If you are using Microsoft Word on a PC, then you can automatically alphabetize your word list by highlighting the entire list, and then clicking the option. See the screen shot below and the button “Sort” circled in red over on the right. After hitting that button, there will be a prompt to set how you want to sort the text. See below. While writing Tao of Craft, my running word list at some point might have looked like this: Bao Puzi Bei Di Ben Ming Nian Bu Dai Celestial Master Zhang Celestial Thunder Magic Divine [n.] dharani Earth earthly branch Fang Shi Fang Shu fenghuang feng shui Five Celestials of Wealth Five Emperors You’ll note above that some keywords are italicized. That means every time that word appears in the manuscript, I should italicize it. Preserving style, capitalization, etc. exactly as it should be every time the word appears in text will make copyediting much easier later on down the road. In my word list for Tao of Craft, I included the Chinese equivalent next to the English. The next to the word is to indicate that the word is capitalized only when used as a noun. “[n.]” “Divine” That is another consideration to include in your word list. In Holistic Tarot, for example, after the keyword I would include notation in brackets to reference the tarot card Key 20, and how “Judgement” is spelled on the card. E.g., Judgement [tarot card]. “Judgement” Your word reference list should definitely use any and all foreign words that appear in your book, and whether these words should appear in regular font or italicized, and note any applicable diacritical (or accent) marks. Other examples include whether to use a hyphen. Will it be or throughout your book? “e-mail” “email” A mistake I made writing Holistic Tarot was not keeping a word list. Having no word list meant that sometimes I kept all lowercase and other times I would absent-mindedly capitalize it as It “tarot” “Tarot.” also meant sometimes, if I forgot the correct spelling of a notable figure’s name, I would end up wasting quite a bit of time hunting through old notes, papers, and a stack of books (or even trying to type in misspellings of the name into online search engines) to find the correct spelling. A word list will save you
If you are using Microsoft Word on a PC, then you can automatically alphabetize your word list by highlighting the entire list, and then clicking the “Sort” option. See the screen shot below and the button circled in red over on the right. After hitting that button, there will be a prompt to set how you want to sort the text. See below. While writing Tao of Craft, my running word list at some point might have looked like this: Bao Puzi Bei Di Ben Ming Nian Bu Dai Celestial Master Zhang Celestial Thunder Magic Divine [n.] dharani Earth earthly branch Fang Shi Fang Shu fenghuang feng shui Five Celestials of Wealth Five Emperors You’ll note above that some keywords are italicized. That means every time that word appears in the manuscript, I should italicize it. Preserving style, capitalization, etc. exactly as it should be every time the word appears in text will make copyediting much easier later on down the road. In my word list for Tao of Craft, I included the Chinese equivalent next to the English. The “[n.]” next to the word “Divine” is to indicate that the word is capitalized only when used as a noun. That is another consideration to include in your word list. In Holistic Tarot, for example, after the keyword “Judgement” I would include notation in brackets to reference the tarot card Key 20, and how “Judgement” is spelled on the card. E.g., Judgement [tarot card]. Your word reference list should definitely use any and all foreign words that appear in your book, and whether these words should appear in regular font or italicized, and note any applicable diacritical (or accent) marks. Other examples include whether to use a hyphen. Will it be “e-mail” or “email” throughout your book? A mistake I made writing Holistic Tarot was not keeping a word list. Having no word list meant that sometimes I kept “tarot” all lowercase and other times I would absent-mindedly capitalize it as “Tarot.” It also meant sometimes, if I forgot the correct spelling of a notable figure’s name, I would end up wasting quite a bit of time hunting through old notes, papers, and a stack of books (or even trying to type in misspellings of the name into online search engines) to find the correct spelling. A word list will save you
module-2-handout-3-word-list.docx