Proofing Guidelines

Version 1.53, released Sep 13, 2003       (Revision History)

Proofing Guidelines in French / Directives de Formatage en Française

The Primary Rule

In doing your proofreading, the primary rule to follow is that the final electronic book seen by a reader, possibly many years in the future, should accurately convey the intent of the author.

So the general rule is "Don't change what the author wrote!". If the author spelled words oddly, leave them spelled that way. If the author wrote outrageous racist or biased statements, leave them that way. If the author seems to put italics or a footnote every third word, leave them italicized or footnoted.

On the other hand, we do change minor printing items that don't affect the sense of what the author wrote.
For example, typesetters in the 1700's & 1800's often inserted a ¾ths space before punctuation such as a semicolon or comma. Our OCR scanners generally read this as a space character. But when proofreading, we remove that space; since it distracts modern readers and removing it doesn't affect the meaning of the author's words. Typesetters of that time also used the "long s" (ƒ) in words, which looks similar to a modern "f". In English, the "long s" and the regular "s" are the same, so we make them all the regular "s".

Summary Guidelines

The Summary of Guidelines is a short, 2-page printer-friendly (.pdf) document that summarizes the main points of these Guidelines, and gives examples of how to proofread. Beginning Proofreaders are encouraged to print out this document and keep it handy while proofing.

About This Document

This document is written in order to reduce formatting differences when proofreading of one book is distributed among many proofreaders, each working on different pages of the book. This helps us all do formatting the same way. That makes it easier for the post-proofreader to eventually combine all these proofed pages into one e-book.
But it's not intended as any kind of a general editorial or typesetting rulebook.

We've included in this document all the items that new users have asked about formatting while proofreading. If there are any items missing, or items that you consider should be done differently, or if something is vague, please let us know.

This document is a work in progress. Help us to progress by sending in your suggested changes.

Project Comments

On the interface page where you start proofing pages, there is a section called "Project Comments" containing info specific to that project (book). Read these before you start proofing pages! If the Project Manager wants you to format something in this book different than the general rules in these Guidelines, that will be noted here. Instructions in the Project Comments overide the rules in these Guidelines, so follow them. (This is also where the Project Manager gives you interesting tidbits of information about the books, like where the source came from, etc.)

Forum/Discuss this Project

On the interface page where you start proofing pages, on the line "Forum", there is a link titled "Discuss this Project". Clicking on that link will take you to a forum for this specific project. That is the place to ask questions about this book, inform the Project Manager about problems, etc. Using this Forum is the recommended way to communicate with the Project Manager and other proofreaders who are working on this book.

Fixing errors on Previous Pages

Each project has a project comments page, which is loaded when you click on a project name from the list of projects available for proofing on your personal page (which is the page that appears when you log in).

This page contains links to pages from this project that you have recently proofed. (If you haven't proofed any pages yet, there will be no links shown.) These links appear under one of two headings, depending on if you have told the system you have completed the proofing on a page or not.

The two headings are "DONE" and "IN PROGRESS". Links to the five most recently proofed pages will show under each heading. Pages linked to from "DONE" are considered complete, and will proceed automatically to the next round when all other pages in the project have also been completed. Pages linked to from "IN PROGRESS" are waiting for you to complete them; they will not proceed automatically to the next round (neither will they hold the book up indefinitely: eventually, if not completed by you, the system will reclaim them, discard your changes, and make them available for someone else to proof).

When you first load a new page to proof, by clicking on the 'Start Proofing' link on the project comments page, a link to the page is created under 'IN PROGRESS'. Each time you press the "Save as 'In Progress'" button, this link is updated to point to the newly saved version of the page. You tell the system you have completed the proofing on a page by pressing either the "Save as 'Done'" or the "Save as 'Done' & Proof Next" buttons. Pressing either of these buttons moves the link to the page from the "IN PROGRESS" section to the "DONE" section. This is the only way you can mark pages as complete and make sure your work will get through to the next round. Until you press one of those two buttons, the page is 'incomplete', even if you press the "Stop Proofing" button.

Pages listed under either "DONE" or "IN PROGRESS" are available to you for to make proofing corrections or to finish proofing. Just click on the link to the page. So if you discover that you made a mistake on a page, or marked something incorrectly, you can click on that page here and re-open it to fix the error. (If it's already gone by, then use the project forum to leave a note for the next round.)

