Reviews for Marriage Guide, or Natural History of Generation

The average rating for Marriage Guide, or Natural History of Generation based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-01 00:00:00 Sue Tootell Only a seriously obsessed copy editor or someone who had been asked to oversee a revision of his newspaper's stylebook (I plead guilty to the latter) would actually read this book. Nevertheless, once you've learned to tolerate the taste of the medicine, you can actually start to enjoy it, or at least some of it. And there always the sorts of tidbits that can enlighten or amuse. Many people may know, for instance, that scuba stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus, or that radar stands for radio detection and ranging, but did you know that quasar is an acronym for quasi-stellar astronomical object? (I guess they just decided to drop that pesky "O") And in the section on titles, there is this note: "Professor: Never abbreviate. Lowercase before a name. Do not continue the second reference unless part of a quotation." In other words, all you professors, AP does not think you are worthy of being capitalized or continually referred to by your title, tenured or not. So there.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-05-08 00:00:00 Daniel Rose For a while there in college, I lived and breathed this book (or an earlier edition, actually). The parts I need the most are now burned into my brain, and I end up consulting it only once or twice a year these days. I actually don't know how you rate a book like the AP Stylebook, and the four stars I give it are for no defensible reason. If you're a reporter for a news organization that adheres to AP style, you either follow the rules and save yourself a lot of anguish, or you become the bane of your editors. Years of revisions have smoothed the book into a relatively user-friendly, easy-to-navigate manual. Beyond that, it is what it is. Don't fight it. You won't win.