How to check a novel with PerfectIt 5 and The Chicago Manual of Style

10/8/2021

Do you use PerfectIt to find inconsistencies in a novel? Do you follow The Chicago Manual of Style? Now you can use both from a single platform! I might be in love. Here’s why.

What's in this post

What is PerfectIt?
What is The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)?
What is The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt?
Beta testing on a novel
Why the editor retains control
How to customize The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt
Wow factor 1: CMOS learning at the editor’s fingertips
Wow factor 2: Seamless access
Wow factor 3: Shifting the burden of search
What PerfectIt won't do
How much does The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt cost?
How to unlock access to the CMOS style sheet
My beta test: The verdict
Where to get The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt

What is PerfectIt?

PerfectIt is software developed by Intelligent Editing. It helps editors and authors check a Word document for:

Consistency: eg spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, acronym definitions.
Adherence to style preferences: eg how numbers are rendered, punctuation of lists, capitalization of titles, ize/ise suffixes.

I’ve been using PerfectIt since its first iteration and, for me, it’s a must-have. Not because the human brain isn’t able to handle the checks it carries out but because software can do it faster.

And that means I can spend more of my time (which is what my clients are paying for) helping authors craft a compelling story rather than hunting down important but small details.

In other words, PerfectIt does the heavy-lifting but lets me retain complete control of the changes being made.

What is The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)?

CMOS is a 115-year-old style guide published by The University of Chicago Press. For many editors, even those beyond US shores, it too is a must-have because of its mindful, sensible advice.

CMOS isn’t a rule book. It’s a manual of style preferences. And given that novel editing requires a flexible approach to grammar, spelling and punctuation – one that serves rhythm and voice first and foremost – many editors choose to customize its guidance, ignore some of it, or blend it with another style guide’s preferences.

CMOS’s strength lies in how comprehensive it is, and the fact that the online version is easy to search.

Even though fifty per cent of my clients write in British English, CMOS is still my go-to style guide because lots of its guidance can be universally applied. The rest I tweak to fit my authors’ needs.

What is The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt?

Until recently, these two editing staples were in my editing studio but sitting at different digital tables. But what if CMOS could be integrated into PerfectIt? Afterall, PerfectIt has lots of built-in style sheets – why not CMOS too?

It was a beautiful dream. Now it’s a beautiful reality.

The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt is a brand-new product that comes free with PerfectIt 5, and I’ve been privileged to play with it. As I said, I might be in love.

Beta testing on a novel

I ran The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt on a 65,000-word test document – a copy of a thriller written in British English.

Here’s what else you also need to know about my setup:

The CMOS style sheet sits within PerfectIt 5
I have an existing subscription to CMOS Online and PerfectIt
I work on a PC and my OS is Windows 10, so I run the Windows version of PerfectIt
I use Microsoft 365, which means I’m always working in the latest edition of Microsoft Word
I’m based in the UK but work for clients all over the world and in a variety of Englishes and styles.

Why the editor retains control

I chose to test a document written in British English style in order to illustrate the control editors and writers have over any changes PerfectIt suggests.

Just because we’re checking against the built-in CMOS style sheet, which has its own set of defined preferences, doesn’t mean we have to adhere to all of them.

For example, PerfectIt flagged up ‘amongst’. At the top of the Spelling Variations window you can see why: In American English, “among” is usually preferred to “amongst.”

Actually, that preference is common in British English too. But the instances flagged up here are dialogue, and the character who’s speaking would be more likely to use ‘amongst’. And so I elected to ignore the suggestion and click on the Next button.

Using The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt therefore doesn’t force us to make inappropriate changes to a client’s work. The editor retains stylistic control.

How to customize The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt

I love CMOS’s good-sense guidance, and find much of it helpful for all of the crime fiction, thrillers and mysteries that pass over my desk.

However, half of those books are written in British English style, which means I want to access all the functionality of The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt but tweaked for my own needs.

If spelling is all I’m worried about, a simple workaround is just to turn off PerfectIt’s Spelling Variations check. However, there are other customizations I usually like to do with novels in British English style in addition to spelling.

For me, the ability to customize PerfectIt has always been one of its biggest selling points. That flexibility is fantastic for any editor who regularly uses CMOS’s guidance but just as regularly needs to adapt key aspects of it.

We can’t amend built-in style sheets. What PerfectIt does instead is allow us to create a copy and amend that. Which is why I now have this little gem in the dropdown menu of available style sheets: Chicago Manual of Style LHUK.

This is still CMOS, but CMOS for me and some of my clients! I’ve edited the copied style sheet so that now it has a different set of preferences:

Yze and yse endings: preference set to 'Prefer 's'.
Personal title format: preference set to Mrs, Mx etc.
Hyphens next to spaces: preference set to convert to en dash.
Percent symbol: preference set to open (per cent).
Space around dashes: preference set to en dash with spaces.

I retained the following:

Quotes with punctuation: preference left at 'final before quotation mark' (because in British English fiction dialogue, that’s the convention followed).
Ize and ise endings: preference left at -ize (because -ize suffixes aren’t American English style. They’ve been used in British English for centuries and are favoured by many British publishers).

Wow factor 1: CMOS learning at the editor’s fingertips

With The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt, editors can access the best features of both from one platform, which means we can learn CMOS’s style preferences in tandem with our consistency checking.