Front/Back Title Page

Leave only the title and author name, and year of publication/copyright. Remove all references to city of publication, publisher, etc. Put the title & author name just as the book has it written, whether all capitals, upper & lower case, etc. Older books often show the first letter as a large & ornate graphic--put this as just the letter. (These pages are left in to simplify uploading of the project and for the folder to have the complete book in it for future reference.)

Sample Image

Correct Text

GREEN FANCY BY GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

Table of Contents

Remove all page numbers from the table of contents, along with any ... or *** used to align the page numbers. Due to converting the book to electronic form, the page numbers will be removed from the entire book. Put the Table of Contents items just as printed in the book, whether all capitals, upper & lower case, etc.

Blank Page

Blank pages may be in the project you are working on due to the original book having a blank page and us trying to cut down on the work needed to find the page, remove it, and renumber the remaining pages. Please put in the text box [Blank Page] if both the text box and the image are blank. If only one of them is blank, follow the directions for a Bad Image or Bad Text.

Page Headers/Page Footers

Remove page headers and page footers (but not footnotes) from the text. The page headers are normally at the top of the image and have a page number opposite them. Page headers may be the same all through the book (often the title of the book and the authors name); they may be the same for each chapter (often the chapter number); or they may be different on each page (describing the action on that page). Remove them all, regardless.
A chapter header will start farther down the page and won't have the page numbers on the same line. Leave chapter headers in--see below.

Sample Image

Correct Text

In the United States? [Footnote: The United States: "Its charter, the constitution. * * * Its flag the symbol of its power; its seal, of its authority."--Dole.] In a railroad? In a mining company? In a bank? In a church? In a college? Write a list of all the corporations that you know or have ever heard of, grouping them under the heads <i>public</i> and <i>private</i>. How could a pastor collect his salary if the church should refuse to pay it? Could a bank buy a piece of ground "on speculation?" To build its banking-house on? Could a county lend money if it had a surplus? State the general powers of a corporation. Some of the special powers of a bank. Of a city. A portion of a man's farm is taken for a highway, and he is paid damages; to whom does said land belong? The road intersects the farm, and crossing the road is a brook containing trout, which have been put there and cared for by the farmer; may a boy sit on the public bridge and catch trout from that brook? If the road should be abandoned or lifted, to whom would the use of the land go?        *        *        *        *        * CHAPTER XXXV. COMMERCIAL PAPER. <b>Kinds and Uses</b>.--If a man wishes to buy some commodity from another but has not the money to pay for it, he may secure what he wants by giving his written promise to pay at some future time. This written promise, or <i>note</i>, the seller prefers to an oral promise for several reasons, only two of which need be mentioned here: first, because it is <i>prima facie</i> evidence of the debt; and, second, because it may be more easily transferred or handed over to some one else. If J. M. Johnson, of Saint Paul, owes C. M. Jones, of Chicago, a hundred dollars, and Nelson Blake, of Chicago, owes J. M. Johnson a hundred dollars, it is plain that the risk, expense, time and trouble of sending the money to and from Chicago may be avoided,

Chapter Headers

Leave chapter headers in the text. A chapter header will start a bit farther down the page than the page header and won't have the page numbers on the same line. Chapter Headers are often printed all caps, if so, keep them as all caps. Include 4 blank lines before the "CHAPTER XXX", and 2 blank lines after, between it and the chapter description. Include the blank lines even if the chapter starts on a new page; there are no 'pages' in an e-book, so the blank lines are needed.
     Old books often printed the first word of every chapter in all caps, sometimes even the first word of every paragraph; change these to a normal word (first letter only capitalized).
     Watch out for a missing double quote at the start of the first paragraph, which some publishers did not include or which the OCR missed due to a large capital in the original. If the author started the paragraph with dialog, insert the double quote, even if the publisher left it out or used a large capital instead.

Sample Image

Correct Text

GREEN FANCY CHAPTER I THE FIRST WAYFARER AND THE SECOND WAYFARER MEET AND PART ON THE HIGHWAY A solitary figure trudged along the narrow road that wound its serpentinous way through the dismal, forbidding depths of the forest: a man who, though weary and footsore, lagged not in his swift, resolute advance. Night was coming on, and with it the no uncertain prospects of storm. Through the foliage that overhung the wretched road, his ever-lifting and apprehensive eye caught sight of the thunder-black, low-lying clouds that swept over the mountain and bore down upon the green, whistling tops of the trees. At a cross-road below he had encountered a small girl driving homeward the cows. She was afraid of the big, strange man with the bundle on his back and the stout walking stick in his hand: to her a remarkable creature who wore "knee pants" and stockings like a boy on Sunday, and hob-nail shoes, and a funny coat with "pleats" and a belt, and a green hat with a feather sticking up from the band.

