Hi Dick and hundreds of other dear friends,

I should have addressed the note to "Dick et al." I do appreciate your
(Dick's) expertise, of course, but when we write on Conch-L, it is like a
conversation at a large table. Sorry!

Speaking of changing McGinty to MacGinty, remember when American librarians
alphabetized all the names beginning with Mc, Mac, and M' together before
the Ma's, and European librarians were apt to alphabetize such names by
ignoring the "son of" prefix altogether, so one would have to search under G
for McGinty? Some things have improved on both sides of the Atlantic.

As to the U.S. Geological Survey, you aren't the only one to notice this.
The staff is down to perhaps a third of what they were in their glory days.
Their editorial standards used to be very high, but as layoffs got underway
they had to cut corners. First they encouraged authors to bypass much of the
process by publishing unreviewed material as Open-File Reports, some of
which were reproduced inexpensively and others printed professionally
according to how many copies they planned to distribute. Later, the editing
process was streamlined even for the professional series, with the results
that you noted.

I can recommend their style manual, however. The USGS "Suggestions to
Authors", particularly the sixth and earlier editions, is a model of clear
writing with great advice on usage and style, though for mechanical details
a conchologist will probably want to consult the CBE Manual instead. I can
also recommend, and again I speak to Conch-L at large, a classic work by
Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" -- good enough that writers can
read it for pleasure.

Cheers,
Andrew

Andrew K. Rindsberg
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

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