Yes, we’re running PerfectIt 5. And, yes, we’re able to set it to work to CMOS’s recommendations. That in itself is a gem.

But the wow factor is the advice that comes with it – that mindful guidance I mentioned above.

In the screenshot below, you can see what The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt has flagged up: ‘long-time’ versus the preferred ‘longtime’. Now look at the comment above. This isn’t prescriptivism in play. Instead, we’re asked to ‘check carefully’ because of what Chicago ‘usually prefers’.

That’s a subtle but important reminder that regardless of whether we’re following CMOS or some other style guide, we’re dealing with preferences, not rules. This concept is foundational to professional editorial practice, and I’m pleased to see it shining through here.

There’s more too. Perhaps we need additional information. Sure, we now know why this issue has been flagged up, but what if we want to verify that, just to be sure?

Perhaps we have to open our print or online dictionary after all. Not so. By clicking on ‘See more from CMOS 7.1 >’, we open another pane.

Within that pane are links not only to more detailed information from CMOS but also to the website of the external source cited, in this case Merriam Webster.com, which allows us to verify and learn if we want to.

Or perhaps we want to explore the issue in more detail via our CMOS Online subscription. It’s right there in a clickable link.

It’s seconds saved, but those seconds add up – fewer keystrokes and zero searching for where the solution to our problem lies. The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt has done the heavy-lifting for us.

Wow factor 2: Seamless access

Editors often want quick access to information that enables us to develop our learning. Impatience and software aren’t always favourite cousins, and clicking through to external resources while a program’s in the middle of doing its thing is usually a no-no.

Would clicking through to CMOS Online or Merriam Webster.com in the middle of a PerfectIt run be too much? Would the software slow down, stall or even crash? Would that instant access to learning be more trouble that it was worth?
I’m delighted to report that the clickthroughs were seamless.

The nub of it is this. CMOS hasn’t been shoehorned in PerfectIt 5. It, and the external links built into it, are fully integrated. So when we want to access external content via those links, we can do so and be assured that the software will remain stable.

That’s a big plus for busy editors who want software that works without clunk

Wow factor 3: Shifting the burden of search

CMOS is comprehensive. Any editor who owns the print version knows just how comprehensive. The online version made finding solutions to problems easier. Integrating some of the core elements of style within PerfectIt 5 has taken things a stage further.

It comes down to who or what bears the burden of search. Ordinarily, the editor does. We spot a style-consistency issue, open up our reference source, check the preference and make a decision.

With this product, the burden shifts. Now The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt is bearing some of the load. It’s spotting potential problems, suggesting the fix, explaining the reasoning behind that suggestion, and taking us to the exact place in one of the world’s premier style guides where deeper learning resides.

That’s a time-saver and a stress-reducer. No editor wants to spend time on searching for anything. Pro editors love to learn but none of us love struggling to find answers. After all, we’re paid to edit, not to search.

And so for those of us working to fixed project fees, time saved means a better hourly rate and a more profitable business.

What PerfectIt 5 won't do

I don’t expect my roofer to comment on the condition of my hair or how well my car’s running. Similarly, we mustn’t expect PerfectIt 5 to check our book files for problems it’s not designed to handle.

CMOS is huge, and there’s a ton of information in it that isn’t related to the kind of checks PerfectIt runs.

PerfectIt is a consistency checker, so if you want guidance on how to cite a reference according to CMOS or any other style guide, you’re still going to have to look it up.

Same thing if you’re wondering whether to place a comma between two independent clauses separated by coordinating conjunctions. CMOS has advice on this, but fiction editors will need to consider context and sentence rhythm too.

How much does it cost?

If you have a subscription to PerfectIt 4 and to CMOS Online, you’ll pay nothing. That’s right. Zero! You’ll automatically be upgraded to PerfectIt 5, which includes the CMOS style guide. Are you falling in love now?

You will have to grab the latest update from the Intelligent Editing website, but that’s always been the case.

So who needs to pay? If you have a subscription to one product but not the other, you’ll need to rectify that if you want to use The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt.

How to unlock access to the CMOS style sheet

Once you’ve downloaded PerfectIt 5, you’ll see that CMOS is available in the dropdown list of styles. However, there’s one more step you’ll need to take before you can use it.

First, link your PerfectIt account to an active CMOS Online subscription. That will give you a new license key that unlocks The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt.

My beta test: The verdict

I love it. So should you buy it? If you already subscribe to PerfectIt and CMOS Online, you don’t need to spend a penny! All you need to do is link both accounts and unlock the features.

If you’re already using CMOS regularly, want to build your knowledge about the guide’s preferences, and check for consistency in line with CMOS within a seamless interface, yes, I recommend you invest in PerfectIt.

PerfectIt and CMOS are both trusted resources. This digital partnership will help all of us edit more confidently and mindfully.

Where to get The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt

Here's what to do:

If all you need to do is link your existing subscriptions to PerfectIt and CMOS, sign in to your PerfectIt account and follow the instructions.
If you want to buy PerfectIt for the first time, head over to the Intelligent Editing website.

And if you’ve bought one of my courses, there’s a discount code waiting for you on the course page.

Then let me know if you fall in love too!

Resources

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader
Connect: Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
Learn: Books and courses
Discover: Resources for authors and editors

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