Paragraph Side-Descriptions (SideNotes)

Some books will have short descriptions of the paragraph along the side of the text. Move these "Sidenotes" to just above the paragraph that they belong to, surrounded with [Sidenote: the-description-text]. If the paragraph began on a previous page, put the Sidenote at the top of the page and mark it with * so that the post-proofreader can see that it belongs on the previous page. Like this: *[Sidenote: the-description-text]. If there are multiple sidenotes for a single paragraph, put them one after another at the start of the paragraph, each on their own line.

Sample Image

Correct Text

[Sidenote: The comparative size of the image depends on the amount of light (30--39).] The eye will hold and retain in itself the image of a luminous body better than that of a shaded object. The reason is that the eye is in itself perfectly dark and since two things that are alike cannot be distinguished, therefore the night, and other dark objects cannot be seen or recognised by the eye. Light is total contrary and gives more distinctness, and counteracts and differs from the usual darkness of the eye, hence it leaves the impression of its image.

Paragraph Spacing/Indenting

Do not indent the start of paragraphs; instead put a blank line between paragraphs. See the Chapter Headers image/text for an example. (But if all paragraphs are already indented, don't bother removing those spaces--that can be done automatically in post-proofing.)

Multiple Columns

Break up multiple-column text into a single column. Place the left-most column first and then the next one after it, and so on. You don't need to do anything to mark where the columns were split, just run them all together.

Illustrations

Text for an illustration should be surrounded by [Illustration: the-text-caption]. If there is no text caption, just place [Illustration] there. If it is in the middle of a paragraph or on the side of a paragraph, move the [Illustration: the-text] to either above or below the paragraph, based on where you can put it without it being in the middle of a paragraph. If the text caption is printed on multiple lines, put it that way in your proofed text.

Sample Image

Correct Text

[Illustration: Martha told him that he had always been her ideal and that she worshipped him. <i>Frontispiece Her Weight in Gold</i>]

Footnotes/Endnotes

Footnotes are now normally done out-of-line; that is, the text of the footnote is left at the bottom of the page and a tag placed where it is referenced in the text. But in some books, the Project Manager may ask that you leave the the footnotes in-line; that is, the text of the footnote is moved from the bottom of the page to the place on the page where it is referenced in the text. Do it that way when the Project Comments ask you to.

Out-of-Line Footnotes: For these, Surround the footnote number, *, or other character that marks a footnote location with brackets ([ and ]). Don't leave any space before the [--keep it right next to the word being footnoted. Then at the bottom of the page, where the text for that footnote it, surround it with [Footnote _: ], keeping the footnote number or marker where the underline is.

In-Line Footnotes: Replace the footnote number, *, dagger († or ‡), etc. that marks a footnote location with the actual text of the footnote, surrounded by [Footnote: ]. That is, footnotes should be be moved from the bottom of the page to the place on the page where they are referenced in the text. Many proofreaders start the [Footnote: on a new line, and also start the text following the ] on a new line, because this makes it easier for the Second Round Proofer. (See below for an example.)

If a footnote was a continuation of a footnote from a previous page, move it to the top of the page and surround it with [*Footnote: ]. (The * indicates that the footnote was continued, and brings it to the attention of the post-processor.

If a footnote continues on the next page (the page ends before the footnote does), move the footnote text to where it is referenced on the page, surrounded by [Footnote: *]. (The * indicates that the footnote ended, and brings it to the attention of the post-processor.

If a footnote or endnote is referenced in the text but does not appear on that page, keep the footnote/endnote number or marker and surround it with with brackets ([ and ]) and put a * next to it so the post-proofer can find it. (This is common in scientific & technical books, where footnotes are often grouped at the end of chapters.)

Original Text:
The principal persons involved in this argument were Caesar1, former military leader and Imperator, and the orator Cicero2. Both were of the aristocratic (Patrician) class, and were quite wealthy. 1 Gaius Julius Caesar. 2 Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Proofed with Out-of-Line Footnotes:
The principal persons involved in this argument were Caesar[1], former military leader and Imperator, and the orator Cicero[2]. Both were of the aristocratic (Patrician) class, and were quite wealthy. [Footnote 1: Gaius Julius Caesar] [Footnote 2: Marcus Tullius Cicero]
Proofed with In-Line Footnotes:
The principal persons involved in this argument were Caesar [Footnote: Gaius Julius Caesar], former military leader and Imperator, and the orator Cicero [Footnote: Marcus Tullius Cicero]. Both were of the aristocratic (Patrician) class, and were quite wealthy.

