{"id":2063,"date":"2014-03-19T11:29:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T11:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/the-economist-style-guide-10th-edition\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T12:52:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T12:52:33","slug":"the-economist-style-guide-10th-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/the-economist-style-guide-10th-edition","title":{"rendered":"The Economist Style Guide, 10th edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although<em>\u00a0The Economist<\/em>, a British weekly, is not a research journal, its writing is often praised for its clarity and precision. How does the<em>\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0manage this week after week? \u00a0Part of the credit must go to its style guide [1], the 10th edition of which was published a few months ago. Large parts of the guide are also available on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/blogs\/johnson\/2011\/07\/housekeeping-announcement\">newspaper&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Economist Style Guide<\/em>\u00a0devotes more space to the craft of writing &#8211; the choice and arrangement of words &#8211; than most other style guides do. See the opening lines of the book: &#8220;Only on two scores can The Economist hope to outdo its rivals consistently. One is the quality of its analysis; the other is the quality of its writing [&#8230;] The first requirement of The Economist is that it should be readily understandable. Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought.&#8221; The first section of the book is devoted to advice on writing clearly, concisely, and accurately. The second section highlights important differences between American and British conventions relevant to writing (spelling, punctuation, usage, and syntax), whereas the last section is a compilation of miscellaneous information, useful as a ready reference.<\/p>\n<p>The guide&#8217;s insistence on clear writing is seen throughout the book and often takes the form of warnings and terse advice against using fashionable terms, which are often vague. Here are some representative entries. &#8220;<strong>Venues<\/strong>\u00a0 Avoid them. Try<em>\u00a0places<\/em>.&#8221; &#8220;<strong>Viable<\/strong>\u00a0 means\u00a0<em>capable of living<\/em>. Do not apply it to things like railway lines.<em>\u00a0Economically viable means profitable<\/em>.&#8221; &#8220;<strong>Factoid<\/strong>\u00a0 A<em>\u00a0factoid<\/em>\u00a0is something that sounds like a fact, is thought by many to be a fact (perhaps because it is repeated so often), but is not in fact a fact.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you are writing a grant application, an article, or a report &#8211; anything for a broader readership in fact &#8211; you will certainly find<em>\u00a0The Economist Style Guide<\/em>\u00a0a helpful companion.<\/p>\n<p>[1] The Economist Newspaper. 2010.<em>\u00a0The Economist Style Guide: the bestselling guide to English usage<\/em>. 10th edn. London: Profile Books. 264 pp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although\u00a0The Economist, a British weekly, is not a research journal, its writing is often praised for its clarity and precision. How does the\u00a0The Economist\u00a0manage this week after week? \u00a0Part of the credit must go to its style guide [1], the 10th edition of which was published a few months ago. Large parts of the guide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2427],"tags":[514],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-style-format","tag-book-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Economist Style Guide, 10th edition | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Although\u00a0The Economist, a British weekly, is not a research journal, its writing is often praised for its clarity and precision. 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