. :) http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation…

Depending on the style guide (punctuation in English is unfortunately not universal), all you need to do is drop the period. Give a few of these pages a read if you'd like to really get into it: From Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS style), "Q: This may be impossible": http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation.… From Modern Language Association (MLA style), https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/ From American Psychological Association (APA style), http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation…

Not if the name of the products are iPhone® and iPad®. * https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/trademark/appletmlis… There's a fellow who did a bunch of stuff with computers: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann You would not write "Von Neumann architecture", but rather "von Neumann architecture": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/von_Neumann_architecture Cites: * https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/02/do-i-capitalize-this-word.h… * https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/when-to-capitalize-words/ § 5 If the word is at the beginning of a sentence it may be capitalized, but mid-sentence it should follow its proper name: > Rawashdeh says that before generative AI, eBay had billions of signals about what consumers bought and sold, and the feedback that they’d share with eBay about their experience on the site. […] > EBay is agnostic about who it will work with for generative AI. It partners with Microsoft for GitHub and buys AI data center infrastructure from Nvidia, for example. […] * https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-uses-generative-ai-employees-17…

HN pedantry of the day: 'lite' vs 'light'. I screamed internally a bit at "a list of lite websites", so naturally I looked up the definition and etymology. It turns out that lite is basically a modifier for product names. Early in the 20th century it was used for products like "Auto-Lite" and "Adjusto-Lite", apparently as a diminutive form of "light". But then later it was used to connote fewer calories (as in "Miller Lite", "Kikkoman Lite") whereas other products still use the full form ("Yoplait Light"). Lite's other definition is "diminished or lacking in substance or seriousness ... innocuous or unthreatening", implying an almost childish, immature, or unthreatening form. In this website's case, the list is specifically referring to the "weight" or "heft" of the websites, relative to the content which isn't solely what the user is looking for. It also is not referring to a product name. That falls squarely under the definition for light, and not lite. But the name of the repo, awesome-lite-websites, can be seen as a product name. So the word lite fits for the name, but not in the description. (indeed, in the README the word "lightweight" is correctly used) [1] https://grammarist.com/words/lite/ [2] https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/10/lite-or-light-which-spellin… [3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/lite

Alternatives, APA: - http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/10/how-to-cite-twitter-and-face… - http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/10/how-to-cite-twitter-and-face… Chicago: - http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentatio… - http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html IEEE: - http://www.york.ac.uk/integrity/ieee.html