Endnotes are just footnotes that have been located together at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book, instead of on the bottom of each page. If you are proofing a page with endnotes on it, surround the text of the note with [Footnote _: ], keeping the footnote number or marker where the underline is. Put a blank line after each one, so that they stay separate paragraphs when the text is reflowed in post-processing.

Footnotes in Poetry or Tables should be put on a separate line at the end of a stanza, or at the end of the poem (just after the closing */), so as not to interrupt the flow of the Author's poetry. The same applies to Footnotes in Tables; put them at the bottom of the table so as not to mess up the table format.

/*
Mary had a little lamb[1]
  Whose fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went
  The lamb was sure to go!
*/

Italics

Text that is italicized should have <i> inserted at the start and </i> inserted at the end of the italics. (Note the "/" in the closing symbol.) If the italics start at the top of a page, place a * in front of the <i> so that the post-proofreader can see if there was more on the previous page. If the italics go to the bottom of a page, place a * after the </i> so that the post-proofreader can see if there is more on the next page.
(Note: either lower-case <i> or upper-case <I> is OK, whichever you prefer.)

Punctuation goes OUTSIDE the italics, unless it is an entire sentence or section that is being italicized. That is not a big deal, but is an answer for those curious.
See the Illustration image for an example of how to do the italics.

Many fonts, especially older ones, used the same design for numbers in both regular and italics. So for dates & similar phrases, just mark the whole phrase as italics, rather than marking the words as italics and the numbers as non-italics. For example:

Bold Text

Bold text (text printed in a heavier typeface) should be marked with <b> inserted before the bold text and </b>after it. See the Page Headers/Footers image/text for an example.
(Note: either lower-case <b> or upper-case <B> is OK, whichever you prefer.)

Previously, we used to change bold text into all capitals. We no longer do it that way, unless the Project Manager specifies that method in the Project Comments.

Superscripts

Older books often abbreviated words as contractions, and printed them as superscripts, for example:
        Gen^rl Washington defeated L^d Cornwall's army.
Unless the Project Comments specify something else, insert a single quote (apostrophe) to identify this as an abbreviation/contraction, like this:
        Gen'rl Washington defeated L'd Cornwall's army.
Only change to the full word if the Project Comments specificly say to do so, like this:
        General Washington defeated Lord Cornwall's army.

Underlined Text

Mark as Italics, with <i> and </i>, unless the Project Comments specify something else for this book. Underlining was used to indicate italics when the typesetter was unable to actually italicize the text, for example in a typewritten document.

Font size changes

Don't do anything to mark changes in font size. When the book is converted to electronic form, it will all be plain ASCII text in the same font. The exception to this is when the font size changes to indicate a section of poetry or block quotations; then mark the text as specified for those (/* at the start and */ at the end.

Word in all Caps or Small Caps

If a word or words in the text are printed in all capital letters (including small caps), leave it that way in your proofed copy. The exception to this is the first word of a chapter or paragraph: many old books put the first word of these in all caps; this should be changed to a normal word (first letter capitalized, the rest lower case).

Large, Ornate opening Capital letter (Drop Cap)

Often the opening letter in a chapter, section, or paragraph is printed as a large & ornate graphic of the letter--proof this as just the letter.

End-of-line Hyphenation

Unless it really is a hyphenated word like well-meaning, remove the end-of-line hyphenation, and join the two halves of a previously hyphenated word back together. Keep the joined word on the top line, and put a line break after it to preserve the line formatting -- this makes it easier for the 2nd Round Proofreader. See the Chapter Headers image for examples of each kind (nar-row turns into narrow, but low-lying keeps the hyphen).

Words like to-day and to-morrow that we don't commonly hyphenate now were often hyphenated in the old books we are working on. Leave them hyphenated the way the author did. If you're not sure if the author hyphenated it or not, leave the hyphen, put an * after it, and join the word together. Like this: to-*day. The asterisk will bring it to the attention of the post processor, who has access to all the pages, and can determine how the author typically wrote this word.

End-of-page Hyphenation

Leave the hyphen at the end of the last line, but mark it with a * after the hyphen so the post-proofer will notice it. On pages that start with part of a word from the previous page, place a * before the word.

