Heya.
So, I'm about to send out my latest applications to collect more pissoffwriter.docs, and I took some time first to review Vonda MacIntyre's wonderful essay on standard guidelines for doing so. I want my submissions to look neat and professional while an editor or agent takes 2.6 seconds to reject it, after all.
Anyway, while the writer makes it very clear that this format is mostly a classic one for typewriter-based submissions and may not necessarily be up to the modern specs of a party you submit to ("always double-check their own guidelines", etc.) one thing did really stand out in my mind: the text states that one should underline text in an MS that is meant to be italicized when published.
Now, I know this is almost certainly a relic from typewriting days (anyone remember those? I kinda get nostalgic thinking about the smell of the ink and the hum of an electric typewriter...) as it's not as though your standard typewriter was capable, excuse me, capable of italicizing text.
...except I'm not really certain of this at all. Does this remain as any sort of common standard in the industry? Should electronic submissions of a manuscript have underlined text instead of italicized? Or is this as much a relic as double-spacing between sentences? Are there any widely-accepted rules about the two forms in the industry that I might have missed?
So, I'm about to send out my latest applications to collect more pissoffwriter.docs, and I took some time first to review Vonda MacIntyre's wonderful essay on standard guidelines for doing so. I want my submissions to look neat and professional while an editor or agent takes 2.6 seconds to reject it, after all.
Anyway, while the writer makes it very clear that this format is mostly a classic one for typewriter-based submissions and may not necessarily be up to the modern specs of a party you submit to ("always double-check their own guidelines", etc.) one thing did really stand out in my mind: the text states that one should underline text in an MS that is meant to be italicized when published.
Now, I know this is almost certainly a relic from typewriting days (anyone remember those? I kinda get nostalgic thinking about the smell of the ink and the hum of an electric typewriter...) as it's not as though your standard typewriter was capable, excuse me, capable of italicizing text.
...except I'm not really certain of this at all. Does this remain as any sort of common standard in the industry? Should electronic submissions of a manuscript have underlined text instead of italicized? Or is this as much a relic as double-spacing between sentences? Are there any widely-accepted rules about the two forms in the industry that I might have missed?