Dashes, Hyphens, and Minus Signs

There are generally four such marks you will see in books:

1. Hyphens. These are used to join words together, or sometimes to join prefixes or suffixes to a word.
   Leave these as a single hyphen, with no spaces on either side.
2. En-dashes. These are just a little longer, and are used for a range of numbers, or for a mathematical minus sign.
   Proof these too as a single hyphen. Spaces before or after is determined by the way it was done in the book; usually no spaces in number ranges, usually spaces around mathematical minus signs, sometimes both sides, sometimes just before.
3. Em-dashes & long dashes. These serve as separators between words--sometimes for emphasis like this--or when a speaker gets a word caught in his throat--!
   Proof these as two hyphens. Don't leave a space before or after, even if it looks like there was a space in the original book image.
4. Still longer dashes. These represent omitted or censored words or names.
   Proof these as 4 hyphens (6 for a really long dash). When it represents a word, we leave appropriate space around it like it's really a word. If it's only part of a word, then no spaces -- join it with the rest of the word.

Note: If a dash appears at the start or end of a line of your OCR'd text, join it with the other line so that there are no spaces or line breaks around it. Only if the author used a dash to start or end the paragraph or line of poetry or dialog should you leave it at the start or end of a line.

Some examples:

Abbreviations

Remove all spaces in abbreviations, even if it appears that the typesetter included spaces (or partial spaces) in the printed version. For example, proof as H.M.S. Pinafore, not as H. M. S. Pinafore. Also proof as G.B. Shaw, not as G. B. Shaw. (This avoids the problem of having the abbreviation being broken across lines when text is rewrapped on some e-book screens, which would be much less readable.)

Contractions

Remove any extra space in contractions, for example: would n't should be wouldn't. (This was an early printers convention, where they retained the space to indicate that 'would' and 'not' were originally separate words. If you see the extra space next to the apostrophe, (wouldn 't) that is probably an OCR scanning issue. Remove the extra space in either case.)

Poetry/Epigrams

Mark poetry or epigrams so the post-processor can find the poetry quicker. Insert a separate line with /* at the start of the poetry or epigram and a separate line with */ at the end.

Don't bother trying to center lines of poetry, even if it was centered on the printed page; that won't work for an e-book viewed with many different screen sizes. Just put it all at the left margin. (If there is some other indenting that you think is needed to reflect the author's meaning, then try to duplicate the format of the original.) But for most poetry, the meaning is in the words and line breaks; indenting format is not critical.

Sometimes a line of poetry doesn't fit on the printed page, and part of it is split onto the next line (usually indented quite a bit, and usually starts with a lower-case letter). Rejoin these words back onto the end of previous line. (Since our final e-book does not have 'pages', we don't have to worry about a line being too long for the 'page'.)

Footnotes in poetry should go at the end of the poem or stanza. See footnotes for details.

Sample Image

Correct Text

/* Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises; Long as there's a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets They will have a place in story; But for flowers my bowls to fill, Give me just the daffodil. */ As Wordsworth ought to have said.

Letter Indentation

Leave letters unindented, like you would for paragraphs. Instead of indenting put a blank line before the start of the letter.

Lists of Items

Mark these similar to poetry; insert a line with /* before the list, and insert a line with */ after the list. This marking tells the post processor that this section of text should be kept as seperate lines, and not re-flowed into paragraphs. Mark it this way for any such list that should not be reformatted, including lists of questions & answers, items in a recipe, etc. (But often in a cookbook made up mostly of recipes the Project Manager will say not to bother marking each list of ingredients.)

Tables

Mark tables so the post-processor can find them by surrounding them with /* and */, like poetry above. Format the table with spaces to look approximately like the original table. Don't make the table wider than 70 characters.
It's often hard to format tables in plain ASCII text; just do your best.

Footnotes in tables should go at the end of the table. See footnotes for details.

Block Quotations

These are long quotations (typically several lines) included in the text. They are often printed narrower (wider margins) and in a smaller font size. Mark block quotations so the post-processor can find them by surrounding them with /* and */, like poetry above.

Double Quotes

Single spacing around quote marks and punctuation is the correct formatting for the text. Please try to just use the plain " double quote, since the directional double quotes “ and ” will have to be replaced to make it ASCII compliant.

For quotes from non-English languages, use the quotation marks that are appropriate to that language. For example, in German mark quotations „like this”; and in French mark them with guillemets « like this  ». (As always, the Project Manager might instruct you to do these differently for a particular book).

Also, do not change single quotes to double quotes. Leave them as the Author wrote them. See the Chapter Headers image and text for an example.

Single Quotes

Single quotes are used for a variety of purposes. They sometimes are used throughout where current usage would be double quotes--they should be left as printed. They are also used for slang words or shortened versions (contractions). Try to put them the way the image shows them. Last of all, please try to just use the plain ASCII ' single quote (apostrophe) to make it easier for everyone.

Quote Marks on each line

Old books sometimes put quote marks at the beginning of each line of a quotation; remove them except for the first line. But if the quotation goes on for multiple paragraphs, each paragraph should have an opening quote mark on the first line of the paragraph. Often there is no closing quote mark until the very end of the quotation, after the last paragraph; if so, leave it that way. Sometimes that last paragraph of the quotation is on the next page, so you will not see any closing quote mark at all. If so, leave it that way -- don't add closing quote marks that aren't on the page image. (Note that this means that the proofed text for multi-paragraph quotes will have more opening quotes than ending quotes. That's fine, our post-proofing software expects this.)

Periods Between Sentences

Single space after periods (not two spaces). But don't bother to remove double spaces after periods if they're already in the scanned text -- we can do that automatically in post-processing. See the Chapter Headers image and text for an example.

Punctuation characters

In general, there is no space before punctuation characters (except the opening quote). Books typeset in the 1700's & 1800's often had a partial space inserted before punctuation such as a semicolon or comma. If scanned text has a space before punctuation, remove it.

Line Breaks

Leave all line breaks in so that the next proofreader can compare the text easily. Especially watch this when fixing hyphenated words. Extra blank lines that are not in the image should be removed. But a blank line at the top or bottom of the page is OK--these are removed automatically in post-processing. (Exceptions: the way we mark text for Footnotes, and for Poetry/Epigrams will sometimes cause extra line breaks.) See the Chapter Headers image and text for an example.

Extra spaces or tabs between Words

Extra spaces between words are a common OCR error. You don't need to bother removing those spaces--that can be done automatically in post-proofing. Same with tab characters instead of spaces--those too can be fixed automatically. But extra spaces around punctuation, em-dashes, quote marks, etc. do need to be removed when they seperate the symbol from the word. For example, in A horse ;   my kingdom for a horse. the space between "horse" and the semicolon needs to be removed. But the 2 spaces after the semicolon are OK--you needn't bother deleting one of them.

Line Numbers

These are numbers in the margin for each line -- common in some poetry books. Since the text of poetry will not be reformatted in the e-book version, line numbers should be kept. In ordinary text, that will be reformatted, they should be removed.

Extra Spacing/Stars/Line Between Paragraphs

Some pages will have extra spacing between paragraphs due to "thought breaks", change in scene, or a bit of suspense. These are intended by the author, so we preserve them by putting a blank line, 5 *'s indented 7 spaces and then 7 spaces apart, like so:

end of the line of text.

       *        *        *        *        *

Text starts up again.
(The enhanced proofing interface has this separator available to cut & paste.)
See the Page Headers/Footers image/text for an example.

Period Pause "..." (Ellipsis)

Leave a space before the three dots, and a space after. The exception is at the end of a sentence, when there would be no space, four dots, and a space after. This is also the case for any other ending punctuation mark: the 3 dots follow immediately, without any space. For example:
     That I know ... is true.
     This is the end....
     Wherefore art thou Romeo?...

Accented/Non-ASCII Characters

Try to put in the proper accented or Non-ASCII characters.
But there is a problem with using accented characters -- they are upper ASCII, or characters above code 127. This can cause display problems for any computer not using the Western European character set (MS Windows codepage 1252 / ISO 8859-1 or -15). Furthermore, Apple never accepted ISO 8859 and some characters don't match up (a good example is the curly open quote (0147), which Apple maps to an accented capital O). Use with caution.

For Windows, there are several ways to get these characters:

• you can use the character map program (Start: Run: charmap) to select an individual letter, and then cut & paste.
• if using the enhanced proofing interface, the more tag creates a pop-up window containing these characters, which you can then cut & paste.
• or you can type the Alt+NumberPad shortcut codes for these characters.
  (They're a lot faster than using cut & paste, once you get used to the codes.)
  You hold the Alt key and type the four digits on the Number Pad -- the number row over the letters won't work.
  And you must type all 4 digits, including the leading 0. Note that the capital version of a letter is 32 less than the lower case.
  (This is for the US-English keyboard layout. It may not work for other keyboards.)
  The table below shows the codes we use. (Print-friendly version of this table)
  Don't use other special characters unless the Project Manager tells you to in the Project Comments.

For Apple Macs, there are also several ways to get these characters:

• you can use the Apple Key Caps program as a reference. (In OS 9 & earlier, it's located in the Apple Menu; in OS X, it's located in Applications, Utilities folder.) This brings up a picture of the keyboard, and pressing shift, opt, command, or combinations of those keys shows how to produce each character. Use this reference to see how to type that character, or you can cut & paste it from here to the document.
• if using the enhanced proofing interface, the more tag creates a pop-up window containing these characters, which you can then cut & paste.
• or you can type the Apple Opt- shortcut codes for these characters.
  (They're a lot faster than using cut & paste, once you get used to the codes.)
  You hold the Opt key and type the accent symbol, then type the letter to be accented (or, for some codes, only hold the Opt key and type the symbol).
  (This is for the US-English keyboard layout. It may not work for other keyboards.)
  The table below shows the codes we use. (Print-friendly version of this table)
  Don't use other special characters unless the Project Manager tells you to in the Project Comments.

Non-English Characters

For text printed in non-english characters; that is, characters other than the Latin A...Z characters, for example Greek, Cyrillic (used in Russian & other Slavic languages), Hebrew, or Arabic characters, there are two ways to deal with these.

The simplest way is just to mark it, and leave it for the post-proofer to deal with. To do this, just surround the text with [Greek: **], [Cyrillic: **], [Hebrew: **], or [Arabic: **] and leave it as scanned. Include the ** so the post-proofer can deal with it later.

The second method is more work, but provides a more accurate text. This involves converting each character of the foreign text into the equivalent ASCII Latin letter(s). The result should still be enclosed in [Greek: ] etc. tags. For example, Βιβλος would become [Greek: Biblos]. ("Book"--so appropriate for DP!)

Tip: Greek occurs so frequently there is a clickable tool in the interface to help you do the transliteration. Press the "Greek" button near the bottom of the screen to make it pop-up, then you can click on the Greek characters to have their standard transliterations automatically appear in the text box, ready to be transferred (manually by you, using cut-n-paste) back to the page you are proofing when you have finished the transliteration.

• Greek: Greek to ASCII Primer (from Project Gutenberg) Or see the "Greek" pop-up tool in the proofing interface.
• Cyrillic: Transliteration Table
• Hebrew: Not recommended unless you are fluent in Hebrew. There are significant difficulties in Hebrew-to-ASCII transliteration (right-to-left reading order, vowels typically omitted in writing, different pronunciation schemes by region, etc.) and neither Distributed Proofreaders nor Project Gutenberg has yet chosen a standard method. Join the Forum discussion on this if you are interested.
• Arabic: Not recommended unless you are fluent in Arabic. Like Hebrew, there are significant difficulties in Arabic-to-ASCII transliteration and neither Distributed Proofreaders nor Project Gutenberg has yet chosen a standard method.

Fractions

For fractions, convert them like this: 2½ becomes 2-1/2.

Page References

Some non-fiction works will reference themselves by giving a page number to go to, for example: (see p. 123). Please leave these references as they are within the text (even though we remove page numbers from the Table of Contents & Index pages). Do not mark these with a * either, unless the Project Manager specifies this in the Project Comments.

Indexes

Remove all page numbers from index pages, along with any ... or *** used to align the page numbers. You can leave any trailing commas or semicolons. (When the book is converted to electronic form, there will no longer be any 'pages' in the book, so page numbers are not useful. Some Project Managers prefer to remove the index pages entirely because of this -- if so, they will tell you this in the Project Comments. Other PM's leave index pages, as they are an indication of what the author thought important enough to list. Include index pages unless told otherwise.)

Indexes are often printed in 2 columns; this narrower space can cause entries to split onto the next line. Rejoin these back onto a single line. See example below:

For sub-topic listings in an index, start each one on a new line, indented 2 spaces. For example:
  Hooker, Jos., maj. gen. U. S. V.,
    assigned to command Porter's corps;
    afterwards, McDowell's;
    in pursuit of Lee;
    at South Mt.;
    unacceptable to Halleck, retires from active service.
  Hopkins, Henry H.,
    notorious secessionist in Kanawha valley;
    controversy with Gen. Cox over escaped slave.
  Hosea, Lewis M.,
    capt. on Gen. Wilson's staff,

Old books sometimes printed the first word of each letter in the index in all caps; change this to a normal word (first letter only capitalized).

Trailing Space at End-of-line

Don't bother putting spaces at the ends of lines of text. Waste of your time for something that we can take care of automatically later. Similarly don't waste time taking out extra spaces at the ends of lines.

Play Actor Names/Stage Notes

Mark all actor names in italics if they are Italics in the original text, mark them as bold if they are bold in the original text. And Stage Notes too: format them like they are in the original text.

Anything else that needs special handling or that you're unsure of

If you run into something that isn't covered in these guidelines that you think needs special handling, or you run into something that you're not sure of, put an asterisk (*) next to it in your proofed text. This signals the next proofer to stop and examine this text & the matching image, and deal with it. (This does slow down the proofing of this text, so don't do this unneccessarily.)

You can also put a [**Note: I'm not sure...] there explaining the problem. Notes are quite helpful -- they save the next proofer time by explaining what the question is. Put square brackets [ and ] around your note so that is clearly seperated from the Author's text. And mark it with 2 asterisks ** for the next proofer.

Specific Guidelines for Special Books

These special types of books have specific guidelines for them, that add to or modify the normal guidelines given in this document. These books are often somewhat difficult, and are not recommended except to experienced proofreaders (over 100 pages) or people who are experts in the particular field.

Click on the link below when you need to see the guidelines for one of these special types of books.

• Copyright Renewal Books
• Encyclopedias
• Poetry Books
• Mathemetics Books [to be completed.]
• Chemistry Books [to be completed.]

Common Problems

1-l-I OCR Problems

OCR scanners commonly have trouble distinguishing between the digit one (1), the lowercase letter l, and the uppercase letter I. This is especially true for some of our older books where the pages may be in poor condition. Watch out for these. Read the context of the sentence to determine which is the correct character, but be careful--often your mind will automatically 'correct' these when you are reading.

Other OCR Problems

OCR scanners often have trouble with dashes & hyphens, so watch for these. The rule is to use one hyphen (minus sign) for a hyphenated-word; use 2 hyphens for a longer dash (Em-dash). And no spaces around either one. OCR'd text often has only one hyphen for a dash that should have 2.

          [...more to be added...]

Handwritten Notes in Book

Do not include handwritten notes in a book, unless it is impossible to read the text that the handwritten note is replacing.

Bad Images

If an image is bad (not loading, chopped off, unable to be read), please put a post about this bad image in the project comments forum. Do not click on "Return Page to Round"; if you do, the page will be reissued to the next proofer. Instead, click on the "Report Bad Page" button so this page is 'quarantined'.

Note that some page images are quite big, and it's fairly common for your browser to have difficulty displaying them, especially if you have several windows open or are using an older computer. Before reporting this as a bad page, try clicking on the "Image" line on the bottom of the page to bring up just the image in a new window. If that brings up a good image, then the problem is probably in your browser of system.

It's fairly common for the image to be good, but the OCR scan is missing the first line or two of the text. Please just type in the missing line(s). If nearly all of the lines are missing in the scan, then either type in the whole page (if you are willing to do that), or just click on the "Return Page to Round" button and the page will be reissued to someone else. If there are several pages like this, you might post a note in the project comments forum to notify the Project Manager.

Wrong Image for Text

If there is a wrong image for the text given, please put a post about this bad image in the project comments forum. Do not click on "Return Page to Round"; if you do, the page will be reissued to the next proofer. Instead, click on the "Report Bad Page" button so this page is 'quarantined'.

Previous Proofreader Mistakes

If the previous proofreader made a lot of mistakes or missed a lot of things, you can send them a message by clicking on their name. That will allow you to send them a private forum message. Please be nice! These are people volunteering their help, usually trying their best. The point of the message should be to inform them of the correct way to do proofing, rather than criticize them as incompetent, careless, etc.
(If the previous proofreader did an outstanding job, you can also send them a message about that.)

Printer Errors/Misspellings

Due to printer errors, there can be some misspellings. If you believe these to be true printer errors, then you should fix them. Some may be due to differences in spelling of words from a long time ago. Do not try to correct those to modern English.

Whenever you make a change like this, include a note describing what you changed: [*Transcriber's note: typo fixed, changed from "3/8 = .378" to "3/8 = .375"] Include an * so the post proofer will notice it.

Factual Errors in Texts

In general, don't correct factual errors in the author's book. Many of the books we are proofing have statements of fact in them that we no longer accept as accurate. Leave them as the author wrote them.

A possible exception is in technical or scientific books, where a known formula or equation may be given incorrectly. (Especially if it is shown correctly on other pages of the book.) Notify the Project Manager about these, either by sending them a message via the Forum, or by inserting [sic* explain-your-concern] at that point in the text.

Whenever you make a change like this, include a note describing what you changed: [*Transcriber's note: typo fixed, changed from "3/8 = .378" to "3/8 = .375"] Include an * so the post proofer will notice it.

Uncertain Items

          [...to be completed...]